What is SEO, and what are the benefits?

So what is SEO?  SEO is the acronym for Search Engine Optimisation.  SEO in it’s purest form is optimising of a website to help it rank better on search engines such as Google and Bing.  Most websites will be specifically targeted towards key subjects and normally a geographical area.  SEO is the technique you apply to your website to help improve the visibility of your website to search engines.  Keywords, or key terms are the actual words or phrases people type into search engines.

So, for example if you are a cinema in Cambridge, the keywords you would want to target would be ‘Cambridge Cinema’ or ‘Cinema in Cambridge’, please note the difference in these keywords. Google will give different results even on small variations like this example.  So make sure that you research your keywords, and you have relevant and unique content (no copying and pasting form a competitor’s website!) to the topic you want to appear.

You can break SEO down into two different elements:

On-Page SEO

On-Page SEO takes place actually on your website.  Using correct tags and targeting your tags such as page title, URL, header tags, description, etc can have a dramatic effect on how search engines view your website.  You are essentially using this tags to say to the search engines “Hey Google, this is what my page is all about”.  Getting this right is absolutely paramount in making sure your website ranks for the correct search terms.

Off-Page SEO

Off-Page SEO takes place off of your website in the world wide web.  The main uses of off-page SEO are to give your website authority.  This is done by creating in-bound links from other websites that are relevant to the topic that your page is about.  Remember to bear in mind quality over quantity every time.  One link from the BBC website would be worth much more than millions of links from poor quality unrelated websites.  Links should be earned with quality content, and not bought.  An example of a link (or hyperlink) from a site, would be this:  One Day Website – This hyper link will take you to another of our websites, and Google will give that site authority because of this.

The Benefits of SEO

Getting your website to the top of the search engines should be at the forefront of any businesses marketing strategy.  You are putting your website in front of exactly the right people.  You do not search for something if you have no interest in that topic.  Getting up the search rankings will increase the visitors that come to your website, and therefore naturally convert into more paying customers for your product or services.

If you would like to find out how we can help your business, call us on 0207 101 3990 or via our contact page.

Thank you for taking the time to read our ‘What is SEO’ post, and please share this article with the world.

David Hodder