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Ever Been to a Library Ever been to a library, the place of books. You enter the door and in your mind you know the type of book you are looking for. Fact or fiction, reference or a novel, the name of the author, maybe the title, military or romance, western or travel, the choices are many You are the customer and within a few steps you will be in the area which has what you seek. In a room full of books, within a few moments you are among the books you want. How did this occur? How and why is it so organized? The process to get you where you want to be and select what you require has been thought out. For if it was not well thought out there would be a complete shambles. Publications of different genre all mixed together. No one could find what they want. So how can finding a particular book among all the rest of the books have been made such an easy task? It's all to do with indexing. When a book is published and accepted by the library, it has to be filed / indexed so that anyone seeking that particular book can readily find it. This done by looking at the distinguishing features of the book and indexing it by the subject matter, with the title and the name of the author all forming part of the indexing process. A process so basic we all take it for granted. Human beings like order, it is how we function, and we like processes which get us from the starting point to the completion point, which in the case of the library is the locating of a particular book or books. A human being, a librarian obtains the information pertaining to the book and places it where it should be expected to be found. But what if when a book is published, it had no distinguishing features, no title, no way of identifying the subject matter and no named author, just pages and pages of words and possibly some unnamed pictures. It definitely would not be suitable for indexing or keeping at the library. No matter how important the subject matter or what major benefit reading the book would confer upon the reader, its publication is next to useless because it probably could not be found, definitely no enduring monetary benefit to the author. No one in their right mind would do such a thing. A book is published to be read, to be seen and read and distinguishing features are put in place to ensure it is accepted, indexed and found. Not to do so condemns the publication to obscurity. Yet day after day people in business condemn their publications to obscurity. What is the point of spending time and money publishing matter if it cannot be found? No one in their right mind would do such a thing, yet people in business do this day after day with their websites The analogy is between a library and a search engine. Just as a person goes to the library, searches and readily expects to find matter listed by subject, the same person, a potential customer also goes to a search engine and searches by typing into the search box their enquiry expecting to find what they are looking for. A website is a collection of pages of words and pictures which are only of benefit to the customer provided it can be found. And when found and the information used, a benefit is conferred upon the business owner. In the situation of a book, a human being records and files the book in the appropriate place. But in the case of a website the process is automated by the search engines that send out bots or spiders or crawlers who suck upon the information for storage in their databases so that when a person makes an enquiry the search engine can display the relevant information So do people in business provide any distinguishing features with their websites that enable their websites to be found by the search engines and therefore the customers. Or do they just provide pages and pages of words and possibly a few unnamed pictures that make no sense to the search engines so that when the search engines attempt to index the website they cannot make sense of the information provided and so condemn the website to obscurity. A search engine is just like a library, there are rules, guidelines and policies for indexing purposes so the website can be located by the potential customer Your business website is like a book and as an author you want your website to found and read for it contains valuable information to the reader about your business. Being found confers an enduring economic benefit to your business So if you are in business follow the rules, guidelines, policies and best practices when publishing your website. Build it so it can be indexed. It is your responsibility not the duty of the website designer to see that this is done. The web pages of your website require titles and descriptions which are placed in code behind the viewable page. The Search Engines publish their requirements A friendly website Follow the rules and the search engines will have a greater chance of indexing your site and therefore increase the chances of the customers finding you and contributing to your economic wellbeing. They say, the more things change, the more they stay to same. From finding a book in a library to finding information in a search engine, the processes are similar. A much borrowed book would not be a much borrowed book if it could not be found. Don't let you website fall into the same category. Make it more than a collection of pages, make it valuable and people will want it (and what you can do for them) Contact Firstsearch