Good question!  It took us a while to figure it out too, but it’s a bit like riding a bike – once you get the hang of it, there’s no turning back!

Search Engine Optimisation

That’s what SEO stands for.  Yes – But what does it mean…

It means that, in order for people to find your website (without you having to push it under their noses), you need to do a few things with your site to make it desirable by the search engines.

What are search engines?  Those are the programs that you use to search the internet.  Some of the common ones out there include Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, and there are plenty more!

Search engines need to know lots of information about your site in order to list it for people to find.  So behind the scenes, you need to set up some special coding, and ensure everything looks hunky-dory.

But it’s not as simple as I just made it sound.  The rules around SEO are constantly changing.  The ‘king’ of search engines, Google, set up a series of rules for websites to follow – to ensure they pass the test to be listed.  Whoever can follow those rules the best, will see the best outcome by way of having the best position on the search engine.  You will hear people talking about ‘page 1’ or ‘page 2’ – obviously being on page 1 is the ultimate goal!  The problem is that Google like to keep us on our toes, and change those rules – whenever they feel like it really.

The Approach

The process of performing SEO is a 3-tiered approach.  It involves constant keyword research, on-site SEO and off-site SEO.

Keyword research is about finding out who you want to target – who do you want to look at your website.  Work out who that is, and then work out how to get them.  How do those people search for your site?  What words do they use when they type in the search bar of their internet browser?  That’s what we need to find out – and then we need to determine the most effective terms to benefit your site – in comparison with your competitors.  This means we also need to analyse your competitors to find out what they’re doing, and try to do it better!  It can be a sticky & somewhat complex task, but – we’ve ridden that bike for a while now, so we have a pretty good method ironed out for you.

On-site SEO is about making your site the best it can be.  We research Google’s latest updates and go through your site with a fine-toothed-comb, getting rid of non-essential coding and information, and tidying up all the essentials.  We add meaningful descriptions and meta tags, and include various snippets of code to integrate a wide range of analytical tools – such as Google Analytics and much more!  We prepare and install all essential coding such as site-maps and robots, error message handling and more.

And finally, off-site SEO is the final link.  Literally!  It’s about optimising your site from within the ether that we know as the world wide web.  Typically this consists of building links from other websites to your site.  The better your links are set up, the better your position will be.   This can be done through content marketing, blog writing, site directories, social media and much more.  There are so many techniques to be used, and pairing the right techniques with your business is essential.

Just Get it Done.

Whether you employ an SEO specialist to do the job for you – or you have a crack at it yourself – it doesn’t matter what your approach is, as long as your site is receiving the SEO attention it needs.

Having a great site is only the beginning.  Getting people to find your site is the biggest battle you will face.  Remember that SEO can be slow to show results, but once you start to build some momentum, you’ll see the traffic to your site start to soar!