Search Engine Optimisation
Finding the right website can be like looking for a needle in a haystack
If you have a website on the internet, it isn’t worth much if people cannot find it by using a search engine such as Google, Yahoo! or Bing.
Search Engine Optimisation is exactly that: optimizing your website for search engines. This means that your website will rank better and more people will see it in their search engine results pages (SERPs). More people seeing your website and clicking through to it, means more business for you, whether you are a big company or a small guesthouse.
Optimise for search engines
Basic SEO is how search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo! create the list of sites that are shown when someone types a word or phrase into the search bar. For instance, type in “accommodation South Africa” and you will be presented with all sorts of websites describing what accommodation you can find in South Africa.
The search engine makes a determination as to a) what sites are relevant for the word(s) the user has typed in and b) in what order to list them. This decision is worked out by a complex algorithm, written into the search engine itself. So for the words “accommodation South Africa”, the search engine will first look at all the sites that it considers relevant to accommodation, and then display them in an order that it will calculate, based on a series of things.
How Does Search Engine Optimisation Work?
The algorithm that each search engine uses is a closely guarded secret, since if it were readily available it would quickly collapse; as everyone would make their sites rank as high on search and relevancy lists as possible using the algorithm’s criteria as a guide.
So for the most part people use an educated guess. Search engine companies like Google do give some hints, especially as to bad practice, and some aspects can be found by trial and error.
SEO writing and consulting companies work hard to find the happy medium which moves away from bad practice and still receives good relevancy and high listing placements. Various different tactics such as effective use of keywords, meta tags and external links all help with boosting a site’s ranking. There are a few more ways of doing this as well as other ways of attracting site traffic such as PPC (Pay-Per-Click advertisements), where one pays a fee to rank at the top, paid every time client clicks on your listing.
Social media has also come strongly onto the Internet traffic scene, and company websites that take part in it always rank higher and have a better exposure on the Internet in general. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is a newer term and we can assist with this as well.
This is a very short introduction to a vast topic: SEO. We assist clients in ranking better and higher up on search engine result pages, and can also help you formulate and execute a specific Internet advertisement campaigns (PPC and SEM).
Wouldn't it be nice to know that your customers are finding your site with ease?
