€If you build it, he will come.€ That's one of the most famous lines in the Kevin Costner movie Field of Dreams. Sadly, when it comes to websites, this doesn't apply. As every web designer in Melbourne knows, websites might as well be invisible if search engines can't index them.

Why is nobody coming?

Search engines work by deploying automated bots to scour the World Wide Web for contents and links with the purpose of indexing these for future reference. When you key in the words €website design Melbourne€ for example, the search results page will show what Google, Yahoo or Bing believes to be the most relevant site for your needs. In order for these searches to take notice, you need to optimise your website by modifying not just the words within the pages but also other elements such as address, URL, sitemap, landing pages, meta tags etc. to make it easier for these crawlers to find your site.

Content and tags

When it comes to search engines, Google is still the dominant brand followed by Microsoft's Yahoo and Bing. But Google has a nasty habit of constantly changing its mathematical formula to the detriment of thousands of websites that fall out of the top page ranks in the process. You must have unique content with no duplication either from within your pages or other websites. If you continue to plagiarize the works of others, the search will not only ignore your site but flag it as spam as well.Search engines work by deploying automated bots to scour the World Wide Web for contents and links with the purpose of indexing these for future reference. When you key in the words €website design Melbourne€ for example, the engine results page will show what Google, Yahoo or Bing believes to be the most relevant site for your needs. A good web designer in Melbourne will tweak the title tag (which gives engine an idea of what the page is about) and the meta tag (which lures users to click on your page).

Too many chefs spoil the broth

A website that features a lot of videos, Javascript and Flash animation may be attractive to the visitors but they only serve to confuse the bots sent by search which can't read the text embedded in the videos. But applications like Pinterest are a good example of a handy tool to make your website interactive but also stay search engine-friendly. A company that is adept at website design in Melbourne can also put footer menu and links to help the bots find you as well.