What is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
A Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Strategy will get your website found online
SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is the term / acronym used to describe a series of actions that are taken to improve the visibility of a website or webpage on search engines. It has been estimated that there are more than 30 popular search engines and the most commonly used is Google which dominates the market with 80% of searches or the equivalent of one billion searches every day. Put simply SEO or search engine optimisation is when you type a keyword or phrase into a search engine and the results are listed from 1 to thousands and each page contains 10 – 13 results on average. 80% of search engine users don’t look at the second page of results so the goal of search engine optimisation (SEO) is to be on the first page of results and as high up the page as possible.
Why Can’t I Find My Website on Search Engines
Building, designing and launching a website is relatively easy but the hardest thing about the process is being found through search engines, especially when a new website goes live. We estimate that 90% of websites have not been optimised for search engines and their owners do not have a formal search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy. Try typing in a keyword or phrase that your customers might use to find you and see where you rank. Careful; to be unbiased you must switch on private browsing and don’t search for your business name – instead use a keyword or phrase that your customers might use. The reason for using private browsing is that some search engines remember what you have searched before and return favourable results based on your search history. This is one of the most common mistakes made by website owners and they assume they do not need a search engine optimisation strategy (SEO) when in fact the opposite is the case.
Website owners must realise that building or hosting a website does not mean it will be found on search engines like Google. The process is far more complicated, time consuming, strategic and requires a long term financial investment. We refer to this as an investment because once you’re on the front page of search engines and you have a great website then your sales will increase significantly and provide you with a return on your search engine optimisation (SEO) investment.
Key Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Terms
There are two key terms often used to describe components of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). They are often referred to as;
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organic (unpaid) versus paid (pay per click advertising) search engine optimisation (SEO)
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on page versus off page search engine optimisation (SEO)
Each of these can then be further subdivided into more detail and will be described in further detail in our next posts.
