What Is SEO?

Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO, is a process put into place to help a website to gain visibility within search engines, directing more traffic to the site by allowing it to rank highly in search results. Users rarely venture past the first three pages of results when searching for information, products or services - beyond page ten, you are as good as invisible. SEO helps a website to appear higher within results, based on specific, targeted keywords and phrases relating to the site's content. There are various different techniques that can be employed to ensure higher search ranking results for your website, which will produce better brand awareness, visibility and most importantly, sales. SEO is made up of a combination of aspects that effect the way a website is seen by search engines like Google, which then decide where the pages should be ranked when a user searches for relevant words and phrases. SEO uses specially targeted keywords and phrases which relate closely to the types of queries users will type in to find your website, or those like it. By appearing higher on search results, your website will be more likely to receive higher amounts of traffic. Other elements to SEO include its visibility - making them search-friendly so that the search engine 'spiders' can crawl them more easily. Links are important too - distributing your content elsewhere on the internet, and encouraging others to link to your website increases your site's 'authority' and raises it higher within rankings. There's plenty of basic SEO that any website owner can use, but for the best results, it's a good idea to call in the experience and expertise of a professional internet marketing company. SEO can help with design, content and usability, making your website more appealing to customers as well as search engines. By boosting the ranking of your site, and getting it on the first result page (SERP) of a query, customers are more likely to click through to your site. It is important to use an internet marketing company who use organic, ethical Search Engine Optimisation methods to produce high ranking listings. Unethical, or 'black hat' techniques can result in your website being penalised by search engines, and should always be avoided. SEO is an important aspect of any online business, and can be beneficial to your company, no matter how large or small. It can increase site traffic, visibility online, ROI and your business brand's strength.