It is no secret that long gone are the days when putting up a Web site would generate instant results. Nowadays much more needs to be done for a Web site to attract substantial traffic and realise its full potential. It’s for precisely this reason that the Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) industry has been growing rapidly in recent years.
Research has repeatedly shown that the vast majority of users concentrate on the first page of results only, largely ignoring the rest. Considering then that over 80% of Internet users will first turn to search engines to find Web sites, it becomes imperative for a Web site to rank well in the search engines if it is to be found.
SEO is the process of optimising a site to enable it to prominently feature in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). SEO involves significantly more than filling a Web site with keywords; it is actually an elaborate process involving the management of both on-site elements (content, keywords and design) and off-site elements (external links), and these are discussed below.
Content
Information is the foundation of the Web. Every site needs solid, useful, well-written content that offers value to its visitors. Search engines use complex algorithms to rate a site’s content against other sites containing similar content, so good quality content is vital; achieving good rankings with low valued content is impossible.
Keywords
This is best known element of SEO, and the most delicate. The keywords that users are most likely to type in when searching for what you have on offer need to be carefully identified and properly positioned within the site. There is a fine balance between unused and overused terms, and finding that balance requires a combination of experience, skill and knowledge.
Once the most appropriate keywords have been identified they need to be positioned in all the right places. Again specialist knowledge is required here in order to properly optimise each page whilst adhering to the search engines’ guidelines, and avoiding practices that could have adverse results (sites are regularly banned from certain search engines through such misuse).
Design
The design and structure of a Web site is also important as an inexperienced design can hinder search engines indexing a site, or even prevent it altogether. Building search engine friendly Web sites is not difficult but again requires a combination of experience skill and knowledge, and is always a good practice since such sites are generally more usable and accessible than non search engine friendly sites.
External Links
Finally the importance of links from other sites pointing to your Web site must not be overlooked. Apart from the direct traffic that these links can generate, they are also counted by the search engines as ‘votes’ for your Web site. It is usually the case that the more links pointing to a Web site the better; however, not all links carry the same value. Search engines go to elaborate lengths to ascertain the value of each link pointing to your site, so having a handful of selected links from relevant and well respected Web sites with high quality content is better than having hundreds of links from irrelevant Web sites.
For more information, or to request a Web site audit please contact us at enquiries@cyber-media.co.uk.
