Ok, you've got your shiny new website and you want to be found on Google, Bing and maybe other search engines. If you leave it to chance it can take a long time for their 'web spiders' to discover and index your site, and it is unlikely you will appear anywhere near the top of any search results. So you need to do some search engine optimisation or SEO, but how? If you know getting your website on page one of Google is absolutely critical to your sales and marketing plan you may well benefit from employing a specialist SEO company. They can be expensive, but if you find a reputable one they will be able to optimise your site for web search. 

If you're not sure how visitors will come to your website, for example you're are advertising using other methods such as networking and media then save your money until you know how important search is. For now here are some things you can do yourself at little or no cost;

1. Don't wait to be found, use the search engine webmaster tools to submit your site and its' sitemap.
2. What words or phrases do people commonly use to search for your type of service or offering? These are your keywords so ensure they appear in the title, headings and content of your website.
3.  Every web page can store HTML 'meta tags' so ensure whoever built your website updates them with your keywords.
4. Content is critical so keep it fresh and interesting, if visitors come to your site and click away apart from the obvious lost opportunity your site will be seen as less relevant and demoted.
5. Use social media and blogs to promote your site, search engines rank sites higher with backlinks from other. sites.