A successful venture into the online world takes far more than a pretty design, it requires one that is intuitive and targeted towards your desired market. A simple explanation would be -you wouldn't build the same site for the elderly that you would for teens and tweens, the layout, image use, font and font size, everything would be different and catered to the desired audience.
Reaching your target audience through design is still only the beginning though, you also have to help that audience find you, quickly and easily -and you have to grab their attention and keep it within seconds.
In order to begin the vast project that is 'search engine optimization (seo)', your site must first be built-in with the building blocks required, right down to the core.
Keyword focused content, properly named images, intuitive titles and descriptions, full use of html tags, minimizing script and code -all of these and so many more are extremely important and necessary in order for your seo efforts to be effective.
One of the most important things you can do in the fight to lead search engine rankings, simply put -you have to get your name out there. It is also important to do this tactfully, with what many have coined 'white hat' techniques.
This basically means that you're not out there spamming other people's sites with links to your own, or really anything you wouldn't want others to do to yours. Proper backlinks and references come from several sources, getting mentioned by other sites (most people include a link for basic reference to their content), using your link in your signature during social networking, and requesting links on various lists found all over the web (such as lists of lawyers, doctors, etc).
Their are certainly many more, but these are the most common, and generally the safest -and this is one part of seo that is immeasurably ongoing.
It's important to keep an ongoing stream of fresh content going for your site -this is done through the use of blogs and 'updates', you write an article about something current and specific to your business or industry and post it. This keeps your company on the front lines for searchers, as they're far more likely to be out there searching for information on something current and in the news, rather than general information.
Discussions about the proper use of social networking could go on forever, but it goes without saying that they've become one of the most useful tools for spreading your name across the web. Get out there and mingle, keep it simple and 'business' casual, and above all -don't spam!
