Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is a very popular and hot topic for not just those who develop websites but those who purchase and have them. Nobody wants a website that just sits in nowhere land, never viewed by the billions of people who browse the web.

As a web designer or developer it is your job to design your web sites with search engine optimization in mind. SEO is at the core of the website and isn't just something that "an optimizer" does to the site afterwords. Search engine optimization isn't the wax you put on your car after you wash it. Rather, search engine optimization is under the hood of your car well within the engine where you can't even see it if you pull open your hood and look inside.

A site that isn't developed to be search engine friendly will often have difficulty reaching it's desired search engine ranking placement. Even if the site makes it to Google's charts it will be at a strain and won't reach it's full potential. It's like driving your car in 1st or 2nd gear all time time at RPM 7,000. You want to make a site that rises the search engine rankings quickly; you want it to be google top 10 and eventually google #1 search result for your desired key words. Once there, you want your website to stay at the top of the charts not to be bumped down sporadically by other web sites.

In order to have your website optimized to this level you need it to be at the core of your website. So if somebody ever markets search engine optimization to you and sells you their pitch, then the most likely way they can keep their end of the bargain is by re-developing the insides of your website. Posting your site to various engines and adding meta tags has minimal effects on changing your search engine ranking. Search engine optimization is part of web site development; it's not part of the post-production process.