What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) describes the techniques and processes used to increase the position of your website on search engines. The methods used vary wildly from simply changing the text on your website to changing the underlying code structure. Some of the work is simple enough to be performed by someone with no technical knowledge at all.

This is an older article which remains because many points are still very relevant. Although it is important to rememember that search engines change, new ideas emerge, methodologies change while techniques are tried and tested. So how you presented your website to search engines for maximum effect last year may not be enough this year. Please take a look around and if you have any questions about SEO, our highly skilled inhouse team will be happy to chat with you.

Why is good SEO important?

A recent survey has shown that 56% of Internet users use search engines on a daily basis to find companies. With this is mind, it's clear that search engines must be able to find your website and associate it with the right keyphrases to allow potential customers to find you.

A number of SEO companies have emerged that will guarantee you what you want; a first place position on all the major search engines. Be wary of companies which make these promises, as there is always a catch, and no one is able to guarantee such a thing. Often a first place ranking will be achieved either for a single, very specific, keyphrase and/or for a very short period of time.

What keywords/keyphrases should I choose?

A lot of people struggle thinking of keywords and keyphrases to optimise their websites for, or make bad decisions choosing them. Ask some of your friends what they would search for if they were looking for a company offering the services or products that your website offers. You should see a pattern of a few words and phrases that a lot of people would search for. If you base your SEO around these keywords and keyphrases then you will receive the largest possible increase of visitors to your website, as well as making sure the people that do find you are actually looking for what you offer.

Some keywords will work on their own, whereas others will only work as part of a keyphrase. For instance, “Manchester SEO” would be a good keyphrase for Fluid Creativity to promote, whereas the word “ Manchester ” on its own would be fairly useless to us.

How can I increase my search engine ranking?

Back in the early days of the web, there were just a few very simple lines of code to change on your website's pages to achieve good ranking in search engines for the phrases you wanted. However, as computers and software have evolved, the way in which search engines scour the Internet has got increasingly complicated and involved. There are now so many SEO techniques, some based on hard evidence and the rest purely on hearsay, that it has almost become a daily job to keep up to date with the latest happenings. There are some simple SEO tasks that any website owner can perform that should help you get results.

First is content. Over the past few years, good quality content has gained a lot of importance in the search engine world. Read through the text on your website and make sure that your keywords are mentioned. The trick is not to try to crowbar a huge list of words into your text, but if a certain keyphrase isn't mentioned anywhere on your site, write a paragraph or two to get it included. As long as you keep the content relevant, it is worth spending a little time to make sure that your keywords are there.

Another fairly simple SEO technique is to get your website linked to by other good quality websites. Search engines see links as a sort of "mark of respect" that the other website regards your own as worth linking to. This will improve your ranking, as well as gaining you traffic directly from the links. If you can get your keywords as the link text, even better. For instance, a link to Fluid Creativity may look like this: Manchester SEO services.

With these basics its easy to begin optimising your website for Search Engines, any changes you do make will take time to effect your ranking but the results will be worth it!

Talk to us about Search Engine Optimisation

If you would like more information about this topic or to discuss what more could be done for your search engine ranking then please get in touch. If you have any feedback or suggestions for a possible topic for an article or would like something made exclusively for you please contact us.