There is an amazing number of people out there who say that they can build you a website and that website may end up being very visually pleasing, but if that person did not incorporate all the necessary "pieces of the puzzle" to attract the search engines, your website could possibly become virtually useless to you and your business.

Search Engine Optimization is probably the single most important factor in creating an effective website, yet it is also probably the least understood of all the processes involved in web design. Most people automatically assume that all web designers will incorporate all the necessary parameters into their creation in order to attract the search engines, but they don't. An exceptionally large percentage of people who know how to graphically set up a website actually have no clue at all how to optimize the site.

When it comes to web design, there are many different levels of knowledge just like there are in many other fields. The best example of this is the medical field- a general practitioner is great for "every day" medicine, but he or she will send their patients to a specialist for most specific ailments. The same happens in web design, especially when it comes to creating a website in such a way as to be "search engine friendly".

Some people think that by going to their friends or relatives, or by creating a websites themselves using a low-cost template design, they can save money. Well, it's definitely the old adage of "you get what you pay for"! If their goal is to save money, they may be saving some money "up front", but they are in all likelihood giving up the probability of being found through internet searches by people who don’t know them. No matter how good the friends or relatives are with computers, it again boils down to the specialization. Just like in the medical field, you wouldn't want your dentist to take out your appendix! You may also find that if you use a pre-made template, it might be like creating a really nice-looking brochure, but then not delivering it to anyone!

The art of creating websites so that people can be found through internet searches for their particular product is very specific and unknown to most people who believe they can create websites.  They can create website content but they are missing the most important half of website design unless they are completely familiar with the current search engine optimization techniques.  Most individuals, and even most web design companies, either don’t know these techniques or if they do, usually charge a substantial amount extra to apply them to a website.

There are all kinds of parameters which need to be incorporated into a website in order to attract the search engines today, a lot more than just a little bit of background code and meta tags, as it used to be just a few short years ago. If anyone talks to you about just putting in meta tags when you ask them about search engine optimization, they don’t know current parameters at all and they probably won’t be able to help you very much. Each "search engine", such as Google and now the newest entry into the field called BING which was launched in June of 2009, and each "directory" such as Yahoo and MSN, all are looking for different things. Web designers such as Affordable Web Design Ltd who have taken the time to study all the "ranking" requirements from the various better known search engines are constantly trying to keep on top of the ever changing requirements.

In addition, one of today's most important parameters for being found by the Search Engines is to have relevant links coming to your website, in other words links from sites that have a common thread with yours. Our company's biggest “plus” is that Affordable Web Design Ltd. has found a way to generate thousands of relevant links going back and forth between all our clients' websites.  Although absolutely no one can truthfully guarantee high search engine ranking, the majority of our clients can usually be found within the top ten matches for a particular Google search involving their particular fields and our rate of success is happily very high!

Of course as in everything, there are sometimes when we can try our best but doing the first level of Search Engine Optimization as we do it simply doesn't work. This is specially true in cases where there are thousands of people within the same industry, all using the same keywords and all targetting the same markets, such as realtors, mortgage brokers, insurance agents, and the like. Although we take additional care in adding the published search engine optimization parameters to our clients' websites, for which we do not charge any additional fees,our search engine optimization service can sometimes not be enough and the client may need to go to the next level, which is to hire Search Engine Marketers. SEM specialists do SEO work, but they also do several more steps, for which they also charge a fairly large monthly fee, usually averaging between $150.00 and $200.00. But keep in mind that even they cannot guarantee complete success.