According to the Direct Marketing Association, website marketers cited search engine positioning as the top method to drive traffic to their websites (66%), followed by email marketing (54%). And according to a Jupiter Research Survey, searching on the search engines is one of the main uses of the Internet among 79% of users. Whatever you’re promoting, you'll want to make sure it can be found on the first page of a search engine's results page. The reason is numerically simple. An IProspect Survey reported that 78% of web users abandon their search if the first 3 pages don't provide an answer to their question, and 28% don't scroll past the 2nd page of results.

Accordingly, the most cost-effective way to market your web site is to obtain the highest possible search engine rankings in the major search engines for your keywords: the words or phrases that people will use to find your business online. So how do you do that?

Any website that wants to be visible requires Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to insure as high a ranking as possible. SEO includes continual content updating, keyword and key phrase evaluation, competitive analysis as well as a sound linking strategy. The major search engines are constantly indexing new pages, re-indexing old pages that may have been updated and changing their ranking rules. This means that a company could have a #1 ranked website one week for a given search term, and the next week they could be on the second or third page (or lower) of the search results! Google, Yahoo, MSN and the other search engines keep their page-ranking algorithms secret; no one outside those organizations can know for certain which techniques will insure a high-ranking.

Any web firm who “guarantees” rankings is simply guessing and hoping their clients don’t know any better.

Generally speaking, there are many straightforward techniques that help insure a business’ website is at least visible to the search engines. Many web designers don’t comprehend standard SEO practices, or choose to ignore them because they believe that SEO work can sometimes tend to make the web pages less “artistic”. However if your main goal is visibility on the web, your website needs to address search engine optimization! At DVI Web Works, we specialize in balancing the needs of your online business with your esthetic sensibilities.

DVI Web Works has secured #1 rankings on several major search engines for our clientele for their chosen key phrases. For example, as of this writing (April, 2005) Preston Wynne Spa is #1 on Google for “Saratoga Day Spa” and “Los Gatos Spa”.