Every single week I meet folks who are so thrilled about their new internet site that they can not wait to let me all about it and how it should make them a lot of money extraordinarily swiftly. They are They're virtually jumping up and down because they've probably been to a seminar when they were told that the best way to live the dream is to first dream it and then visualise it and think about all the things they can do with the cash they will earn from it.

Life's going to be brilliant.

Really, life is going to take off soon because there are so many millions millions of users on the web and all you must do is attract a small fraction of those for your new widget to sell by the shedload and ultimately you will be an Internet Millionaire. Except it doesn't happen.

So many folks are sold the dream about SEO in such a manner that they suspect it isn't difficult to do and you can suck visitors to your website like a vacuum cleaner sucks dirt. E-tailing is straightforward, selling is straightforward and tempting visitors is straightforward, except it is not ; it's hard and it is a tough slog.

Just getting on Google is difficult

You have to be mentioned on Google in the first place and this is the original hurdle - and what a whopper! Google indexes approximately 50 billion Web pages and it grows at an exceptional rate, possibly many thousands a day. Why should they index yours? Why should they even care about yours? The answer is, they should not and so they don't.

When your internet site is finished it just joins a particularly massive queue and even though there are tactics you can get yourself listed quickly, these are quite complicated for the complete beginner and it's very simple to do it wrong.

So, when the site is live, there then starts a huge process of what many folks call 'optimisation' and that is where us SEO type have truly upset folk. You now believe that 'optimisation' means changing some words on your website so that Google automagically pushes you to the apex of search whenever somebody types in your product. You almost certainly believe that it is an one-step process and when it's done, you are good to go. That isn't what optimisation is about at all and we should truly call it 'marketing'.

Marketing is the method of getting your product in front of your clients ( whoever they may be) and traditionally this is a difficult process, even when you're competing with just a few people in your local area. Imagine competing with thousands of people globally!

The more competitive your market, the longer it should take too, for example you are not likely to beat B&Q if you are selling DIY hardware. Just face it - your website isn't going to beat anyone unless you have a commitment to spending lots of time promoting it and this is where the second hurdle rears it's hideous head.

I'm still not on Google and it's been a month!

It's probably the most common complaint I hear from folk. They (or we) 'optimised' their site a month ago and it still not found anywhere when someone searches for it. You can not find it anywhere at all and you're therefore not selling anything and so you are truly hacked off.

You doubtless think that SEO is an entire bunch of hogwash and so you have decided to end it now before you waste any more cash. Giving up is too straightforward but you will likely do it because you can not think of all other option.

This is not just about SEO, it's about many things in life - it becomes too hard so you just walk away and blame Google or something. You probably think you have been banned or Google doesn't like you or your web designer has done something wrong.

Let me just make it truly clear - if you've got a new site and it's just been launched you are going to wait a considerable time before folks are finding you on Google. We estimate between 8-12 months before it's getting anything like the amount of traffic an ecommerce site desires to work and so you must do something else. SEO isn't the magic bullet and so you should not rely on it at all.

You should also look at other selling streams like e-mail selling, AdWords and perhaps even some of-line things like advertising. Seriously, even though the world has gone Web mad, it doesn't mean you should ignore normal systems of advertising.

Calloway Green take fantastic website design and turn it into a marketable and usable product that will actually make you money. They specialise in Birmingham Web Design for West Midlands based organisations that are looking to sell their products to a wide audience.

We also offer extensive Search engine optimisation training for people looking to do their own SEO.