SEO or search engine optimisation is a term that is being used more often these days. Many business owners are realising that simply having a website is not enough. You must have a website that is optimised for searches.
Search engine optimisation is the process of improving and updating your website so that it is keyword rich and full of relevant content. Every business has a product or a service that it sells. Based on your business there are certain words that customers will type into a search engine, such as Google, in order to find that product or service. If you have a website and you don’t mention the most important words, or rather keywords, then your site will not come up in the search.
Google decides whose website will appear first, second, third and so forth. It does this by ranking each website. And it does this by checking your site. Is your website functional, relevant and is the keyword there a number of times? It also checks if the website is old and not updated. If the website content is old, it thinks that the company is no longer actively trading so that site appears further down the search. If the site is regularly updated with informative blogs, content updates and product or service updates then it figures that the business must be trading actively. It should be your objective to keep your website fresh and current at all times. It should also be a platform where people can gain information that is relevant to what they are looking for. If the content on your site is not relevant, the search engine will notice this and drop your ranking.
Search engine optimisation can take a long time to show results. It is a slow process which Google values. Google wants to see that the website is maintained by a human being and not by a robot. They want to ensure the human touch gives all website owners a fair playing field. If Google notices that you are using any form of robotic tactics it can penalise your site by dropping the ranking or, worse, shut down your website altogether.
If you want to get ahead of the competition then search engine optimisation should form part of your marketing strategy.
