Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Introduction

Why do SEO?

If you own or operate one of the following websites, SEO is critical, you cannot afford not to SEO:

• Aggregator type websites which earn commissions from referrals
• Information type websites which rely on advertising
• Any websites which sells online products in volume with low margins online

This is the case because the above sites could not afford to purchase the required traffic and remain profitable, they have to get lots of cheap, relevant traffic from search engines. All other onlines business models will find SEO important, but the ROI to paid search and other forms of marketing will alwasy come into the mix.

Benefits of SEO

• Relevant traffic from search engine users with a high potential for conversion
• Websites that rank well in search engines are considered more trustworthy by users
• Ensures you incorporate good usability and accessibility principles into your website
• Increased brand visibility and in relation to key products or search terms

What is SEO?

SEO is the process of improving search engine traffic to your website for relevant keyword search phrases through organic rankings, i.e. not paid. The higher a website ranks in a SERP (Search Engine Result Page) the more traffic it will receive.

SEO includes not only website rankings but also image, video, news, blogs and social network rankings.

Optimising a website for search primarly includes the following, at a very high level:

• Editing content and HTML to be more search engine friendly
• Building links, internally and externally
• Getting your website indexed, i.e. included in the search engine index

What SEO is not!

SEO is not a magic bullet, it requires detailed research, analysis and most likely changes to your website in an iterative approach. In certain competitive industries, to rank well you will most likely need to engage a specialist or consultant to advise you.

Search engines also have rules which apply to deceptive behaviour by webmasters, or more commonly called spam. The penalties for spamming a search engine can range from a ranking penalty to exclusion from the search engine index.

The Search Engines

While there are numerous search engines, the most significant are Google, Yahoo and Bing. Bing recently purchased Yahoo Search, making Ask the 3rd largest search engine with less than a 1% share globally. Official stats put Google around 70%-90% of search in most countries other than China, Japan, South korea, Russia and the Czech Republic where Baidu, Yahoo Japan, Yandex and Seznam dominate. In Australia for example, Google has in excess of 90% per Hitwise, including Google.com and Google.com.au. So when starting your SEO, consider which search engine will maximise relevant traffic to your website.

Uncertain where to start this process?

Want to, or need to SEO but uncertain where to start or been burnt by an unethical provider in the past? Make sure you read out information on SEO as well as how to select a vendor and SEO training, and then work through our SEO methodology, which uses the Professional Services Online KADS Methodology to help you deliver.