Regardless of a business’s specific niche, search engine competition is often fierce and business website owners spend a fair amount of money to ensure that their business appears at the top of major search engines. Unfortunately, many of the top-ranking small business websites are designed and developed poorly, which will ultimately mean a loss in sales and leads.

Regardless of how well a website is optimized, it needs to be designed and developed properly if it is going to interest its target audience and generate leads.

In our business, we have seen it happen countless times. Websites that rank near the top of Google are often poorly designed and laid out. Many businesses spend an awful lot of time and effort on getting to the top of Google, but they don’t bother to spend the same time and resources on the website’s design.

If a business website does not look professional, it will not inspire enough confidence in its visitors to win their business.

There is no doubt that search engine optimization is important for business websites. We recognize that a website must rank well in Google for phrases relating to its industry, particularly geographical phrases where potential clients will be searching for that business, but it’s not the be all and end all. If a business website is hard to navigate, looks unprofessional or doesn’t convey the quality of service offered, there is little point ranking for any keywords and phrases in the first place.

In other words, if a business’s website is garbage, he explains, any money that it spends on SEO will be wasted.

Search engine rankings are not everything; they are a means to an end. Without successful conversions from a website, there is no point in optimizing the site at all.

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