Carolyn Price is a partner in EngineHounds Search Engine Optimization Company in Fort Myers, Florida. Search Engine Optimization (SEO), is the process of making your Web site content 100% recognizable to Google and Yahoo so they can deliver it to potential Web visitors.

More and more, companies rely heavily on something quite intangible for their survival—the Internet.

And I do mean survival.

Twelve months ago, one of my clients was lured away from his Web developer by the offer of cheaper services. Unfortunately, he didn’t signal his intentions to me as his optimization consultant, and during the transfer his new developer deleted important code resulting in a catastrophic loss of Web traffic. Today his company is barely hanging on by its teeth.

After more than a decade of widespread commercial use, the Internet is still an uncomfortable place for many organizations depending on it for growth and sales. It’s enthusiastically embraced, yet frequently misunderstood. Companies wanting to remain competitive understand that adding a Web site to their marketing activities is no longer up for debate, but for too many, their Web site is an enigma. As a search engine optimization specialist, I see the evidence of this on a regular basis. Organizations consult EngineHounds about optimizing their Web site so that ‘people can find it on Google.’ But what we frequently discover is that, to Google, their site may as well be invisible.

What does that mean?

It means that their drop-dead-gorgeous, expensive, painstaking months-in-development Web site looks like nothing more than a white spot on a snowman to the search engines. It’s perfectly possible that two Web sites which look identical to the human eye can appear not even vaguely similar when viewed by Google. Depending on how they were developed, Google might see one as a truckload of juicy information and the other as a blank page. And Google needs the juicy information in order to deliver Web pages appropriately to Web searchers.

So, what does Google see when it looks at your Web site?

It’s easy enough to find out. Give your Web site a quick run through a search engine simulator.

Here’s a great simulator: http://totheweb.com/tools/spider-test/index.php

Simply type in your URL (www.yoursite.com) as directed, click Run the Simulator, wait a few seconds, then scroll down to see what Google sees when it looks at your site. Notice that your graphics don’t show up. That’s because Google doesn’t ‘see’ graphics, it uses your text to identify your content.

Pay particular attention to what shows up next to these three important areas:

Title, Text, and Links.

Is the space to the right of them blank, or is it populated with descriptive text that tells Google what your site is about? If any one of those areas is blank or contains little more than your company name, then your Web site could be in dire straits.

Look at how Google sees an ideal Web site

Run National Geographic’s URL through the simulator (www.nationalgeographic.com) and see how it compares to yours. Their site’s home page is well populated with text. It has descriptive words in the title and the page text, and it has links that guide Google to all the other pages of the site. These are components that Google needs in order to navigate your site, identify the content of all your Web pages, and show them to your potential customers.

What if your page comes up empty?

If the simulator view of your site is missing a lot of the information that appears to be present on your home page, it’s possible that your site has been developed in a way that is not search engine friendly:

• It may be built in frames
• It may have a splash page, or entry page, with very little text on it
• It may have been built in Flash
• It may be made out of sliced up graphics – even though it appears to have text on it.

Recovering from an invisible site

If the simulator indicates you have a problem, you must address it. It may mean a quick fix, or it may mean your Web developer must rebuild your Web site in collaboration with a search engine consultant. And if that makes you cringe, think about it like this: there’s a damn good chance that the cost of redeveloping your site using a search engine friendly method is lower than the price you’ll pay in the long term for a site that potential customers never find.

So, look at your Web site like a search engine does. It could be the best thing you do today.