Search Engine Optimisation or SEO is the business of maximising your visibility in search engines. Google and the others are trying to present the best results to every search query and they use hundreds of factors in deciding which pages are the best results. Getting into the top ten means scoring enough points in the various factors that contribute to ranking.
The factors the SE’s look at can be broadly grouped into those that indicate good content, good user experience and good authority.
If you have a crappy site and crappy content or your pages take too long to load then you are unlikely to be in Google’s top ten. Those are good places to start before worrying about the technical or authority sides of SEO.
Ask yourself honestly if your content (text, images and maybe video clips) are at least as good as the content of the other web pages currently ranking for your target search terms. If your content is not up to scratch then that’s where you need to start. By the way, while you are at it, make sure your text reads well without spelling and punctuation errors, even that sort of thing can work against you!
The technical side of SEO is all the stuff that needs to happen ‘behind’ your pages, it can be good use of page titles, good site structure and interlinking between pages, how your images are named and alt tagged, your page load time and various other factors all aimed at ensuring the search engine robots get a good picture of what you have to offer.
One of the ways to demonstrate authority to search engines is to have good comprehensive enough content to attract links to your site from other websites, particularly from other sites in your own industry. If you are trying to get good ranking for a search term that many others are also fighting for then you’ll need some authority to help your page rank well.
A good SEO consultant will help you optimise your site by looking at all these aspects of your site.
He’ll advise you on content, site structure, search terms to compete for and help you with how to build your authority too if you need it. He’ll also advise you on how to make the most of your sites traffic by looking at how to get more of your visitors become your clients.
If you would like to know more about SEO for your small business use the contact form to get in touch!