So you’ve started your business, you’ve built your website and you’re ready to trade online, but where are the customers you thought would be knocking on your virtual door?
Perhaps they got lost, perhaps they are on their way or perhaps they don’t know you exist. If you didn’t factor search engine optimisation into your website build, we’re willing to put money on the latter.
Search engine optimisation, or SEO for short, is the process of improving the ranking of your website on the major search engines. You might use specific keywords in your website content, SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is the process of improving your website’s ranking on the search engines for specific keywords.
Each search engine (Google, Bing, Yahoo!) has its own ranking algorithms. These are complex rules that determine how to rank your website for a search query. The search engines never make these algorithms public and are regularly changing how they work so SEO can take a little guess work.
The search engine’s job is to provide the searcher with the most relevant website for the query they have used.
Let’s say you search for a big brand such as “Amazon”. As you would expect, www.amazon.co.uk will pop up at the top of the list. This website hits the top of the list because they have their SEO in place, they have probably paid more to be there and also, search engines often rank big brands higher automatically.
But what happens when you use the search term “books”? This is a more generic term and can throw up thousands of results. How does Google determine who should be top of the pile?
Well, sponsored links aside (that is those who have paid to be at the top), Google finds the most relevant website based on the SEO that has been carried out.
That means the keyword “books” has been used well, that the website is known and trusted and has lots of links from other websites pointing back to it. SEO can be quite a complex business but when carried out well it can give you great results.
One of the most important considerations in SEO is your website content. It needs to be of the highest quality and needs to target relevant keywords in a natural way.
If you litter your website with too many keywords Google will penalise you by moving you down in the rankings. Remember one thing about SEO – the algorithms are complex and very clever and they can tell the difference between keyword stuffing and well written content.
The quickest and best way to get more exposure for your business and to turn that trickle of web visitors into a flood is to hire an SEO company. SEO can take a lot of time and effort and take you away from the running of your business.
An SEO consultant on the other hand can carry out all the hard work, monitor your site and ensure you are getting the best exposure.
Speak to Jungle today. We’ll analyse your site and tell you just how much SEO could improve the way you do business.
