Search Engine Optimisation – or SEO – is a phrase that is on a par with rocket science and brain surgery in most people’s minds…but it’s actually not that complicated.
Let’s define the phrase first:
Search Engines are services like Google, Bing and even Youtube. As a user, when you want to find something specific you type in a phrase or a question, and the search engine tries to deliver the most relevant results.
You scan the results and click on the one that matches your needs. If that doesn’t offer what you want you click the back button and check out another one.
Optimisation means to make the best or get the best out of something. In this case you want to make the best of your website in order to get the best out of the search engines.
Finally, a word you will hear a lot mentioned in relation to SEO is keywords. Keywords are simply the words people type into the search engines to find what they want. Knowing the keywords people are using to find your business is vital before you even start your website’s search engine optimisation.
If your business is not represented on the first page of the search engine results, potential customers won’t be able to find you.
Search Engine Optimisation means taking steps to move up the rankings so your website does show up on the first page of results.
The Three Key Requirements for Good Search Engine Optimisation
Although there is value in being found in all the search engines, Google still holds the market share of searches in the UK at over 90%, so more than anything we want to achieve a high ranking in the Google search engine.
As mentioned above, keywords are vital before you even get started on your website. Once you know the main keywords you need to concentrate on the main aspects of optimising your site:
- Website Structure
- Content
- Links or Popularity
Website Structure
When the search engines come and visit your website and its pages they will make a decision on what the site is about. They will look at aspects like the title, url, description and keywords as well as the code and internal structure and linking.
This is the aspect of your website that most businesses have to put in the hands of their web designer, so when you speak to them about what you want, make sure they know the basics of SEO.
Ask them about your keywords (just optimising a site for your business name is not good SEO) and how they will optimise.
Ask them if they will be using Flash.
Flash (or Adobe Flash) is a method of adding animation to your website. Sometimes a small amount will be Flash and other times the whole site will be built from Flash. This has a number of drawbacks: many businesses turn off flash on their network, not everyone has the right Flash plugin, and most hand-held devices and smartphones can’t display Flash.
But most importantly, the search engines can’t read Flash and so, from a search engine optimisation point of view, it’s useless.
Your website doesn’t need to be ugly but if your designer tries to convince you that Flash is the way to go (unless it’s a small amount), then walk away.
Content
The content on your website is important for 2 reasons:
- The content tells the search engines what your site is all about and how relevant it is to people’s searches. They will look for the words and phrases you are using in order to make that determination, which is why it’s important to use the keywords from your initial research as well as related phrases (but don’t overdo it, the search engines can tell if something is natural or not).
- The search engines want to make sure they deliver the best quality content to their users, so they’re not only looking for relevancy but for the best quality, most relevant site. How can they tell the quality of your web copy? They have a number of way including the 3rd requirement of SEO mentioned below.
Actually, there’s a 3rd reason that the content on your website is important. Once the search engines have sent a potential customer to your website, you want to make sure they find exactly what they need and not a load of meaningless junk, designed solely for SEO. Otherwise, they’ll be hitting their back button and visiting your competitor’s site.
Links or Popularity
The search engines judge how relevant and high quality your site is by looking at which other sites are talking about it. These are called backlinks.
The theory is that if other sites, particularly popular ones featuring similar or related topics, are linking to you then you must have something worth reading.
Naturally, quality content will encourage others to link to your site, but you can also build links to your site yourself. There are many aspects that contribute to the power of these backlinks including what words and phrases are used to create the link (for example, the words “search engine optimisation Plymouth” linked back to this page would be more useful than “click here”), the popularity and relevancy of the linking sites, and what competing sites are doing (you need to appear more popular than them).
Hopefully, that’s given you a better overview of what SEO is and why it’s important to your website.
If you’d like a free analysis of your website’s search engine optimisation and what you can do to improve it, please request a free business website analysis.
