Many people often ask, what is search engine optimsation?
The answer , "Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results. Typically, the earlier a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines." Source Wikipedia
SEO and your Business
With literally billions of searches conducted every month search engines have essentially become our gateway to the internet.
Unfortunately getting yourself simply listed is not enough as clicks on a search engine results page are not evenly distributed amongst the results. Research has shown the higher a website is ranked by a search engine the more clicks they will receive with the top result receiving by far the largest proportion of all clicks, followed by the 2nd and so on.
Search Engine Optimisation is based around your use of “keywords” and your website’s link popularity. “Keywords” is an industry term to describe the queries we use when we conduct a search, for example “blue ipod nano”. The search engines then categorise websites based around their relevance to a particular keyword. The search engines analyse your keyword usage in the following elements of your website (not an exhaustive list):
- Domain name
- Page title
- Page URL
- H tags (h1, h2, h3 etc.)
- Page content
- Image alt text
- Internal links within your website
- External links to your website
A few helpfull tips:
The top three search engines in the United Kingdom are:
- Bing
- Yahoo
Think local listings
We always recommend all our clients get listed on the following local listing web sites:
- Google Local
- CityVisitor
- TouchLocal
- Upmystreet
- DMoz
- Yell
- Thompson Web
