SEO or Search Engine Optimisation – What is that?
You’ve probably heard the term SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) before, it’s one of those things that everyone seems to have an opinion on and it’s incredibly frustrating to most.
Quite simply, it’s all about your website ranking in search engines.
Google, the biggest and most used by far of the search engines, has one main task:
“To return the most relevant information for a given search term”.
The way it does that is via algorithms that “run-off” and search the internet for content that most relate to the given search term.
What’s a search term? It’s the word, or more likely, a phrase that someone types into the Google search bar. So if you type “purple fairy widgets” into the Google search bar, it will find as many pages as it can that relate to that.
How does it know? Google’s algorithm looks at the code that makes up each web page and determines what that page is about. So, using our “purple fairy widget” example, is the term purple fairy widget:
- Appearing in the text?
- Highlighted within the text i.e. in Bold or italics?
- Used in the headings on the page?
- In the pages URL?
- Is it in the page title?
- Are there images of purple fairy widgets? Etc. etc.
If there are, then Googles algorithm determines in what order the pages it’s found should be displayed to you, with the most relevant in the number 1 spot.
I want to be No.1? Of course you do and so does everyone else! First, though, you need to know what search term your potential clients are likely to type into Google’s search bar if they are looking for a business or service like yours. Do a bit of brainstorming and ask friends and family etc. what they’d type. Then, when you’ve got a few suggestions, you need to do some keyword research to find out how many people use each term.
So, for example, if you’re a baker in Oxford you’d think of search terms like “baker Oxford” “Oxford baker” “bakery Oxford” “Cakes Oxford” “bread Oxford” terms like that. But which one is used the most? Only keyword research can tell you (and sometimes it changes over time).
Once you know which search term is used the most, you can target your website or website page toward it.
Search Engine Optimisation is not a one-stop fix. It needs adjustment over time as the web is a constantly evolving place, Google is constantly updating its algorithm and all of your competitors are likely to be (or at least should be) updating their websites. Plus, search terms can change over time.
Semrush carried out a ranking factors study recently and found the following SEO ranking factors:
SEO is best done over time, minor tweaks here and there, but, most importantly, it needs monitoring. Write down or screenshot changes, then see how they affect your ranking. If your ranking goes down, change it back to how it was, then change something else and see what effect that has.
Here at Web SEO Assist, we can help you with your website ranking and offer a FREE home page audit up until the end of this year. Just click here to find out more…
Well, that’s it until next week.
If you have anything you’d like me to explain in a blog, drop me an email.
Best wishes
We build WordPress websites primarily for local businesses in the Oxfordshire area. If you’d like to get in touch to see how I can help your business to get online or improve its online presence, then drop me an email: mail@webseoassist.co.uk
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