Search engine optimisation (SEO) is used to help sites achieve a higher rank in the popular search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing!. There are many companies offering the service to clients (including us), but few explain, in layman’s terms exactly what SEO is and how it’s used. We’ve often met with clients who were under the impression that SEO was just part of the website building process. It isn’t, it’s something completely different .
This article will explain SEO clearly and highlight the differences between it and web development.
Why is SEO important for a website?
Nowadays conducting business on the web has become an important part of our lives. If you’re not taking advantage of the Internet for your business the chances are that you’re losing out to competitors that are. However, simply having a website isn’t enough. You need to ensure that people find your business when they’re searching for the products or services you provide.
This is where SEO comes in. It helps your site achieve a high ranking in search engine results pages. You can have the best website in the world, but if no-one knows about it, it’s not providing you with any value or business. Research shows that 70% of web users click on the natural listing, sometimes called organic listing, links in Google, rather than the paid for box style ads that appear down the right side of the page. You need ensure that each and every time a user searches on-line for something related to your business they see your site.
SEO – what it’s not
SEO isn’t a technical solution, it’s not a quick, simple fix. You don’t even need to be a web designer or developer in order to understand it (though it does help). There are many companies that offer guarantees to get you to the top of Google in 24 hours. This is not SEO either. SEO is not something you can switch on or off, nor is it something that can either be right or wrong. SEO cannot have a fixed end date. No, SEO is none of these things.
So what is SEO?
SEO is a process. It’s a combination of research, analysis, technical changes and promotional work. It’s an on-going series of investigations, adjustments and progression.
In order to achieve good results for your site and get it listed highly in the search engine rankings several things need to happen:
- Your site needs to identify and be relevant for the keywords or phrases that the users search for in relation to your business.
- Your site needs to be listed in the search engine’s index, if it’s not then it doesn’t matter how well it’s written or how much SEO has been done, you won’t show up.
- You need to be ‘trusted’ by the search engines, links back to your website from other websites indicate a level of trust to sites such as Google.
- Your site needs to be kept up to date, in order to ensure it remains relevant. If your competitor is offering more current and relevant information than you then they may be listed above you and you could lose business to them.
The SEO process takes all of these factors into account. Through research patterns can be identified and thus action can be taken and results achieved.
SEO is an on-going process
The main difference between website design/development and SEO is that SEO is an on-going process. When you request a quotation for a website to be designed you will usually specify a project deadline, a date by which the website will be completed and be live on the web. This is where the design project ends. SEO begins after this and carries on for as long as you need your website to bring in business for you.
SEO is a type of marketing, but it differs from traditional marketing methods because it’s not fixed term paid for advertising (though the main goal of SEO is to promote your site and get it noticed). Business owners sometimes have difficulty understanding this concept, because SEO can yield more business like advertising can. However, as mentioned earlier we want to use SEO to get your site listed in the organic links in Google, because 70% of web users click on these links rather than the paid for box advertisements.
It takes time and commitment
SEO requires a commitment from the site owner too. You need to spread the word about yourwebsite. Ensuring that your website appears on all of your printed material, emails and advertisements in the media is a no-brainer. In addition to this, posting on forums related to your business and making sure you include your website address in the post, contacting suppliers asking them to post a link on their site to yours and joining networking sites such as LinkedIn are good ways to promote your site and build trust with Google.
Monitoring your site’s hits and visitor trends
This is vitally important, but is often overlooked or ignored by smaller businesses. There is no point in paying for SEO services if you’re not monitoring the results. SEO servcies are geared towards attracting more business by increasing the visibility and the amount of hits your website gets from users. If you’re not monitoring the number of hits your site receives each month you will have no way of knowing whether you’re gaining any benefits.
Also, by monitoring the ways that users interact with sites you can identify areas that may need to be changed. For example, you’ve got your site ranked nice and highly in Google and the number of hits you’re now receiving is significantly more than before you had SEO services. By looking at your website statistics you discover that the page most users leave on when visiting your site is your prices page and you’re not gaining any additional enquiries or sales from your site. This pattern of events lets you know that something is wrong on that page. Your prices may be too high, or alternatively they may be too low (believe me I’ve seen this happen lots of times, businesses lose sales because their prices are too low and therefore do not appear to be of good enough quality for their potential buyers.).
Of course there are many more things that are considered and implemented by SEO service providers, but implementing the ones I’ve mentioned above will certainly help out any site. An SEO expert will stay on top of changes in web user usage and the changes that search engines themselves make to the algorithms they use to determine where sites should be listed in their results.
In conclusion
This article has hopefully given you a clearer understanding of where SEO services differ from web design services. If you would like to find out more about the SEO services we offer, you can visit our SEO Services page. Alternatively, you can email or call us to discuss your requirements.