SEO

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

Introduction

With the explosive growth of the internet over the last decade and the increasing complexity of website technologies, webmasters and other people responsible for individual and corporate websites need to be more aware than ever of the importance of such technologies as Search Engine Optimization.

What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimization is a name for a variety of methods by which the pages of a website are optimized in such a way as to increase the rankings of web pages in the listings of various search engines.  Fundamentally, therefore, search engine optimization is a means of increasing a website’s position in search engine rankings in order to increase the volume of traffic to the website.

Therefore, we can see clearly that search engine optimization is not just a technical or design issue, but a vital component in the marketing strategy of a website.

Why is SEO important?

Numerous studies over the years have shown that most people who are looking for information through a search engine are unlikely to go beyond the second page of listings. Nowadays almost every business has a website, and if a company is trading in an area of business with many competitors, then it can be difficult for the company’s name and products to become well known or more visible without a high listing in search engine rankings. This is the point at which search engine optimization becomes not just an internet technique, but also a valuable business tool in raising the profile of the company as well as drawing more traffic to the company’s website.

How do I use SEO to improve my website?

Optimizing a website for search engines used to be a matter of having the keywords that you wished to appear in as many pages as often as possible, although nowadays it is more nuanced. If, for example, your business is forklift truck hire, then it is important that the phrase ‘fork lift truck hire’ be on not all of your pages, but it has to be in every sentence. The search engines may view that as keyword stuffing, which is often penalized with lower rankings.

A very important component of search engine optimization is the number of external links from other websites linking into your website, these external links being seen to show value by their presence.