Have you ever made a purchase over the internet? Or used the internet to do research before making a buying decision? Think for a moment exactly how you went about it. Chances are you are not the only person who goes through the same process and experience.

One of the big buzzwords on the internet is SEO (Search engine optimization). This is because using a search engine such as Google is probably the most used tool for research on the internet before making a buying decision.

Conventional thinking is that you need to optimise your business website to perform well on search. The basic idea is if someone does a search for a particular widget or service you are selling you need to get your website listed in the top 5-10 results. This thinking is being driven particularly by hordes of enterprises on the internet who are trying to sell their SEO services to businesses.

It can cost a lot of money in SEO services to get your business website into that top 5, but my main point here is that the way a heck of a lot of these SEO services go about it is not going to produce the results you want - which is sales!

Think about that for a moment. Just because you get your page into the top 5 (or 10, or 20) doesn't mean you are going to get a sale. This is because successful marketing is more than just being found - it is also about creating credibility.

My experience is I have never yet bought from a company website that came up in the top 10 search results - and I don't think it is an accident. It has something to do with how search engines calculate what is important. What I have bought from is often a company or website that was just a link or two away from that search result.

Don't get me wrong - if someone does a search for your brand name, you want your website to be in the top results. If that isn't happening, you need help. But when it comes to the service or product you supply, pages with information about the service or product, not where to buy it tend to win the day with the search engines.

Exactly why this is and how search engines achieve this is probably quite a long topic on its own. But to cut what could be a rather long article short, I suggest you do yourself a favour right now - Do a Google search on your service or product and look at the results. More important than the actual websites that come up, look at the type of websites that come up.

Are they company websites or mostly something else?

Once the answer to that question is clear, we can start talking about what to do about it.