What is Search Engine Optimisation

Search engine optimisation is a term that gets thrown around quite often on marketing websites and related literature. It is supposed to be a miracle method to improving incoming traffic to your website and double your sales overnight. Unfortunately, the reality is not so rosy. Fortunately, search engine optimisation is a proven method that can in fact improve traffic to your website; that does not automatically guarantee improved sales or user engagement. Search engine optimisation is concerned with getting people to your site. Keeping them once they are already there is another prerogative entirely.

Search engine optimisation is a method of setting up your website so that it is easier for internet search engines like Google and Yahoo to index your website. That means that your website is much more likely to be turned up as search results when a user searches for a related term on a search engine. Say for instance that a person searches for “best stargazing equipment” on Google. All other things being equal, an astronomy website with search engine optimisation is much more likely to be featured prominently in the search results page than one that is not optimised.

Is it beneficial?

Is search engine optimisation for you? Well, that depends on what the purpose of your website is. Search engines largely prefer websites that are specialised on one domain. Therefore, it is easier to optimise a website on say kayaking than one that is about adventure travel in general. This means that some sorts of websites are just much more receptive to search engine optimisation than others. For instance, a personal blog that does not have any overarching “subject” will probably not see any tangible benefits from search engine optimisation. That being said, if you do want to increase traffic to such a website, you can follow the traditional SEO guidelines when creating your content and your chances of being indexed by search engines will definitely improve. Just keep in mind that the improvement might not be to as large a degree as you might like.

How to optimise?

So, you have decided that you want to go the SEO way to boost traffic to your website. The first thing you should do is check your locality for one of the best local SEO companies. They should be able to provide you with SEO plans at reasonable prices; these companies are also much more likely to provide you with a free consultation that can give you a first-hand idea of what SEO is and what benefits you can likely expect from it.

If you enjoy a personal challenge, you might want to get down with SEO yourself. While there are many things that you can do to attain search engine optimisation that do not require much technical knowhow, so might run into some things every now and then that you cannot really make sense of. Fortunately, the internet has a huge community of professionals who can help you out in this regard.

Search Engine Optimisation might sound intimidating but it does offer tangible benefits. However, it is important to keep your expectations reasonable and realise that it is just one of many steps you need to take if you intend to boost the traffic to your website.

Photo credits: CEOportrait top left image; NYC Photographers lower right and left at CEO portrait website page.

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