Search Engine Optimisation Guide

This Search Engine Optimisation Guide provides an overview of what search engine optimisation is, why it is important and the techniques used within it.

What is Search Engine Optimisation?

Search engine optimisation (or SEO as it is often referred to) is the process of getting your website ranked as highly as possible in the 'natural' or 'organic' listings within a search engine such as Google. 'Natural' listings refer to those which a search engine returns in response to your query (e.g. by typing 'search engine optimisation' into the search box) that haven't been paid for or sponsored by a company. Within Google, these are the listings on the left - the sponsored listings are at the very top and on the right under the title 'Sponsored Links'.

Why is Search Engine Optimisation Important?

The benefit of search engine optimisation and ranking highly in the search engines is easy to see. Just think about your own searches - how often do you look beyond the first page of results, let alone beyond page number 3. If you're like us, then not very often at all. This means that if you don't rank within the top 10-20 listings within the search engines, then it is highly unlikely that your customers will find you.

And research shows that the higher you are within the search engines, the more customers click through to your website. Research also shows that more people click on the natural search listings than on the sponsored listings. It therefore stands to reason that you want to rank as close to the coveted number 1 ranking in the natural search results as possible. This is where search engine optimisation comes in.

What is Involved in Search Engine Optimisation?

The reason why so many companies are skeptical of search engine optimisation is because of the 'cowboy' companies out there who make it sound an impossibly complex process so that they can charge huge sums of money. These companies also usually employ techniques that are banned by the search engines and, although they initially may help with your ranking, will eventually lead to your website being taken out of the search engines all together - meaning your customers will never find you! Ever!

Search engine optimisation is not a 'black art'; by employing the correct techniques, any website can benefit from it's ability to increase search engine ranking. So, this leads us into what is actually involved in search engine optimisation.

Keyword Research

Search engine optimisation is a logical process that begins with identifying and researching the keywords that you want your website to rank highly for. The more specific and less competitive the keyword, the more likely you are to reach the number 1 spot. Think about it - if you want to reach the number one spot for 'insurance' then you will be competing with about 1,160,000,000 other websites (a quick search in Google shows this). Now that is a lot of websites competing for the same keyword. You will not achieve the number 1 spot for this keyword, well not initially anyway - you need to build up to these big words - like with your business - start small and gradually get bigger and bigger.

Taking the insurance example, you need to initially start with more specific keywords if you want to achieve the number 1 spot. Another quick search in Google shows that the keyword 'backpacker travel insurance' has 3,600,000 websites competing for it - now this is still a lot of competition for the keyword but is only 0.3% of the number of websites competing for 'insurance'. You can see straight away that this is a more achievable keyword to compete for. Whatever your industry, you can carry out the same process to find the best keywords to optimise for.

Onpage Optimisation

Ok, so you have now chosen your keywords to optimise for. The next step in search engine optimisation is to carry out onpage optimisation on your website. Onpage optimisation involves making the actual webpage you want to rank highly in the search engines as search engine friendly as possible. The first thing to ensure is that you are providing quality, relevant content for your target users - this is extremely important - there is no point optimising your website for certain keywords, if the content on the website that the visitors will see is of little or no use to them.

Once you have this content, there are a variety of techniques to apply to the webpage to maximise it's opportunity of being ranked highly. These include ensuring the correct use of tags such as <title>, <h1> and <alt>, quantity and placement of your keywords within your content, good internal linking structure and well written html. Once all the necessary techniques have been employed, then the onpage optimisation part of search engine optimisation is complete. For highly specific keywords with a low level of competition, this may be enough to rank highly in the search engines. However, as the keyword becomes more competitive, the lower the importance of these factors in ranking highly - without them you won't rank highly but just because you have them doesn't mean you will rank highly. This is where the next section comes in.

Offpage Optimisation

This is the single most important technique in search engine optimisation in terms of pushing you up to the top of the rankings for competitive keywords. So what does it involve and why is it so important? Well I'll tell you. Offpage optimisation is the process of getting other websites to link to you. This is not just a case of trying to get every website possible to link to you - you need to be selective about the websites that link to you and how they link to you.

Basically, the best websites to get to link to you are those that are relevant to your industry, contain a limited amount of external links (it's better to be 1 out of 10 links than 1 out of 100), contain your keyword in their <title> tag, link to you using your keyword, and are also ranked highly themselves.

Search engines view each link to your website as a 'vote' for your website - the more votes you receive, the more likely you are to be elected (reach the number 1 spot).

Conclusion

Now that, in a nutshell, is search engine optimisation. Carry out all the above effectively, and you will increase your rankings in the search engines. Obviously, there is more to it than can be explained in a short article, however, this does give a really good overview of what is involved. At freedom24 we believe in being open about what we do and why we are doing - it is your website after all and so have the right to know what we are doing to it. Visit our search engine optimisation page to find out more about what we can do for you.

A word of warning: companies that 'guarantee' to get you to the top of the search engines usually turn out to be using banned search engine optimisation techniques that will eventually end with your website being thrown out of the search engine rankings all together. With search engine optimisation, there is no way of guaranteeing ranking position - rankings do fluctuate and your website can go up as well as down. There is no possible way that any company, no matter what they say, can guarantee you a search engine ranking. The best search engine optimisation companies use recommended techniques, such as those described above, to deliver long-term success in the search engines - this is, and will always be, the approach of freedom24.

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