Summary: SEO is about making changes in relation to your website in order to get more visitors. You need SEO to maintain your share of the market (and expand it, if you want to). You can do SEO work yourself or hire an expert to do it for you.
What is SEO?
SEO – ‘search engine optimisation’ – is the process of tweaking your website so that it ranks better in search engines like Google and Yahoo. By that, we mean that when a Google, Yahoo or other search engine user types in a search term relating to your product or service (e.g. ‘used ferraris’), your website appears high in the results that they see. Consequently, you get more traffic (more visits from those users).
SEO involves adjusting both factors on your website, and factors off your website. What does that mean? Well, for example, currently Google places a lot of value on your site if it has many inbound links from high quality, trustworthy sites that have a lot of authority in Google’s ‘eyes’. Gaining those links has nothing to do with tweaking your actual website – you have to approach other websites (although making sure you have great content for them to link to is a must!).
Why do I need SEO?
If you’re an existing business, then presumably you have a product or service. More and more people are going online to buy goods so it’s no longer a case of ‘go online if you want to increase your share of the market’. Nowadays, it’s ‘go online if you want to keep your share’. It’s likely you have competition online, whether you like it or not, and that competition will take away your existing customers, if you let them. No business is immune – from hotels to bed and breakfasts, take aways to restaurants, individual designers to high street clothes stores – practically everyone buying or selling needs to establish their online presence and ensure they are visible, just as for their offline business.
SEO is an ongoing process – you can’t just pay for someone to optimise your website itself and then expect it to do well for years to come. You need to adjust your site to allow for continually changing search engine algorithms. You need to add fresh content regularly. You need to obtain regular new links to your site from other good quality sites. Above all you need to show Google that your site is fresh, up to date, and contains good quality content that it should continue to rank well. After all, your competitors are doing the same thing and if they do it better, you’ll lose your position.
How do I optimise my website?
When it comes to SEO, you have two real choices – do it yourself or get someone to do it for you. Angel’s Knowledge Base gives you hundreds of hints and tips on how to optimise your own site. You need to check back regularly for ideas as the process of optimisation is continually changing and we’ll be posting new intel on a regular basis to keep you up to speed with that.
If you haven’t got the time (or inclination) to optimise your site, consider getting a professional on board. There’s 1,001 companies out there who offer ‘SEO’ services but they differ a lot in terms of what they offer, how specialised they are, how much they charge and how experienced they really are. Many companies offer a range of services like graphic design, website design and SEO together – be wary though, it’s rather like going to a jack of all trades. It’s better to find a company that focuses on SEO primarily, and SEO friendly website design secondly.
Check our video on choosing an SEO company. Naturally you’d expect us to recommend ourselves and of course we would! But Angel’s primary concern to help you succeed online and even if you don’t go with us, we offer a range of services that can help you – including a free website SEO health check (use this as a guide to do your own SEO work if you like) and a neutral quote review service (we’ll tell you if you’re getting good value for money – or not!).
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