Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is attempting to improve a website’s visibility in the results of a search engine. This is crucial as most clicks go to the highest placed results; the top spot gets over 30% of the clicks, with second and third getting another 20% between them. The top five results account for almost 70% of all clicks[1]. This makes it abundantly clear that being at the top of search engine results is an area of marketing that businesses should really consider. The other option is paid results appearing at the top of search results, however SEO is cheaper and more worthwhile with 70-80% of users ignoring paid ads in results and 79% saying they always check the organic results[2].
Whilst there are numerous search engines on the internet, the vast majority of SEO strategy is focused on Google. Google is often seen at the very heart of the internet; around 40% of the internet’s traffic going through Google’s servers[3].
To understand SEO, it’s important to have a basic understanding of how search works. Google moves through the 60+ trillion pages on the internet in a process called ‘crawling’; following links from one page to the next, sorting the pages by several factors including content, as it goes, storing these details in a huge index. Google then uses its algorithms to display the best, most relevant, results from its index when a search is conducted. The relevance is decided by ranking the results on over 200 factors, whilst attempting to avoid spam results. SEO aims to influence some of the factors that relevance is decided upon and thus make the desired website seem more relevant.
There are many different ways to attempt SEO. Key word research is a popular method whereby the business attempts to understand the keywords that their target audience will use, ensuring they appear in the results for these. This includes ideas such as including synonyms. A 2010 study found that singular keywords are more often searched than longer phrases, with the top 20% of keywords attracting over 98% of all searches. This shows the crucial nature of optimising areas such as this; they can have a major impact without requiring large costs or long timeframes. However, other sources suggest that whilst this was true, more organic, natural language, searches are being conducted recently, with the rise of voice search through applications such as Siri[4]. This may be seen to move the focus toward long-tail keyword optimization.
Another crucial area is that of on-page optimization, this includes things such as ensuring the coding is compliant with protocols, ensuring keywords are used effectively and in the right places, ensuring links are provided to other reputable sites, including social media, and so on.
It is also worth knowing how search engines rank pages. Whilst no definitive data is known, the presumption is that domain trust is one of the most important factors, how reputable the website is seen to be. Link popularity is the next factor, looking at the links to and from the website along with which other websites link to the site and how well ranked they are. The text of the external links is also analysed, along with on-page optimization. Next is other lesser factors such as the domain hosting, traffic and visitor data and inclusion of social media. It’s evident that there can be no quick and easy way to ensure a site ranks highly and it therefore may be difficult to optimise a site.
Whilst exact SEO practices are secretive, there are innumerable guides posted on the internet which explain the basics. Google has even published their own basic starter guide to help webmasters[5]. Another site, Duo Consulting, published an article in 2014 providing examples and explanations of good SEO optimization on homepages[6]. This showcases good headers, descriptions, CTAs and other features of good SEO.
It is easy to underestimate the effect of SEO, however the numbers speak for themselves. With 40% of internet traffic passing through the servers of just on search giant, a business must be sure to do all they can to appear favourably within search results. SEO is a reasonably easy and cost-effective way to significantly improve traffic to a website, and thus potential customers. Whilst unbiased figures are hard to come by, some companies claim to be able to increase traffic to a site by incredible numbers[7]. SEO is definitely a worthwhile investment for a company looking to increase site traffic.
References –
[1] https://moz.com/blog/google-organic-click-through-rates-in-2014 (Retrieved 29/01/2016).
[2] https://www.soapmedia.co.uk/why-use-seo/ (Retrieved 29/01/2016).
[3] http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/08/17/fascinating-number-google-is-now-40-of-the-internet/#272b009d6ca2 (Retrieved 29/01/16).
[4] http://www.forbes.com/sites/joshsteimle/2015/02/07/how-long-does-seo-take-to-start-working/#6aaf6582ea65 (Retrieved 31/01/2016).
[5] http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.co.uk/en/uk/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf (Retrieved 31/01/2016).
[6] http://thoughts.duoconsulting.com/blog/6-examples-strong-homepage-seo-optimization (Retrieved 31/01/2016).
[7] http://www.robbierichards.com/seo/case-study/ (Retrieved 31/01/2016).