You’ve probably heard the words “search engine optimisation” or “SEO” and thought, “I know I probably need it but have no idea why,” or even “you’re just trying to sell me something.”
You need it because it means more traffic to your website and more money into your business - and with almost 50% of Australians shopping online and even more researching professional services, you need the competitive edge.
What is SEO?
SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimisation and it basically means making your website stand out to internet search engines so that more people find their way to your website.
Often, people using search engines like Google or Bing enter a search term or question. Using a complicated algorithm, these search engines return the results they think are most useful and appropriate.
The way search engines gather all this information is by using crawlers to explore the internet, recording anything they find to their indexes. This means that when you do an internet search, your search engine is actually finding results from its index, rather than the live web. Once they’ve seen content, they often don’t return.
The things these magic little crawlers are looking for, like keyword density and meta tags, help them understand what your page is about, as well as the pages linked to your content so they can determine (along with lots of other things) which websites and pages have the most authority on a subject.
Optimising your website content doesn’t have to be difficult, it just needs some thought.
To help our friends the crawlers to find your website, you need to make sure:
- They can find you
- They easily know what your website is about
- They believe the information contained on your website
It’s about organising the information on your site so it’s easily presented to users searching for it. More and more, this is about producing content for real life people. It’s understanding what your audience is looking for and how (either by doing keyword research or even asking them), and using these keywords in a natural and useful way. It also means promoting this content so it gets shared by and to others (increasing your authority).
When SEO is working your search ranking will improve, more people will find their way to your website and that means more revenue in your pocket. Everyone needs more eyes on their website – often your first impression and best marketing tool – SEO is a cost-effective way of increasing your online presence.
