What is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Search engine optimisation (SEO) refers to techniques used to gain high rankings in the natural or free search engine listing (i.e. on the left hand side of the results page).  Obtaining high positions for searches relevant to your business has the potential to generate large volumes of web traffic.  Consequently, obtaining high rankings for popular phrases is hugely competitive.

How Search Engines Work

In order to understand how to optimise a website, it is first important to know a little bit about how search engines work.

Ever wondered how a search engine manages to search the whole web at lightening fast speed?  Well, the answer is it has done its homework.  When a search engine is asked to find results for a query, it searches not the web itself, but a database which it has built of the content of the web known as its index.  Search engines such as Google, update their index on a daily basis by using special software known as spiders which navigate the web and record their findings.

When a search engine is asked to produce results, they search their index using a special methodology, known as the search engine’s algorithm, to produce a list of results which are relevant to the searchers query.

How do I Optimise My Website?

As the search engine’s algorithm determines the order of the search results, how they work is the subject of frenzied speculation.  Whilst the exact nature of the major search engines’ algorithms is only known to the engineers at places like Google and Yahoo, the main ranking factors which they use are well established.

On page factors. Search engines assess the content of a page to establish its relevance to a particular search term.  This will involve looking at factors such as the frequency and position of a term and the overall context of the site.

Off page factors.  Google’s great insight was to use the quantity and quality of incoming links to a site as a measure of that site’s authority. Broadly speaking, and all other things being equal, a site with more incoming links will perform better in the search results.  Search engines also look at the context and content of the linking site to decide how much weighting to give an incoming link.

Search engine optimisation is the process of improving both on page and off page factors to gain higher search engine rankings and hence website traffic and sales.

What is Opportunity (and cost) for my Company?

Search engine traffic is experiencing strong growth and search engines such as Google are quickly becoming the gateway to the web.  Improving the search engine performance of a website can be a very cost effective way to improve traffic and generate sales.

On the flip side, search engine optimisation can be a time consuming business and the results are usually not seen for several months.  These facts lead many businesses to concentrate on paid search programs such as Google Adwords.  However, improving natural search engine performance is an excellent long term strategy for growing an online business