What is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?

This is the “process of ensuring that search engines are more likely to find and access your Web pages. SEO’s purpose is to improve the volume and quahty of Web site traffic generated by searches”. (Kay. R, 2007)

Without a rigid SEO strategy your company is going to lose out on potential customers, all of the most successful online companies have understood and kept their SEO strategy and utilisation current.

Now in 2015 it is more important than ever to get SEO correct for companies because as of April, Google have changed their SEO policy and this means that SEO will be favouring ‘mobile friendly sites’. (Google, 2015)

 

5 strategies to stay relevant:

1). Use ‘Mobile Traffic Optimisation’ – If a company does not use mobile traffic optimisation then because of Google’s new policy it will hinder their ranking (meaning that they will display further down search results). If you are a company without a mobile responsive webpage then the smart thing to do will be to invest and reconfigure.

Page speed is a huge search engine optimisation guage, for this reason experts prioritise page load optimisation. A study concluded 69 percent of mobile responsive website designs were deemed “unacceptable” after a speed test was conducted therefore hindering their rankings. (Gesenhues. A, 2014)

Responsive Design Website Smartphone Load Times:

“According to the study, the slow load times were the result of image-heavy sites”. (Gesenhues. A, 2014)

2). Study how penalty/negative SEO can occur – When you are hit with negative SEO or a Google penalty it is going to create a decrease in rankings quite significantly. It is important to recognise the issue as soon as possible, this means that someone should be regularly monitoring the search engine optimisation information.

3). Use concise keywords with a broader scope – Don’t use long-tail keywords. They may still aid the campaign in a broader sense but the Hummingbird algorithm released by Google means that long tail key words are now less useful than broad keywords. (Sullivan. D, 2013)

This will cause a bigger problem as Google continues to evolve, so make it a point to keep both present on your site. As google is constantly evolving in this direction it will become a more augmented issue therefore companies should use primarily broad keywords.

4). Combine SEO with ‘content marketing campaigns’ – Patel. N (2014) lists the most effective ways of achieving this:

i. Create content that even wikipedia would love to link to – “One of the best sources of relevant traffic is Wikipedia. It ranks for almost every search term on Google, and it’s one of the most popular sites on the web”.

ii. Write content based on keyword data – Don’t just blog for the sake of it, use blogging to target your consumers while at the same time targeting your keywords.

iii. Create quality content before you aim for large quantities – Google’s algorithm is now highly sophisticated meaning they can distinguish between high quality and low quality content.

iv. Don’t forget about FAQs – Always ask visitors to your page their reasons for not purchasing.

v. Target industry blogs for guest-posting opportunities – If you want your rankings to be higher, then ensure that you have a sufficient number of links to relevant blogs.

vi. Don’t forget to cross-link – “Adding content to your site isn’t enough. You have to cross-link your content”.

(Patel. N, 2014)

5). Understand the discrepancies of expressed and implied links – Basically express links actually provide a link but implied links simply state that there is a link to the relevant resource but do not actually provide it.

 

Limitations:

Relevant content – Keywords must mirror the actual content of a page, so HTML text must be present. Pictures are great… but it isn’t possible for a search engine to read a picture so therefore potentially miss words that could increase a sites relevance and ranking. (Kay. R, 2007)

 

Conclusions:

SEO is a highly complicated and sophisticated area and companies must use experts in the field of interest if they are to keep their ranking high and therefore stay relevant. With Google becoming smarter with every search that is ever entered and

 

References:

Amy Gesenhues. (2014). Load Times For 69% Of Responsive Design Mobile Sites Deemed “Unacceptable”. Available: http://marketingland.com/study-load-time-69-mobile-sites-deemed-unacceptable-81126. Last accessed 25th May 2015.

Danny Sullivan. (2013). All About The New Google “Hummingbird” Algorithm. Available: http://searchengineland.com/google-hummingbird-172816. Last accessed 25th May 2015.

Google. (2015). Finding more mobile-friendly search results. Available: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.de/2015/02/finding-more-mobile-friendly-search.html. Last accessed 25th May 2015.

Kay, R. 2007, Search Engine Optimization, Computerworld, Inc, Framingham.

Neil Patel. (2014). 7 Smart Ways to Combine Content Marketing with SEO for More Qualified Search Traffic. Available: http://www.quicksprout.com/2014/01/20/7-smart-ways-to-combine-content-marketing-with-seo-for-more-qualified-search-traffic/. Last accessed 25th May 2015.