Well, you could argue and say, hey I have a website that has unique content, it downloads fast, and I update it often. The content is very useful for visitors.

So why exactly do I need to optimize it? I am offering valuable advice and content, all for free; shouldn’t the search engines give it priority naturally? After all my web site is providing value to the target audience?

I would say yes, it is true you are keeping your commitment of providing a valuable service to your potential customers but…

There are millions and millions of websites out there; exactly with the same objective, who do you think the search engines will prefer?

Think about it. You have created an amazingly beautiful and valuable creation but no one knows how to get there. You will need a little bit of help from everybody to find this creation of yours. You need to help people and search engines to help you.

Just like there are landmarks that tell you which way you are headed, or street signs that tell you that up ahead there is a restaurant etc , you need to find a way to communicate to people and search engines that your web site exists and that it is one gem of a web site! Search engine optimizing your web site does that for you.

Little things like providing an appropriate title to each of your web page, and meta tags…these elements are small but they have an incremental effect on your website’s visibility.

You will need to couple your SEO efforts with What we call in the tradition marketing, word of mouth. It helps tremendously to shout out, tell your friends to check out your web site, request then to refer it. Social networking optimization is another way of providing your web site the required push. Include your URL everywhere, signature lines, your Facebook profiles, LinkedIn, twitter updates…

Search engines have their own algorithms; they have tools that tell them what is being searched and which sites are more popular.

And this is just the beginning.