Building a car is a complex process with a large number of variables to incorporate, foremost amongst those is following safety guidelines and ensuring the vehicle protects passengers. Safety isn’t a box that’s put in the car after it’s built, or something to worry about on the assembly floor but not in the design studio. Safety is a core element of any car and, as such, must be considered at every stage of the process: planning, design, assembly, testing, and even marketing. (Forgive my gross simplification of the automobile industry, I’m a web geek, not an auto engineer.)

But what does this have to do with search marketing?

Search marketing is to your website what safety is to a car: a core principle that must be addressed at every step in the process. You need to plan for effective search marketing from the beginning. It must be an end goal that’s considered during the design of the site, writing site text, coding the site, adding a blog, developing a linking strategy with associations and other organizations… in essence, it’s as vital to the success of a site as safety is to a car. Minus the insurance, of course.