by Finbar Minstrel

The search engine optimization industry has to be on its proverbial toes literally 24/7. This is because the search engines algorithms are constantly being changed and updated in order to give their searchers the best results they can.

For our part, we the SEO’s are continuing to prepare our websites so that they get in the way of existing search traffic. There always have been two opposite views of this; firstly that we are unfairly manipulating the results, and secondly that we are fairly manipulating the results.

The truth of the matter is this; without SEO’s to amend websites so that the SEs (Search Engines) know how to rank them, the quality of the listings would be far worse. We are a necessity for the SE’s as we ensure that the cream rises to the top. 98% of web designers do not know how to get a website to rank within a search engine, they miss out on all of the key indicators within a site and so some well built, beautiful, expensive websites are destined to live in Pay Per Click land or in obscurity.

We have no-end of clients that have been sold beautiful and expensive sites and told it will solve all their problems, when in fact it doesn’t really do anything of the sort because no one can find it. We are constantly speaking to clients who wish that they hadn’t spent so much on the design of their website so that they could spend the money on optimisation.

A site that no one can find is of no use to anyone. Even in these times of uncertainty as profits are disappearing, the forward-thinking, business minded site owners will be looking to increase their market share, either by introducing new keywords to their SEO work, or starting up an SEO campaign. Shoppers are still shopping, only they’re a bit more wary of spending in these times and their numbers are fewer, but what websites owners and business directors alike should all be asking themselves the same question ” will you think forward, will you be proactive and succeed in taking a decent share of the market, or will you join the failure statistics of this recession?

The more traditional retail methods are suffering and online sales went up by 25% from Christmas 2007 to Christmas 2008. The companies that are making money are those that are embracing the new technologies and moving forward with everything around them. Others that found their form a few years back and will stick to it come hell or high water will be the ones that fail in this technological era if they don’t develop their services to fulfil the needs of the modern day customer.

It is unfortunate but in years to come, high streets and retail parks will not exist. More and more shops are being used as fitting rooms for an online buy later on. Its like were shooting ourselves in the foot really because when the shops are gone, all we will have is the Internet to make our purchases on, which will take the experience out of shopping entirely.

SEO will be driven by retailers needing to save money and increase footfall to both their bricks and clicks shops. It will be an interesting year in which I think we will see some more household names join, Woolworths, MFI, etc on the scrapheap. The big question is……. will you do enough to protect your market share in 2009?

About the Author:
For a class leading, friendly and professional search engine optimization service, visit deeho.co.uk. Also you can take a look at our free seo tools page for a range of search engine optimisation tools that you can use yourself.

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Filed under: e commerce

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