Online Marketing 101 – Part 3: Online advertising SEO

Ahh, Search Engine Optimisation, the holy grail of online marketing! There are literally hundreds of thousands of SEO companies in the world, all competing for the elusive ‘first page’ google results on high volume keyword searches.

If those last few phrases didn’t really make sense to you, check back at part one and part two of this Online Marketing 101 Series. In part three, we’re going to give you a very basic overview of what search engine optimisation is and why it is important for your business.

What is search engine optimisation?

Search engine optimisation (or SEO) for short is the collection of activities designed to make a page or website show up higher in search results. For instance, when someone types in ‘website design’ into a search box, the search engine chooses 10 websites to display and ranks those websites in order from 1 to 10. Ensuring that a particular website ranks as close to number 1 as possible is the goal of all search engine optimisation services.

How does it work?

Out of necessity, search engines never reveal how they decide to rank results. A search engine uses an algorithm, a complex set of instructions for a computer, to make this decision. It takes into account hundreds of factors including the age of the website, how often content is updated, the number of times the keyword appears on the page, the number of other pages that link to that page and what words are used when a website does link to that page, just to name a few. To make it even more difficult, the algorithms used by the search engines are continually updated. Recently, rumours suggest that social media is playing a bigger part in how websites and articles are ranked.

This isn’t to say everyone is flying completely blind. There are always clues given by search engines as to what confirms a site is legitimate and simple trial and error reveals certain techniques that seem to work. Speculation and theories around how to ‘do SEO’ are many and varied. Entire conferences, books, websites and seminars are dedicated to the subject. A good search engine optimisation consultant will have spent thousands of hours learning what they know.

A search engine optimisation company will usually work with their clients to identify relevant keywords that have high traffic – ie: many people are using that keyword to search – but low competition levels – ie: not many businesses are using that keyword in their web pages. Focus is also making a web page authoritative and relevant to the search engines so that it can stand out in more competitive areas.

Why is it important?

Website search engine optimisation is a key online marketing strategy for a number of reasons:

• Once a page is listed (or ranked) highly, it will receive a lot of visitors every day without the website owner paying a cent. How many visitors depends on the number of searches on that keyword and whether the website appears relevant to people searching with that keyword. For instance, the Complete Cloud website would receive a lot of clicks about ‘shared web hosting’ but not so many about ‘glittery shoes’.
• It is generally believed that a website coming up in the organic search results, as opposed to those paid advertisements above and on the side, are more trusted by internet browsers. This brand equity can be worth a lot when it comes to a customer’s decision whether to buy or not.
• Once a page is ranked highly, considering the right strategies continue to be employed, it will stay there for a while and cause other pages in the same website to rank highly.

Things to remember in an SEO strategy

• Search engine optimisation is a long-term focus. Getting a page ranked takes a very long time, particularly for competitive keywords.
• Keywords are king! The research taken to identify the right keywords will largely determine the success of an SEO strategy. They must be relevant to your business and target audience.
• Most companies contract in search engine optimisation specialists. However, remember there are many different theories on effective SEO. It’s important to go with a company who has a tried and tested process; ask them what their process is and ask to see relevant and recent results from current clients.
• Some search engine marketing techniques can actually hurt the ranking of your website. Beware of companies who seem to rely too heavily on back-linking, article syndicating and keyword stuffing.

Have more questions? Ask a trusted search engine optimisation specialist from Complete Cloud today.