What is SEO? It’s a question we hear a lot. The term SEO has been floating around for years now and it is still shrouded in misconception, so let us clear up the mystery. SEO stands for search engine optimisation it is a variety of methods that help your website appear higher in search engine rankings and therefor bring you more customers and sales.
The theory is simple but the practice is less so. SEO can be on or off your website, organic or paid (pay per click). There are different types used in different ways, yielding different results. So to get the outcome you want, you need to use one or more of the right strategies. Without knowing what you’re doing, it can be a minefield.
You may not think that your website needs SEO because the website is doing okay at the moment. Well, the reality is that SEO is essential and without it your website will be left behind. Websites are becoming an ever-increasing necessity to businesses, so if your website can’t be found, your business will suffer. Don’t dig your head in the sand, we’re to help you take the fear out of SEO. Call us today for a friendly jargon free chat 01246 540869
In order to answer what is SEO, we need to explain a bit more about how search engines work. Think of your default search engine, Google, Yahoo, Bing etc, when you want to know something you type in a query, click and results come up based on the exact words you have searched. Search engines aren’t like people, they don’t interpret the meaning of your questions (they are working on it but are not there by a long way). Therefore the results they produce are matched against the words you have searched for.
So what does this mean for you? Well, that’s simple, for each page on your website you write keywords in your copy that you think users would type in to find your service. This is called on-page optimisation and it’s an organic form of SEO, of course, it’s more complicated than that but keywords are still a big part of SEO.
Common misconception: the more keywords the better. It doesn’t work like that, stuffing your text with keywords can hurt your website. keywords are a balancing act of the right words and quality content, Google won’t like your website if it thinks you’re manipulating it. Of course, SEO is all about influencing the search engines but in a good way.
So what is On page and Off-page/site SEO? There’s more? Sorry but yes, on-site refers to anything that is physically on your website, words, images, code, backlinks, and much more. Off-page optimisation is where the real work begins though. Your quality content establishes that you know a lot about your field but people have to find you first to know that. This is what off-page optimisation does.
A great way to start building authority is to interact with other blogs or websites that are already considered an authority within your niche. Enough of this over a period of time and Google registers you as an authority and ranks you higher in the search results. This is another organic method of SEO and really pays off over time. But, if time isn’t on your side, then non-organic, paid methods of SEO like PPC (Pay Per Click) Ad Campaigns can yield fast results when done correctly.
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