SEO (or search engine optimization) is a process to optimize the visibility of a website in search results. While SEO is an established and well known component of owning a website, many misunderstandings exist about SEO. Let’s spend a few minutes shedding some light on three of the most common.
SEO is built into a website
Websites are not built to be search engine optimized. A website can be built to be SEO friendly, but that is just the beginning. A SEO friendly website is essentially a website that has been designed and built to allow search engines to easily crawl and index it.
The practice of SEO on the other hand is to build up the relevancy of a website or web page in the “eyes” of search engines. This takes time, persistence, and consistency doing things like developing high quality content for your website or finding opportunities to create links between your website and other websites that search engines see as relevant.
SEO friendly websites rank well in search results
A SEO friendly website may rank well or it may not. In fact, an SEO unfriendly website could outrank any number of SEO friendly websites. As pointed out above, SEO friendliness is not search engine optimization.
A search engine friendly website is easier to search engine optimize, but you still have to do the SEO work to rank well.
SEO is an inexpensive way to market a website
This misperception is perhaps why many website owners assume that SEO is built into a website by default. The time it takes to optimize the search rank of a website and keep it optimized over time can be a full time job, if not more. SEO can be hugely expensive, either in time spent doing it yourself or dollars paid to SEO professionals.
Fortunately, SEO is only one way to successfully market a website. And SEO might not be the best or most cost effective way to market a website to achieve a specific outcome. For example, if your website needs immediate exposure within a competitive market, investing in paid ads and / or direct marketing are probably better choices.
If you want to find out more about SEO web development best practices, contact Avatar New York today.
Avatar New York is an innovating, award-winning New York website design company firm dedicated to providing clients with responsive websites that help grow brands and convert visitors to customers. With an expertise in web development, branding, managed hosting, mobile app development, and CMS and e-commerce solutions, Avatar New York's top tier designers have the ability to create intelligent websites for any type of business.