SEO is FREE and can have a huge impact on the performance of your website. No surprises then when the UK Search Engine Marketing Benchmark Report 2009 found that 55% of organisations are increasing their search engine optimisation budgets, the most likely increase in comparison to paid search and social media marketing.
SEO is basically making sure that your website ranks higher up in search engines such as Google. The higher your page rank = the more likely you are to get seen. So why is this important? I can honestly say I have met companies that have great products/ services that are genuinely needed by their target markets so why weren’t their phones ringing off the hook?
Simple – they have the product, the marketing, the potential – but the customer cannot see it! You can create a great website but if you cannot be found in a search engine and are not on the first 3 pages then chances are that you will not get a visitor to your website.
See for yourself – Are you a hairdresser in Birmingham? – go to Google and type in Hairdresser in Birmingham. If your on the first page of Google great, Number 1 position – fantastic, if your on page 55 – forget about it.
SEM is different to SEO. SEM is also known as Search Engine Marketing – these are the sponsored results in Google stretching from the top down to the right hand side of the page. These results are Google adverts which are paid for by advertisers on a Pay Per Click basis.
The organic search is the body of the Google search i.e all the results which have not been paid for. It is these search results which create the market for website optimisation.
It has been said that paid search gets around 30% of the clicks in comparison to organic search which gets 70%. Organic search results are credible as Google shows these results in order of relevancy. In order to do this Google has to analyse your website using Googlebots (small internet spiders that crawl over your web pages and collect information).
So what does Google look for?
There are two things, firstly, on page content.
Keywords are..wait for it -> KEY! It is important to choose keywords that are commonly searched for and relevant to your product/service AND are not being used by your competitors that much. So remember, high volume, high relevancy and low competition.
Do keyword research – do you know what customers type in to Google when they are looking for your service?
You can conduct in-house research so for example when somebody puts ‘internet’ into the ‘where did you hear about us section’ ask them to recall what they typed in. You can also use the Google AdWords Keyword Tool which is a free service that shows you all the related terms to your search term and also shows you the search volume (the number of people that have used this term)
Secondly Google looks for off page content. Google will rank your website from 1-10 to determine how important your website is. You can improve your page rank through two things:
Inbound links – web pages that link to your website i.e. direct traffic to your content. You can do this by asking a partnering organisation to post a link on their website which directs people to yours. This is a credible form of referral.
Link Anchor Text – this is text that links people back to your website so for example – if you are looking for a professional and affordable web design – look no further!
Links are very important – they are online recommendations and are great at creating online word of mouth. Both Keywords and Links are the building blocks of SEO. Once you know how to do it you can make a start and aim to be Number 1 in Google. SEO is great for putting you in front of your customers – and at a time when they need you most! The great thing is – IT’S FREE!.
