If you aren't yet aware of its meaning, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Simple enough, but just what is SEO and what is it for? This is a more complex matter.
Search engine optimization refers to a number of different techniques used for building websites and the content on these sites to improve their placident in the search engine results pages.
The idea of SEO is to make your website more visible to web users who search for content with search engines (which is essentially everyone who uses the World Wide Web at all).
If your website is a personal page meant primarily for yourself and perhaps a small number of family members and friends, it may not be all that important to you to have a site which is optimized.
However, if your website is business oriented, it matters a great deal.
Think of it this way: if your business decided to stop being listed in the phone book, took the signs and awnings down and stopped advertising, how successful would you be at attracting new business?
Search engines have for many largely replaced the function once performed by local phone directories.
In order to attract (and even retain) business, you need to have a high profile where your customers are likely to see you - and these days, this place is online.
It once was that if people couldn't find you in the phone book, your business was in serious trouble. Now, of course the question is how easy it is for people to find your website.
You may have a great looking website and even use the URL in your printed marketing materials and advertising campaigns; but not everyone is going to see your advertisident in the paper.
People tend to look at web sites when they're actually in need of something and even if a potential customer has seen your ads, it's not at all certain they'll remember to go to your site immediately when they're looking for what you offer.
Instead, your potential customers are using search engines - which is why your business may need some help from a professional SEO consultant to ensure that consumers will find you when they really are looking for you.
One of the things we should look at first here is what the search engines actually see when their crawlers come to your site.
The search engines don't know (or care) about your site's design in terms of graphics (though they will read the alternate text for these images - if you don't know about this important elident of web design, an SEO consultant can help you with this).
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