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What is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?
Search engines rank websites based on their relevancy to the words or phrases people use in their searches. The more relevant a website is to a particular search, the higher it will rank on the page. SEO is therefore the process of improving websites and webpages in order to increase their relevancy and thus, increase their organic search engine ranking.
A higher ranking in turn generates more quality traffic to the website and it (almost) goes without saying that a website relies on traffic to be an accountable business asset.
Why implement SEO services?
Many people believe that the appearance of a website in a search engine like Google or Yahoo for example, is automatic. Others still believe that the only way to get a good ranking is to pay the search engine for a listing.
The former is simply not true and the latter need not be the case. Only 28% of search engine users click on websites that pay for a "sponsored result" anyway. The remaining 72% of web searchers click on and use the organic search engine results.
This percentage alone suggests that a website without effective SEO is missing out on the majority of the search market and is running a big risk of financial failure.
Even the most beautiful looking website in the world will not generate very much business while it is buried deep in the murky depths of a search engine.
The latest Internet World Stats (July 2009) indicate 79.6% of Australias population use the Internet with most, if not all, using search engines to find what they are looking for online.
Within reason, I don't know of anyone in Sydney who has never used a search engine. If you are one of these people, please let us know. We need to factor you into to these otherwise overwhelming statistics.
How does SEO work?
If a website contains well researched, relevant content and is structurally built so that it is easily indexed by a search engine, people will find the site when they search for the products/services/information it offers. The more relevant the content and, over time, the more quality links that point to the site, the higher its search engine ranking.
Cost effective SEO
SEO should pay for itself. The increase in search engine visibility achieved by optimising a website leads to an increase in visitors. This in turn leads to an increase in converting those visitors into customers and clients.
In short, Search Engine Optimisation is what turns your website from just another overhead into an accountable business investment.
related reading: Writing for SEO, SEO vs PPC, Flash animation - good or bad?.
SEO Tip
Update your web pages as often as you can. Search engines love web pages with fresh, updated content.
