What is SEO?

SEO, or search engine optimisation, is the process of optimising a website to get targeted traffic by ranking high in search engines.

The higher you rank in search engines such as Google or Bing the more organic traffic and clicks you will get to your page. One way to do this is by using targeted key phrases.

The majority of links clicked to a page are often due to the page being on the first couple of pages of that particular search engine.

Some facts about this are;

• 30% of searchers tend to click on the first search result on the page
• 15% click on the second result
• 10% click on the third result.
• 2-5% click on the 4-10 positions which is a significant drop.

Marketers need to focus on getting more organic traffic through search engines and also well-targeted traffic that's interested in the content of the website. We are going to cover some of this now.

So why Is SEO Important?

What did you do before search engines came around? the way you got your information was through newspapers, books, phone books, magazines and other offline tools. Search engines changed the way we get information today and google gets over 3.5 billion searches every day.

As more and more people are looking to move to search engines such as Google and Bing to find products and services, it's important to rank for those terms that are relevant to your business.

For example; people are searching for 'Chocolate cake' on google are likely shopping for a chocolate cake to buy. If your website sells chocolate cake, then ranking on the first page of when someone types 'chocolate cake' will bring you lots of organic and targeted leads that are interested in your product.

The free traffic that comes through search engines is vital to growth for a business and this is something you should be looking towards. It does take time and resources to rank your web pages, especially on keywords, but it is worth the effort as you will have an ongoing source of leads in the future.

You want to keep creating more web pages and continue with SEO as this will increase your traffic over time which will allow your business to grow. SEO is one of the highest forms of ROI in the marketing game, so make sure you are putting some time into this.

How does SEO Work?

Want to know how to optimise your website to get targeted traffic from search engines?

We have created a quick overview of the process:

Step 1: Keyword Research

Before creating your SEO Campaign, do your research into keywords and phrases. These are the words and phrases you would type into Google when you are searching for something.

With Keyword research you can find popular keywords that are related to your products and services and that will bring in more leads and traffic for your targeted audience.

Ideally, you need to find keywords that will send targeted traffic to your site and to have enough 'search volume' to make it worth your effort.

There are many different tools to help you stay on top of this process, one of these is Keyword Planner which uses the data directly from google.

Create your account, start entering your keywords or phrases that you think would be popular for people to find your product or service. Keyword Planner will find the volume for that search and some related keywords with their volume as well.

It's best to try a few different types of keyword planning, as this program is designed for google ads and doesn't provide this for other search engines or long-tail keywords. Do your due diligence and find other tools which will help you discover more keywords

Some other popular keyword tools include:

• KW Finder
• SEM Rush
• Moz 

If you don't have time for this, then we can be of assistance and help you build a plan to make your SEO successful.

When you have done your keyword research you are ready to move on to the next stage and optimise your content.

Step 2: Content Creation & On-Page Optimisation

The next step is to create the content that you want to rank for. When you plan out your content creation, do a quick search and find out what content is ranking for the keywords you are targeting for. 

One thing you will see is the content that shows up on google and it may be different to what you initially thought. Look for the popular content and make a note of which ones you think you will be able to replicate, make better and put your spin on it.

Make sure your content is unique and high quality as this does affect the way you rank on search engines. Original, high-quality content is going to rank better and create more links and have a better chance of ranking higher.

Therefore, you need to have high-quality content and implement your keywords into this to get the best chance of ranking high.

The Title Tag and Meta Description

The meta title tag & meta description is an important HTML tag, as it tells search engines what your web page is about.

This is mainly what appears in search engine results.

Make sure you optimise your title tags and meta description by including your chosen keywords. Your chosen keywords should also appear on the actual web page at least once and write your content naturally, as all of these comes into play when google scapes your website.

Step 3: Off-Page Promotion and Link Building

After your website and content are all optimised, it's time to promote that content so you can be found. One important factor which will help you from the start is the number of inbound links to your site.

A link from another site is an approval that your site has good content and this will help you rank higher. The aim is to get high-quality backlinks to your website from trustworthy, reliable sources and this will shoot you up the ranks.

All links don't count the same, a link from a high authority, such as a Government link would be worth a lot more than a link from a smaller website.

You don't need to be well known to start getting links to your site. Website owners have a lot of options for getting links to their sites. Some link building tactics include blogger outreach, press coverage and reverse engineering competitor backlinks.

If you want to know more about this, then get in contact with us.

Step 4: User Experience & Conversion Rate Optimisation

Search engines are getting smarter every day and with the addition of AI, it's only going to get better and better. One thing which they can now track is user experience, so this is something that should be considered when developing your website.

Make sure the navigation for your website works correctly, it is optimised for speed, as if not you will lose visitors affecting your website ranking.

It's also important to remember that your website should be optimised for mobile, as local searches are conducted mainly through mobile devices and over a range of browsers, so don't just focus on one key area. It's about creating lots of little micro-strategies which make a big difference.

Try to avoid having too many advertisements on your site or having an excessive number of pop-ups.

Overall, there are many ways to improve your SEO, this just touches on a few of the main points. We will go over these in more depth with some of our other articles.

Good luck.