Before we jump into the question what is search engine optimisation (SEO), let’s define what a search engine is.
Search engines are the bots that help you make sense of the world wide web. There are a couple of major players in this field, namely Google and Bing. Google alone answers 3.5 billion search queries daily! And this is predicted to rise every as year more and more people turn to Google to find what they need.
When you hear business owners and marketers talk about search engine optimisation (SEO for short) they’re talking about the way search results are ranked by the search engine.
You see, certain factors influence how results are ranked. And if you’re a business owner with a website, it’s critical to know how you can get ranked higher up the search results.
Think about your own search behaviour for a minute:
• Do you ever click beyond page 1 of the results list?
• Do you ever scroll to the very bottom of the page of results?
• Do you click on the top 3 results on the page?
Chances are you (along with 90% of other users) are only looking at the first page of Google results. In fact, statistics show that if you are in the top 3 results you’ll get heaps more people clicking on your business.
So, you can see why business owners are concerned about their search engine ranking position (SERP).
Search engines are bots and bots like to work in a logical sequence. This means they are programmed to use a series of checks when they crawl through your website.
Sounds logical right?
It is. And the great thing about that is if you know what the bot is checking for, you can make your website tick more boxes. Ticking those boxes is what we call optimising for search.
Simple.
The next question on your lips should be…
This is the million dollar question! Although many experts would have you believe it’s super complex, it doesn’t have to be.
• Write content your readers will love
• Add quality links to your website
• Use the keywords searchers are typing into Google
Google ‘reads’ every word of your website. This is called crawling, from here your content is indexed according to how relevant it is.
Links can go two ways, they can come in to your website from other websites and they can go out from your website to other sites. These are categorised as inbound and outbound links. And it’s the inbound links that help your SEO.
Keywords are just the words and phrases searchers are typing into Google when they are looking for answers. It’s important to match these with the content in your site, especially in your page titles.
A quick tip...
One quick and easy way to get links to your website is to list with quality directories like The Goldfields Key (find out more about SEO benefits here) . The great benefit is that it’s completely FREE and provides you with an instant inbound link, which ticks off one of your SEO boxes for Google!
Learn more about listing your business.
