CEO Corner - Can you just SEO my website? Part 1

I get this a lot from CEO's and business owners.  They know what the term "SEO" is; they know they want to optimize their site for the search engines, hence Search Engine Optimization.  But they think it is just some secret sauce and everything is just fine with their site. I hear, 'can't you just optimize what I have, do something like those meta things?'.  I have news for them , they are usually wrong about what SEO is really all about.

To get any traction in organic search results you must build the proper foundation; while this in itself does not guarantee top rankings, to do this with shortcuts or gimmicks will only impact your bottom line, negatively. Think wasting money for starters.   So while decisions have been made looking short term and within budget guidelines; you have hampered your ability to succeed and have lost time in the process.

The website is going to be your calling card online so why have you not given it a proper effort?

I know you rushed to get it out there, it was done by one of your buddies' friend of a friend, you got a 'great deal' and you planned on getting back to it for more later, but you have had other pressing items on your agenda and it has languished for months, years. And now you want to have it optimized.  But what does that really mean?
First,  I'll explain my definition of SEO as a website made up of 5 properly planned and designed components. These are not in any specific order of consideration or importance.  
1. physical design  or graphics of the site.

2. the layout of the pages with special attention to the navigation.
3. the content of the page; this includes the text and pictures.
4. how your pages are named.
5. the coding of the page; this includes how the page appears to the search engines, various 'meta' tags and the technology that drives your pages.

I will repeat this only once; if you don't do all 5 items then your site has not been properly optimized. Period.    
As with many other aspects of your business you plan, you budget and then you begin.  It should not be any different with your website.  So consider all the components and begin accordingly.

So how do I make sure I 'optimize' all of these five components?  Read on ...

Web Graphics and Design

There are a number of graphic file types used on web sites and they include .gif, .jpg, .avi, .png and many more.  We live in a visual world, so the design made up of the shapes and colors will capture the mind, impress the viewer and can even spur them to action.   The fast pace of business and society does not lend itself to reading, but the text that goes on the website is more crucial to getting search results than the graphical design of the site.  Think about it this way; text may get them there but it is the pictures and presentation that gets them to do something you want whether it is buy a product or call you, whatever your call to action may be.  More on text in another writing in this series.   But graphics themselves must be optimized and I mean that in a couple manners.  A page that is 100% graphical will create a large file size and render to the user's browser slowly creating a barrier to acceptance by this person.  A slow loading site also does not place you in good regard with the technology of the search engines.

A balance must be struck between a completely visual graphically website and just old text.  So the graphical design of your site must multi-task.  When the images are created they can individually be optimized to make them the smallest size in bytes and this will help them load faster.  A lot of smaller byte sized image will load faster than fewer but larger byte files.  Make sure your design and the graphics that make up your design are optimized.

Do you know how to determine that your graphics and design portion of your site has been optimized?