Firms should appear as approachable as possible through their web design, it has been claimed.

It is also important that businesses making the move to the web align their site with their offline business objectives, according to PracticeWEB.

The firm's client relationship manager, Richard Sargeant, told Accounting Web: "Ultimately it will only give you value if it is aligned to the objectives of the business.

1. It appears from reading websites or sales pitches that anyone who can code a page of HTML can "do SEO" or their sites are SEO friendly.  However, when you take a cursory look at the websites they produce or ?optimise? it is easy to see how wrong this is.
   
   
2. Pick the wrong ?SEO expert? and at best your site will not be ranked in the search engines, but at worst they can get your website blacklisted by Google.  If that happens you will never be found by customers!  It has happened to BMW (Germany).
   
   
3. However, successful SEO is not that easy, it requires an in-depth knowledge of how the search engines function and evolve as well as how they catalogue and rank websites.  SEO does not stand still and to stay on top you have to read constantly, stay on top of changing SEO criteria, and ensure that SEO strategies are more than just quick fixes.
   
   
4. This Paper aims to explain what SEO is, what are the important components of SEO, how chose the right SEO expert for your needs.