Your website has the potential to be viewed by 374.9 million Internet users globally. But do you know that the majority of Internet users use search engines Internet directories or Internet portals such as AOL, Yahoo, and MSN to start their search?

Any individual using the Internet relies on these search engines, Internet portals and directories to establish a list of websites related to their topic of interest.

Unfortunately when websites are designed, little attention is paid to the needs and requirements of the 'Search Engines' or 'Internet Directories'. The common misconception is that once an organisation has 'web presence', the generated enquiries from this marketing media should significantly increase. But disappointment arises however, when this is not the case. Your web site needs to be optimised for your customers, search engines and Internet Directories.

But is your website optimised? What exactly does this mean?

Web Page or Search Engine optimisation is designing your web site so that it is good for your customers, search engines and editors of Internet directories.

Is your website meeting the needs of both your customers, search engines and editors of Internet directories?

The key things you need to ensure is that your website has:

• A Good Title
This does not mean, "Welcome to My Web Site"- you need a descriptive title containing your most important keywords and it should be brief. Do not use a title that does not match the content of your site.

• Effective Meta Tags
You need to ensure that the meta description and keywords are effective. The description should describe the products, services and information you are offering in a brief paragraph without using lots of marketing slogans. The keywords should highlight the key terms on your page.

You should never use popular web sites for example Disney, Yahoo or Microsoft as your keywords in order to attract more visitors.

• Good Content- And Not Just A Sales Pitch
Your website has to be easy to read, contain good content, giving customers a brief description of your company, products, services and contact information. This is not only good for your customers but also for search engines- they love good content!!

Make sure that your site is not produced using flash technology, as this uses graphics which search engines cannot read, use standard HTML text formats for all content.

Also if your information is contained in a database and this information is dynamically generated you need to ensure you use .asp or .cfm format as search engines cannot follow links with "?" in the URL (uniform resource locator).

• Navigation
You need to have a navigation system that is easy to follow, intuitive and does not mislead your customers. You need to have navigation links that are explicit enough so that your customers know where to go to find contact information, product information etc.

A customer should always be 3 clicks away from what they are looking for and they should always be able to get back (without using the browser back button!), therefore if it is a large site consider using a site map and search facility.

• Good and consistent page layout
Keep your layout consistent. Do not move your navigation system within your website, as you are likely to confuse your customers and this may cause them to leave your site.

If you have an e-commerce site, you need to make your layout and navigation as simple as possible, because a high proportion of customers leave an e-commerce site without buying anything as they cannot find what they are looking for, they get confused and lost and there isn't any help available.

• Frames
Only use frames if you really have to! Research has shown that sites without frames have a higher chance of visitors finding them. But if you do have to use frames ensure that each frame has links to the rest of the site.

The tag must be used when using frames. Within this tag you can insert links and content, which will not be seen by your customers but will be seen by the search engines. But I cannot stress enough, try not to use frames.

• Quick to download
A web page should download within 20 seconds, but I would say that the quicker the site downloads the better, between 5 and 15 seconds using a 56K modem.

• Good Links
Make sure that you have good links to other sites, especially your customer sites and have reciprocal links back to your website.

Once your web site satisfies all these conditions what next?

The next thing you need to do is to submit your site to the main search engines and Internet directories. There are two main types of search sites which you need to submit your web site to

Internet Directories such as Yahoo and Looksmart use category and sub categories to index web site information. You choose a category you wish your site to be submitted to. A human editor then decides whether your web site is appropriate for their site and chosen category. Commercial organisations have to pay for submissions to Yahoo.com and Looksmart.com, although the regional directories are still free of charge.

Search engine sites use robots or spiders to crawl the Internet in search of web sites, such as Google, AltaVista and Excite. You can submit your web site to the search engine and then when the robot or spider visits your site it reads the title, Meta tags, links and content to gain an understanding of your web site.

Automatic or Manual Submission?
There is much hype in the Internet industry about submission and re-submission of websites to search engines and whether using automatic programs or manual submission is the best. For every company telling you they only manual submit there is another telling you they will submit your site to hundreds of search engines each month for a fee.

What I suggest is that if you have a smallish site then a manual submission strategy is achievable and probably the best method, but if you have hundreds of pages on your web site are you really going to submit each one manually? So use a submission tool such as WebPosition Gold or SubmitWolf Pro.

Alternatively do you really want your site submitted automatically to search engines that are not related to your target market, or directories that you would feel unsuitable? You really only need to be on the main search engines and directories, and industry specific sites. Therefore be wary of products and services that offer submissions to a hundreds of search sites.

To guarantee or not to guarantee?
If any business or product guarantees top 10 positions on a search engine, read the small print, they could be using techniques that may have your web site thrown off the search engine. The only services that can be guaranteed are the pay for rank services, such as Goto.com whereby you pay to rank higher.

Remember, if you do purchase a search engine submission or optimisation product, this will not make you an expert in website or search engine optimisation- similar to if you purchase a web page design package this does not make you an expert in web design. But if you use these products in-conjunction with some search engine research or website optimisation training- then you will have the basic skills for website optimisation. You will also have a website, which is optimised for customers, search engines, and Internet Directories.