Moving On

So far we have had a quick look at what a Search Engine does as well as how they display results to a query. I also mentioned that not a lot of people percentage wise will move past the first page of results at Google. That is not really that truthful as if there are no good results on the first page most people will go past the first page of results in search of what they are looking for.

Which is great news if you are on the second page of results. Still the vast majority of people will not go past the first page, yet because Google has so much traffic even if you get onto the second page you can expect some targeted visitors.

One of the main things you will want to do is to target your audience.

So what does that mean?

Basically you will need to look at what you want your website to do for you or your business and then build it to fulfill your final objective. That may not be so clear so let's use an example.

John is a semi retired carpenter who loves to build dog houses. If you ask him why he likes building dog houses he just shrugs his shoulders and tells you "I don't know why I like building dog houses so much but I guess it may be because it was one of the first things I built as a kid or  because I seem to get real relaxed when I am making them."

John normally will make about 4 dog houses on a good week and only a few on a week were he has other commitments. Looking back over the last 6 months John has averaged 3 finished dog houses per week. Seeing as everyone locally knows John and nearly everyone who has a dog has one of John's dog houses he needs to branch out and find a larger market that he can sell his dog houses to. Either that or he will have to start making something different.

John has been thinking about this for a while and has done some of his research already. What he has found out is that it will cost him less than $75.00 to ship one of his dog houses anywhere in the state and the post office assures him that he can ship them to one state over in any direction for under $150.00 which he thinks may be too dear for someone interested in a dog house. After all he still remembers when he use to sell them for $5.00 delivered while growing up.

John also knows that he wants to sell them for $175.00 which is what he has been selling them for over the last couple of years, which gives him a nice little profit and allows him to continue his hobby and stay busy. John makes all of his dog houses out of wood and paints every one by hand. In over 40 years he has never had anyone complain about either his workmanship or prices.

From the above we can tell what the objective of the site is as well as who our target audience is. We also know what the product will be and how much it will cost as well as the cost of shipping and where we are prepared to ship the product to. On top of that we also know roughly how many customers we will need to get on average to have the website fulfill it's role in John's plans.

As you can see the process is very simple.

So what are some On Page Factors