Tourism Internet Marketing U

Design Your Web Site To Be Search Engine Friendly

Web site design is one of the most important aspects of running a web site, whether it be a tourism-related web site or anything else. It’s not that looking pretty is the most important thing. It isn’t. The fact is, good web site design is not so much about looking pretty as it is about effective marketing.

Eighty-five percent of the people who go online to search for a product or service use a search engine. That means that search engines will account for most of your user traffic. The question is, how do you get listed in the search engines so that you can tap into all of that traffic?

Well, let me be the first to burst your pretty bubble. The most attractive web site in the world is not going to help you in the search engines. That’s because Google, Yahoo!, and MSN Live really do not care how pretty your web site is. They are looking for specific elements within your site that they can use to rank you for your key terms and, trust me, beauty isn’t one of them.

That’s not to say that your web site can’t be attractive. It just means that attractiveness should not be your most important consideration. Don’t sacrifice search engine friendliness for pretty colors and cool wing dings. Instead, focus on making your web site search engine friendly by:

• Including key elements of web site design that the search engines are looking for
• Using your competition and leaders in the industry as your guide
• Focusing on important, quality content
• Managing your keywords effectively
• Spending time developing your off-site search engine friendliness
• Understanding the importance of link popularity and link relevance to search engine placement

I will spend more time in the coming weeks and months addressing these issues and helping you understand how they influence your search engine placement. I hope you’ll return to see how you can increase your search engine rankings by focusing on these importance web site design elements. However, if you want to know that information now, and always have it at your fingertips, you should pick up a copy of my Search Engine Optimization Training Program!

-Written by Susan Sweeney