Most of us know what search engines are, but we all have to start somewhere, so just in case:

A web search engine is a tool designed to search for information on the World Wide Web. There is a search box on the  search engine website where people can enter words or phrases when they want to find out some information.

The search results are usually presented in a list and are commonly called hits. The information may consist of web pages, images, information and other types of files. Unlike Web directories, which are maintained by human editors, search engines utilise a computer program or are a mixture of computer program and human input.

Some examples of search engines are, Google, Yahoo and Bing. Examples of directories include Wikipedia and Dmoz.

They are great for finding information, for example, searching for 'fruit and veg suppliers' may bring up thousands of search results.You can obviously narrow down your search by including a location such as Canterbury Kent,  but this may still bring up thousands of results (12,000 at the last count in Google UK) - so you're spoilt for choice!

But what if your business involves supplying fruit and veg? - you, obviously, want your business website listing to appear on page 1 of the search results not page 120! So how can this be done?

First of all get your website designed by a professional website designer who, if they are worth their salt, will build a 'search engine friendly website' - its design and progamming will be optimised with search engines in mind. They will not promise you that it will reach number one position - if they do - go somewhere else - because no one can guarantee a top placing. But a well designed and programmed website will give you a good start.