What is search engine optimisation (SEO)?
Search engine optimisation refers to improving the placement of your website in the organic search results of search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing for selected keyword phrases related to your business.
Before you can understand exactly what SEO is you need a background of how the search engines work and how they determine the rank of websites in the search results. You also need to understand the different between organic search engine results versus paid search engine results.
Each search engine uses a different set of criteria to determine exactly what sites are "most relevant" for each search term - these are known as the search engine ranking algorithms. The algorithms take many factors into account and in Google's case there are over 200 different factors that are used to determine a sites ranking. These algorithms are changed and updated constantly, so a large part of search engine optimisation is keeping up to date with the important factors in the search engine ranking algorithms.
Search engine optimisation or SEO involves making onsite changes to your website and completing offsite tasks to increase its search engine friendliness. The more the search engines "like" your website the more likely they are to rank it highly in the search results. The search engines try to determine and return the websites that will be most relevant and useful for each search completed. The more useful the results, the more people will use the search engine the more revenue the search engine will make. Read more about how search engines make revenue here.
Onsite SEO
Onsite search engine optimisation (SEO) incorporates any changes specifically to the websites content or the website code. There are hundreds of known aspects of both website coding and content that are believed to increase websites attractiveness to the search engines. These can include things such as:
- Website layout and structure
- Proper use of HTML tags
- Inclusion of keywords in prominent positions and content
- Any many, many more
Offsite SEO
Offsite SEO entails building your websites prominence on the wider web. The search engines not only look at your websites code and content to determine how it will rank in the search results but also how it appears in the broader online community.
A large part of search engine optimisation involves increasing your websites endorsement or recommendations by building inbound links from other websites to yours. Each inbound link that comes from another website to yours can be seen as a recommendation that your website is a valuable source of information and hence should be displayed more highly in the search results.
Generating inbound links to your website can be a difficult task and often happens naturally over time - however the process can often be expedited using various techniques such as:
- Make sure your website is listed in relevant, trustworthy online directories
- Creating valuable, interesting content that other websites will want to link to
- Being an active online community member on forums, blogs and online discussions
- Creating an active social media campaign and generating interest via social interaction
- Any many, many more
Successful SEO
A successful SEO campaign has to incorporate many different things including; in-depth keyword research to determine the keywords most relevant for your business, a balance of onsite and offsite SEO, A balance of user friendliness versus search engine friendliness, Ongoing review, testing and reporting as well as consistent offsite SEO activity.
Netregistry has a dedicated Online Marketing department which specialises in Search Engine Optimisation. If you would like Netregistry to manage your SEO campaign so you can focus on your business, learn more by clicking here or call 1300 638 734 to speak to one of our SEO specialists.
