Introduction of SEO
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is one of the most important – and sometimes forgotten – fundamental aspects of building and maintaining a good website.
If your website has been properly search optimised, search engines (i.e. Google, Yahoo! & Bing) consider your site relevant to a certain set of keyphrases, and will list your website high up on the first page of search results.
Briefly put, SEO is the process of making your website found and displayed on the internet when people search for what you are offering by using key words relevant to your business or service.
Why SEO is Important
Unfortunately many companies create a beautiful and exquisite website, that magnificently advertises your business, but includes no search engine optimisation.
This means that few of your clientele actually find your website, rendering it quite useless as a marketing and conversion tool. Such a scenario is similar to opening and creating the perfect fine-dining restaurant that everyone would like to visit if they knew it existed, but they don’t know it exists so they don’t come.
Today’s modern search engines such as Google and Yahoo! are incredibly intelligent, relying on complex algorithms to choose which websites are the most relevant for users.
With millions of websites and millions more webpages on the internet, coupled with over 3.5 billion searches each day, Google manages to normally display the ideal site for you in the first five listings on the first page – and only rarely is it necessary to bother to check the second page results.
Most of the time users will click on one of the first five results. This means that if your website is not displayed there, it is likely to be missed and ignored.
In this modern world with a near infinite number of websites on the net, it is vital for your website to be properly search engine optimised (if it is not to be lost in the sea of competing websites that makes up the internet).
Likewise in today’s age of instant information, few people have the patience to keep looking and searching for information, instead they will normally just click on whatever they see in the first listed results.
What is SEO?
SEO is a complex and complicated process of optimising your website for your most important key terms.
For example, if you own an Auckland Hotel that is located near to the Auckland Airport, your most important keyphrases list might look like this:
- Auckland hotel
- Auckland hotel accommodation
- Auckland accommodation
- Auckland hotel near to the airport
- Auckland Airport hotel
Once you’ve identified the most important keywords for your business, you should compare this to what people are actually searching for.
From this, you should create a finalised set of keyphrases that you can then use to optimise your website for these terms.
This process helps Google and other search engines to understand that your business is an Auckland hotel, and your perfect clientele are people searching for a hotel in Auckland, located near to the Airport.
Is SEO only about keywords?
To put it simply, no.
SEO is not just about the keywords! Other important features of SEO include link building and social media.
If you think Facebook, Instagram and TikTok are just for kids, then you are wrong.
It’s really important that you have Facebook and Instagram Business pages for your business, and ideally are active posting on it. This signals to Google that you are an active business that people can easily get in touch with and goes into the very complex algorithm that determines your websites rankings.
Another hugely important tool is Google Business. This listing is free and gives you a marker location on Google Maps.
Many location based searches – such as “Auckland hotel” – will first return a Google map with Google Business Listings pinpointed on it, along with 3 of the top businesses directly shown. A well optimised and active Google Business will hugely increase traffic to your website.
Conclusion
SEO is crucial for ensuring your website is visible to search engines, driving organic traffic, and enhancing user experience.
It goes beyond just keywords; it involves optimising site structure, being present on social media platforms, improving page load speed, ensuring mobile-friendliness, and creating high-quality content that meets user intent.
By focusing on these elements, you can build authority and trust, leading to higher search rankings and better engagement with your audience!
