Q. Why do people build websites?
A. They have something to share.
Plain and simple: Whether you are a business who has something to sell, a website designer, or even the average Joe, the game is still the same – to get listed high in the search engines. The better your listing is, the more people that will come to your website. For the vast majority of website owners, the reason the website is there in the first place is because they want others to read what they have to say.
More in depth: Statically proven, around half of the traffic to a website comes from search engines. How many times have you thought of a question that you wanted to know the answer to and found yourself going online to a search engine to find more information about it? From students researching a subject, parents wanting to learn more about parenting, a person wanting to learn more about a health matter to someone who just wants to know where the best gas prices are (and everywhere in between) the web has become a huge resource in our everyday lives. With internet access becoming more readily available, the search is on to find information at your fingertips.
While learning to design websites over the past 7 years, I have read hundreds of web pages, bought hundreds of dollars in books and done extensive research in the field of website design. From the psychology of fonts, linespace, colours and layouts of websites to analyzing log statistics, learning about robots, search engines, spiders, HTML, CSS and other essentials of websites, I have gained a new respect for what it takes to build a good website. No matter how many things I read, how many experiments I try, or how many websites I build, it all seems to boil down to the same point over and over. For anyone who has a website, the higher the listing is in a search engine, the more chances you will have to let another person read what you have to say.
Chances are, if you ask 10 people to name a search engine (or a website to go to where you can search the web for pages you can read about a topic you are trying to find) – at least 9 of the 10 people can name one search engine. MSN, Yahoo, Excite, AOL, Google, Dogpile, Lycos, Ask Jeeves and Mamma are some of the most prominent.
The average person searching will look at maybe the first couple of pages of results of a search engine and be content. Even more so, that average person will scan the title of the listing and the description if one is offered on the first few results on the first page.
For example: A child you know is having a birthday in a month. It will be sprint out. You have an idea to give the child a kite that is blue in the shape of a butterfly. Search on Google for a blue butterfly kite.
How many listings are there total? At the time I am writing this, there are about 450,000 results on Google. Do you read each and everyone and click on every link? Do you scan quickly the titles and some of the descriptions of the results? Do you look at the first page, find the kite you are looking for click on the link and not even return to Google for that now that you have found it? How long did you stay on that results page before you would have found a link to click?
The answer in why you want to get higher search engine rankings lies right there. If you are one of the first few results seen in that example, chances are you will be the listing that gets the reader to view your site and purchase the kite from you. Whether you are just reviewing the kites, showing how to build one, selling one, or even writing about experiences with one, the higher your listing appears in a search engine, the better chances of someone coming to your site to read about it.
Conclusion: If you have a website that you want people to view, the higher the listing is in search engines, the better chances others will come to your site instead of going to another website.
