SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), which has attracted a negative perception over the past 10 years, so much so that some people have started using terms such as internet marketing, is a marketing activity which is still very important. SEO still has its place within a digital marketing strategy and shouldn’t be ignored if you want to succeed online.
SEO is the optimisation of a website to appeal to search engines, although some of the elements within SEO have a big impact on user interaction. By implementing an SEO strategy, you can increase your rankings within search engines and therefore obtain more traffic from organic search results.
SEO can be split into 2 key elements, on-page (technical, content & architecture) and off-page (links).
On-Page SEO
On-page SEO should be the foundation of any website that wants to improve its online visibility. Too often it is overlooked in favour of more complex techniques. On-page SEO is the improvement and optimisation of important on-page factors such as:
- Meta Information – Title tag and meta description, this is the information that search engines pull into their results.
- Heading Tags – these are the headings on your website page.
- Content – on-page optimisation for keywords.
- Site / URL structure –the flow of the website (e.g. home/category/products)
- Site Speed – the time it takes your website to load.
Off-Page SEO
Off-page SEO are aspects which are judged by search engines to impact your website but are external from it. It is these factors which have given SEO a bad name due to low-quality link building. Off-page SEO is still important, and although link building as a term is frowned upon, it is still required. Off-page SEO has evolved over the past 5 years due to changes in search algorithms, but it still includes things like:
- Link Building / Outreach / Earned Media
- Digital PR
- Social Media
- Brand Reputation
How Do Search Engines Work?
To ensure your SEO strategies are going to work, you need to understand how search engines work.
They use algorithms that are made up of 100’s of different factors, before using robots (also known as spiders) to crawl your website to establish what your site is relevant to. Based upon what the crawlers find, your website is shown on search engine results pages in a position which is derived from how relevant your website is for the term that is searched.
The higher your website ranks, the more visitors you will receive which in turn should turn into brand value leads or sales. The better your website is optimised, the higher you should rank.