Your customers will only find your site by:

1. Typing your web address into their browser’s address bar
2. Clicking on a link to your website from another user’s site
3. Searching for information on their favorite search engine

Being intentional means that you are considering each of these options when designing, developing, and administering your site. You can choose to do this yourself or hire an expert, either way it is critical in developing a feature rich website.

The first two options require you to consider your entire marketing plan. From the brochures you hand out, to your interaction with other websites, your customers will only find you if you consider how they will look at your marketing.

On the other hand, search engines are a great way to drive exposure. The searcher is already interested in the product you have to offer, they just don’t know you exist yet. And the best part – you don’t have to do anything different when Google decides they want to index your site. Your content is already there for the search engines.

Being intentional when optimizing your website for the search engines means you need to make sure your site is easy for them to understand. If they can’t understand your site, they aren’t going to know when to deliver it as a search result. So how do you make sure your site is compatible with the Google’s of the world? You search engine optimize.

So what is this search engine optimization that I speak of? Quite simply, it’s nothing more than learning a different language. Since Google is only a computer and can’t understand common English per se, your site must include specific information that Google can use in its page ranking algorithm.

While most search engines, Google included, will not divulge their search algorithms, there are some things that we have noticed over time. And when enough people notice the same thing, we begin to develop a set of rules for speaking Google’s language. With this information, we can make strategic decisions about your website’s search engine optimization.

SEO can be very simple to implement, especially if you are conscious of it when you are developing new content. Since search engines can only deliver results based on what you entered prior to searching, their programmers have had to write a specific set of rules for interpreting this information prior to providing you with results.

The information that is used varies per search engine. Bing & Google are constantly fighting for search engine assurance and while Bing is considered one of the most accurate for interpreting your search request almost all search engines use the same basic elements for page ranking. As you develop new content be aware of the following items on your website.

• Page Title
• Page Description
• Content
• Keyword Frequency
• Page Links

The content that you develop for your website is a critical piece of the SEO puzzle. Search engines are developing better formulas for identifying quality content. This is important for them because if they deliver search results that lead to websites with poor content, they won’t get as many visitors requesting search results. If you spend additional time on any of the above items, the number one piece of advice that I can give is write clean, relevant content.

In a world where everyone is fighting for page one Google ranking, being relevant to your reader is going to be the most effective way to achieve a higher search engine ranking.

If you would like additional information on the required SEO elements, Brian Clark at Copyblogger Media wrote a great article detailing their importance.