How Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) works

Search Engine Optimisation SEO Being easily found using Google and other search engines can impact the success of your business. Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a way of increasing traffic to your website and ensuring your business ranks high in internet search results.

There are one billion internet users worldwide and 14 million users in Australia alone - this is a huge marketplace and as a business, it's a market you'd be crazy to ignore.

Even if you don't sell online, many of your potential customers do research on Google before making their buying decisions. With hundreds of millions of searches a day, odds are you’ve used Google to research products and services. If customers are not finding your business online, you can be fairly sure they’ll be finding your competition.

If you want to improve where you rank in Google’s search results, you can engage the expertise of a Search Engine Optimisation consultant, or there are some easy changes you can make to your website yourself.

How does Google rank websites?

Search engines use software, often referred to as a ‘spider’, which constantly crawls the internet by following links from one site to another, reading the text of the websites it finds and then recording or indexing the results in its database. When someone does a search using keywords such as ‘Sydney graphic designer’, the search engine uses its secret formula or algorithm to determine the most relevant search results for that request.

The Google search results page is made up of two sections - sponsored links and organic results. The sponsored links, which is paid advertising including Google AdWords, are the entries on the right-hand column. The organic results are in the left-hand column. Getting your website to rank as high as possible in the organic results is referred to as search engine optimisation or SEO.

How can you improve your rankings in Google?

There are three basic steps to improve your rankings in Google:

Decide which 'keywords' people would use in a search engine to find your services;
Improve the content of your website so your chosen keywords are prominent in the text of your website; and
Obtain links to your website from other websites that are relevant to your business.

About 90 percent of visitors do not click beyond the second page of the search results, so your goal should be to get at least within the top 20 search results, i.e. the first two search results pages, for any keyword phrase.

Let’s focus on improving the rankings of your home page. Follow this step-by-step approach to optimise your home page for two keyword phrases. This process can be repeated for each of your web pages.

Keyword Research

Which keywords do you think your customers would type in to search for your products or services? A keyword can be one word, e.g. ‘restaurant’, but multiple keywords or keyword phrases are usually preferred because they are more specific and more likely to be what your customers are looking for, e.g. ‘graphic designer Perth’.

Write down as many as you can think of. Brainstorm with your team and think of alternative words. Consider geographical phrases, e.g. ‘house cleaning Hornsby’. Get some ideas from your competitors’ websites. Try to make a list of 20 to 30 keyword phrases.

Choose the two keyword phrases you think would be most searched for. But also remember the more competition there is for a keyword, the harder it is to achieve top rankings. If you want to rank high in Google for the keyword ‘insurance’, you have a very long journey ahead. So try your best to select two keyword phrases that are the most relevant to your business but that are not vague or competitive. It’s a good idea to have two or three words in each phrase, e.g. ‘wedding catering services’.

Next time I will discuss some more Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) tips including how to use these keyword phrases to make improvements to your website and how to start getting some links to your website from other websites.

Philip Shaw a director and founder of CleverClicks, an online marketing company passionate about helping small businesses use the phenomenal power of the internet to boost their sales.

6 comments | Add your own

Fantastic Article Philip - look forward to the next instalment. How do I get other sites to link to my site? Is it SPAM if I email them and ask? Jon from Melbourne
Hi Jon, thanks. I will explain in more detail next time, but briefly, you should emphasise the benefits the other site's visitors would get from finding your link. Sending an email request is not SPAM. Personalise the request as much as possible so they don't think it is auto-generated. Perhaps follow up with a phone call if its really important. Also, make it easy for them to create your link.
Regards
Philip. Philip Shaw from Sydney | Read my articles
Boy am I loving this! Finally a no-hurried, clearly written column about search engine stuff. It actually sounds possible for once. Thanks. Bring on part 2! Ian Jones from Perth, Australia
G'day! I've found that the best way of generating website traffic, and effective traffic, is offering 'reciprocal links' to the administrators of sites that you like, and/or that you know is likely to bring you interested people.
In my experience, sending a friendly email with some comments about what you like about their site is a good way to start. Then tell them what yours is like and ask if they'd like a reciprocal link.
This usually works, because a savvy webmaster will know that a reciprocal link means traffic for them too. Leticia from Adelaide
In my experience SEO works best in tandem with good website engagement strategies. Quality content and well planned call to action is the key to getting high returns from a website. In many cases, sites which rank highly do not get a high amount of enquiries and sales because the site structure, content and call to action are not in place. More information about this on http://www.searchenginerankings.com.au Anup Batra from Melbourne
Jon: The main way is to write content on your own website that is relevant and *useful* to other people. Other people will link to you if what you write is useful to them. No matter what else you do, if your website doesn't have anything interesting to see, then people won't link to it.
Once you do, however, you can do things like writing insightful comments on other people's blog articles and leaving your website URL there - http://taryneast.com/ ;)
One thing that may seem backwards is that if you link to other peoples' relevant/useful articles, then the authors will often notice you in their trackbacks - and will often reciprocate.
Leticia: I started ignoring "reciprocal links" requests many years back when the linkfarms first started to appear. A request for reciprocal links had better have some serious personalisation to make me even notice that it isn't straight-out SPAM.
Beware joining a linkfarm! Even if it happens by mistake - such things will get your page-rank dropped quicker than a hot potato - and with good reason. These travesties are nothing more than an attempt to rort google's page rank system. Earn your street-cred the "real" way by linking appropriately to relevant content and you'll never go wrong! Taryn East from Sydney, Australia

6 comments | Add your own

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