SEO is often called Organic or Natural Search, Web or Search Optimisation. It is the method used to get your website listed in the top search results of Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft’s Bing where they will appear on the left hand side of the page and which are distinctly different from Sponsored Links.
There are no media costs as with PPC, so the advertiser is not charged when a user clicks on the SEO links. The position your advert reaches in the search engine listings depends on a number of criteria as adjudged by the relevant search engine.
These criteria include but not exhaustively, the website structure and content, the number and quality of links to your website from other websites/blogs and as the algorithm sees; Trust, Authority, Reputation, Page Rank and High Quality.
“Search Engine Optimisation is the skill of convincing Google (and other search engines like Yahoo! and MSN’s Bing) that a website should be placed at the most prominent position of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) at the point that someone types a phrase into the search engine Search Box and hits ‘SEARCH’.”
This skill is developed by understanding the SEO guidelines that Search Engines provide and ensuring that those SEO guidelines are adhered to. Further, by interpreting these guidelines to suit a specific website, then competitive advantage can be gained.
Optimising a website so that it ranks high for a specific keyword phrase can be broken out into two key areas, namely On-page and Off-page.
On-page optimization
On-page SEO focuses on the website itself; the Code, page Structure, URL format, Navigation etc. Ensuring that the on-page elements are optimised is crucial to the success of the SEO campaign.
This forms the foundation of the process and develops the website architecture in a way that will assist the flow of information when a Search Engine ‘Spider’ crawls the website and uses its algorithm to rank your website pages against any given keyword phrase.
Off-page optimization
Off-page SEO refers to the process of attracting links from other websites that point at your website. These links can be thought of as a vote from the originating website that the Search Engines may consider in their algorithm which then determines the rank you achieve in the SERP.
There is a variety of methods to attract these links. By writing articles of interest for example, you will attract on-line publishers who may publish that article and reference your website as a link. Other methods include submitting your website to relevant Directories.
For more information on how we would add value to your SEO Campaign, contact us or call us on 0845 459 0558.
