Everyone involved with the internet will tell you why search engine optimization is important but before looking at why, let us look at what it is. Search engine optimization is the method of building web pages and even complete web sites in a way that makes them easily discovered, indexed and them placed on the results pages of search engines. The internet is the largest source of information mankind has ever known and that makes finding the data people are searching for difficult – and this is a problem that everyone faces, from students to businessmen to the casual web surfer looking for entertainment.

Think of the internet as the biggest mall ever built and your business as just one of the thousands of shops in it – all of them without a sign of any kind outside to tell people what the shop sells. There will be millions of people coming to the mall every day to buy things but how long are they going to spend hunting for what they need and, what happens when they get tired? They then return home and while they may try again, they will usually end up buying from a store they have been to before, even if they know more choices are available. Now suppose the mall has floor plans to show people which store is where, each store had a signboard and there were guides to tell people which parts of the mall stocked what they are looking for?

A search engine is like the map or the guide in the mall – it tells people where they can find what they are looking for on the internet and that is why search engine optimization so vital. And search engine optimization is like placing a sign outside the store so that when people get to the right area, they know which stores to go to. But that is not enough to get people to your store or business because there are thousands of other businesses like yours, all competing for the same customers. When you optimize your website, it is equivalent to placing the biggest sign in front of your store or placing it at the top of the list of stores in competition with you. People do not want to waste time going through a long list of possibilities – they prefer to go to the first one they find hoping that they will find what they want there and will only go to places lower down the list if they cannot get what they want.

So that is why search engine optimization so critical to your success on the internet – it enables you to place you website high in the search results and ensures that more people will visit your site than those that are placed lower in the results.