Just Because You Build it, it Doesn't Mean They'll Come

Contrary to popular opinion, just because you build a website-no matter how spectacular it is-people won't start flocking there in droves. I can't believe the number of people who come to me and tell me their site is informative and colorful and yet they garner no traffic. A large number of them have even paid a website designer to create them a "masterpiece" so-to-speak, but they just aren't able to drive traffic to their site and they most certainly don't rank impressively in the search engines.I know that when I first started our business, I had no idea you could coax a search engine-or bribe one! But you can and it doesn't mean paying one of those companies that promise to get you to the top of Google. That may work for a short term (in rare cases when it is a legitimate company), but it won't serve you long term and help continue your successful presence on that enormous world wide web.A friend of mine has taught me a great deal about what will and will not secure rankings for a site. In those lessons, I realized that most people just don't get it. And that is a tough thing to find out the hard way and may just determine whether a business makes it or not. This friend of mine has been in the business for years and is what you would call an SEO Guru. She makes a great living by actually "teaching" people how to get where they want to be and stay there.She taught me, "Getting to the top of Google is one thing, staying there is another. Your position is affected by AUTHORITATIVE, VALID, RELEVANT, and CURRENT content. If a company promises to get you to the top of Google, but you don't contribute regularly to your site and social-media presence in a manner to sustain it, you will go to the bottom of the search-results list -and I do mean bottom. Then you pay them again. It's a vicious cycle. There is no reason to pay someone. Simply follow sensible rules and you will maintain and improve your positioning."First and foremost, blog sites can rank high quickly in search engines. It is a known fact. And most people don't realize that they are hurting themselves from the get-go by not having a blog site. They also misunderstand that a blog site doesn't just have to be a blog. It can contain and all content you wish to put on it-multi-media, text, images, contact forms, etc. But there should be a link that features blog postings as well and that content should be updated regularly.In setting up your site, it is definitely important to express yourself and your company through it's design. But no matter how much you pay a designer, just having a great looking site isn't going to tell people that the site is out there and it most certainly isn't going to provide them a road map to find that spectacular site. So before you fall for the "when I build it, they will come" theory, make sure you clearly understand what it takes to actually direct those people and they will come.