SEO stands for search engine optimization, the purpose of this is to track and monitor the amount of traffic a website gets from its users. While using SEO this ensures that a website is friendly to search engines which in turn help generates organic search traffic, creating more awareness to customer’s online and encouraging greater profits, according to (Samson.S, 2015).

Google, Bing and Yahoo are big search engines people use to gather information and data on their competitors, so they can decide what strategies they can use to compete with their rivals.  Visibility is an important factor when searchers use the search engine, searchers are looking for sites which are: good quality, relevant, trusted and rank highly in the search, stated by (Enge.E, et al, 2015).

Example of how SEO works in Bing Search Engine

(useofseo, 2012)

By looking at the Bing search engine the main key areas which come up in the results are: Horizontal navigation, Search query box, Results information, Query refinement suggestions, Vertical navigation, PPC advertising, Natural/organic/algorithmic results and Shopping search results.

Benefits of SEO in an online business

• SEO enhances a business’s Visibility and Increases Brand Awareness.
• Increases a business’s credibility, ranking and reputation online.
• Increases traffic to the business website.
• Promotes advertising for the business as it enables the business to market to customers when they are browsing for products and services on the website.
• As SEO generates traffic, it will be useful to use a tool like Google analytics or Brandwatch analytics to analyze the data and to see how the customers search, how they browse, language used to search for products, which technology they use, their location and the frequency of when they are active, stated by (firstviewonlinemarketing, 2018).

Risks of SEO in an online business

• It will take time using SEO to get good results and it will take a long time to achieve return of investment from the business website.
• It could be costly in a competitive niche market as there needs to be costs of hiring external professionals to help build organic links and promoting SEO marketing activities such as SEO campaigns which attract backlinks and produce content which interests customers, stated by (digitalmarketingphilippines, 2017).
• There is no guarantee for results even if the business is on first page ranking on a search engine, most customers will just look at the first page of results.
• There is no control of how much traffic will be generated and the type of traffic generated by using SEO.
• Google updates can cause new changes which can penalize digital marketer’s efforts when producing an SEO campaign over the years.

To find out more about benefits and risks of SEO, Click Here

SEO tips to boost your online website

Keywords

 Google Alerts and Mention can be used to research and use the correct keywords customers use to help find products in company websites and the keywords they use in search engines which will be useful in determining what keywords to use in a website.

Page titles and Description

By having a unique page title which describes the pages content, which helps the user understand what the products and services the business is selling.

Permanent link structure

When making URLS make them simple and easy to understand in search engines and the business website itself, using hyphens can break up the words in the URL and also try not to make the URL too long.

Breadcrumb

Make sure to include a set of links at the top of the website this will help with navigation of pages and make links clearer.

Example of a Breadcrumb

(reliablesoft,2018)

Internal linking

 By using links in the website to direct users to other useful related links where users can find more information on the topic.

Text Formatting

 By using the correct style of font, size of font, making important words bold making it stand out to the user also using tags can make headings stand out.

 404 Page

 If the user tries to find a page which does not exist or a link which is broken the user should be directed to a page showing the user it can’t be found.

Example of a 404 Page

(reliablesoft,2018)

Image optimization

Using images on the website is a useful tool as it shows what the products look like and how they work.

Page Speed

By having a good page speed will optimize the speed of the website, making it easier to look at more than one product quickly.

Link Building from other websites

 If the website has good content it will naturally attract links from other websites.

Make the website Mobile friendly

By having the website accessible from other devices allows more users to access the website.

User sitemap

This is a list of the posts and pages of your website, which makes it easier to organise.

Having great content and fresh content  

By having relevant and up to date content will attract users to the website , will encourage electronic  word of mouth and keep users coming back to the website.

External links

Checking external links on the website is important as you don’t want users to be redirected to spam websites or inappropriate sites.

Analytics and tools

By using tools like Brandwatch analytics,  Google analytics and Google trends the business is able to track their competitors  ranking and see which products are going to be trending in the future.

To get more information of tips of SEO, Click here.

A video link explaining  SEO

(Youtube,2011)

References

Brandwatch (2018) Brandwatch company website [online], Available at,

< https://www.brandwatch.com/> [Accessed on 20^th of December 2017].

Digitalmarketingphilippines (2017) The Pros and Cons of Using SEO for Your Business [online], Available at, < http://digitalmarketingphilippines.com/the-pros-and-cons-of-using-seo-for-your-business/> [Accessed on 20^th of December 2017].

Enge. E, Spencer. S.M. , Stricchiola.C.J. (2015) The art of SEO: mastering search engine optimization. Third edition. Beijing: O’Reilley.

Firstviewmarketingonline (2018) Why SEO is Important for Business [online], Available at,

< https://firstviewonlinemarketing.com/why-seo-is-important-for-businesses/> [Accessed on 20^th of December 2017].

Googletrends (2018) Google Trends website [online], Available at, < https://trends.google.com/trends/> [Accessed on 20^th of December 2017].

Lifewire (2017) Google Alerts: What They Are, How To Make One [online], Available at,

< https://www.lifewire.com/google-alerts-3481816> [Accessed on 20^th of December 2017].

Mention (2018) Scour the web, social media, and more for powerful market insights [online], Available at, < https://mention.com/en/> [Accessed on 20^th of December 2017].

Moz (2015) The Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Google Analytics [online], Available at,

< https://moz.com/blog/absolute-beginners-guide-to-google-analytics> [Accessed on 20^th of December 2017].

Reliablesoft (2018) SEO Tips for Beginners -15 Ways to Google Boost Tour Web Site [online], Available at, < https://www.reliablesoft.net/seo-tips-for-beginners-15-ways-to-google-boost-your-web-site/> [Accessed on 20^th of December 2017].

Samson.S  (2015) SEO 101: Search Engine Optimization, Learn the Basics of Google SEO in one day. Committee of Publishers and Associations.

Searchengineland (2018) What Is SEO/Search Engine Optimization? [online] , Video recording, Youtube, Available at, < https://searchengineland.com/guide/what-is-seo> [Accessed on 20^th of December 2017].

Useofseo (2012) Understanding Search Engine Results [online], Available at,

< http://useofseo.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/understanding-search-engine-results.html>  [Accessed on 20^th of December 2017].