Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is aimed at achieving the highest position possible in the organic listings on search engine results pages. Typically this is referred to as natural or organic search results.
Search Engine Optimisation is not Paid Search Marketing, and a site’s position in organic search has no bearing on its performance in Paid Search Marketing.Paid Search Marketing is often referred to as Pay Per Click (PPC).
While the returns of Paid Search Marketing can be greater than that of the investment in SEO in the short term, this does not constitute a viable long term strategy. A good organic position in search engine results will deliver clicks to a website for free.
A good Search Engine Optimisation strategy is not instant, and does not guarantee success. SEO is an ongoing activity, and will require regular tuning to maintain and improve a site’s ranking.
Elements of a good Search Engine Optimisation strategy should include some of the following:
Optimised Website
Websites that are designed for search engines work better than poorly designed and coded websites. An optimised website should not affect your website design and must include a search engine friendly site structure. This spreads and builds link equity to internal pages and allows them to rank better over a prolonged period.
Website optimisation also includes:
- Creating original content
- Live site map
- Keyword optimisation (the correct use of keywords throughout your website)
- Optimum use of HTML and meta tags
Article writing
Specifically written SEO Articles using the correct keywords that are published online enable you to get back links, drive traffic, and promote your products and services online. Today, strong on-site web copy and targeted off-site article marketing are the cornerstones of any Search Engine Optimisation program.
Articles are similar to blogs, however, they are specifically written on a subject to help promote certain keywords, products and services associated with your website.
Link Building
Link Building is a Search Engine Optimisation technique which entails sourcing high quality, one-way links for your own website to link into. Each link obtained is counted as a 'vote' for your site by the search engines and in turn this boosts rankings for search phrases within the body of the links (known in the Search Engine Optimisation world as 'Anchor Text'). The quality of these links is absolutely crucial in order to get a positive response from the search engines
Link building should be a mixture of organic and manufactured links, it’s important to vary your anchor text in your link building or Google might respond negatively.
Social Media / Blogging
Blogging can drive thousands of visitors to your site if you do it properly and for SEO benefits is a long term commitment. Blogs let you add focused content to your website easily and allow visitors to easily interact with you via comments.
A blog could be used to keep up with industry news, company news, and offer beginner guides and how to articles. The more you put into a blog the more you will get out of it and successful bloggers live in their blogs.
Social media is cornerstone search engine optimisation these days. Social media sites are sites where people hang out online, interact, and more importantly for us share information of interest.
There are many social media experts out there - anyone can make friends online - not everybody can make the right friends and leverage that for the benefit of business in a viral manner.
