For most people, search engine optimisation (SEO) is somewhat of a black art – they know they need to address it in order to get the most free traffic they possibly can, but they really have no clue what it really is or how to do it.
In essence, SEO is about helping the search engines understand that you have quality content on the topics (keywords) that you want to be found for. After all, the search engines really just want to give people the most relevant, high quality content they can for the term the user searched on – your aim is to convince them that content is yours (so that they will send you targeted web traffic).
Many will tell you that it is impossible to keep up with what the search engines want, but the good news is that getting your site ranked on the first page of Google (and other search engines) for your selected keywords rally just boils down to two basic factors:
- Good quality fresh content on your site
- Good quantity and quality of incoming links
Both of these factors require ongoing attention in order for your site to rise to the top of the search engines – and stay there.
Of course, this is a very simplistic view of how to ensure your site is seen by people looking for what you have to offer.
There are some additional factors in the way your site is set up, but these are generally fairly easily addressed. Our SEO Site Strategy will identify any issues in this area and offer recommendations for correcting them.
Picking the right keywords to target is also critical. Pick the wrong ones and you may never get to the top of the search engines; or you may get to the top and still get no additional traffic; or, probably worst of all, you could get to the top of the search engines and receive plenty of traffic, but still have no additional sales (because the selected keyword is used by “tyre kickers” not buyers).
Basically, the right keywords = targeted web traffic, the wrong keywords = a waste of time and/or money. Our SEO Site Review will help you identify the keywords that you should be going after for maximum return.
Then there are people who will say you need to use the latest and greatest tricks to ensure Google indexes your content in a favourable way. At the end of the day, Google is getting smarter all the time, and will quickly weed out sites trying to use such “back doors”. All you really need to do is keep adding good quality content that would be of interest to someone searching on your chosen keyword(s).
By far the most important part of the equation is the link building. Put simply, Google believes that if lots of sites link to your content, then it must mean that a lot of people think your content is valuable (at least on that subject). However, gone are the days when Google could be fooled by simply submitting your link to a link farm, who then display it on thousands of unrelated sites. These days, Google wants to see links from relevant sites.
There is nothing complicated about finding such relevant sites and creating the links, but it is rather time consuming. If you would rather spend your time focusing on building your business and providing great content to your prospects and clients, then our SEO Head Start and SEO Domination packages are ideal for you.
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