Search Engine Optimisation – What is it?

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) refers to the act of altering a web page so that it becomes more “search engine friendly” for the purposes of obtaining higher search engine “free”, or “organic”, rankings. You can think of this as using SEO to provide what the search engines want to see.

By free rankings we are referring to the listings that come up for any search that have been indexed by a particular search engine as opposed to advertising that is placed on the search engine. Depending on the search engine you will generally see “paid” listings listed as “Sponsored Links”.

Ultimately the goal of improving your search engine rankings is to increase the number of visitors, or your web site’s traffic, thus improving the chance of sales, or whatever other goal/purpose your web site sets out to achieve.

“Free” listings are based on the results that a search engine receives from its spider/crawler/robot. These pass information about your web site back to the search engine that can ultimately determine your ranking. You can tell if a search engines robot has visited your site by looking at your traffic statistics.

What Search Engines do You Use SEO to Target?

SEO can be a daunting task due to the complexities involved in having a web site/page rank well on many search engines. With that said, though, there are only a few search engines that you really need to worry about. The “big three” being Google, Yahoo & Bing. Each of these will have different “algorithms” to determine your ranking, so you need to manage your site in a way that can best suit them.

You may see people refer to having your site listed on hundreds of search engines, but often times most of the search engines are small and only constitute a tiny slice of the market. Also, some smaller search engines will pull results from the “big three”, so as long as your site ranks well on them, your listings on smaller search engines may naturally follow.

SEO Services.

SEO can often be intrinsically linked with SEO services. Someone providing SEO services will generally be offering specialist services to improve your search engine rankings. Before you put your hand in your pocket and enlist the services of a SEO specialist there are a few points to consider:

• You have a right to get your web developer to build your site so that it is search engine friendly. This meaning that the web site you have built is able to be indexed by the search engines, and is not built in such a way that the search engines have trouble indexing it or cannot index it at all.
• You need to ensure a SEO specialist is using legitimate techniques, and not using techniques that could be interpreted as “search engine spamming”.
• The SEO specialist works on a “pay per result” basis. Many SEO specialists will promise results that are unable to be achieved while reliable services may charge a certain amount up front, then a remainder amount upon achieving the result they promise. At least with a service based on this model you can ensure that the SEO is backing themselves on achievable results and you’ll only pay a certain amount if they achieve those results.
• You have written good, unique, content for you web site that targets the keywords that users will be searching for.
• You are sure that your site has not been indexed or is not ranking well. Sometimes it can take months for a search engine to index your site, so you need not panic about ranking until you’re sure your site has actually been indexed.

So, now you know what SEO is, the implications it has for your web site and ins-and-outs of using a SEO service. For more information you can view our article on SEO tips.

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