Why do you have to optimize your web pages for search engines?

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There are billions of web pages on the Internet. It's obvious that not all of them can be listed in the top 10 results on search engines. Search engines only list web sites that they find relevant to a special topic. You must make sure that your web site is such a site.

If search engines cannot find out that your web site is about fishing equipment, they cannot give your web site high rankings for that keyword. The process of optimizing your web pages so that search engines find them relevant is called search engine optimization (SEO).

Only a few web surfers look further than the first or second result page of a search engine 75% of searchers never look further than page one (Source: Georgia Institute of Technology). Most search engines display ten results on the first page; and very few searchers click the links to look at the second page.

Usability expert Jakob Nielsen points out: "Users almost never look beyond the second page of search results." Danny Sullivan, ClickZ Search Engine Marketing Columnist, puts it out this way: "Being listed 11 or beyond means that many people may miss your web site." For that reason, search engine optimization is crucial if you want.

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