What is Search Engine Optimisation

What Is Search Engine Optimisation? Ranking at the very top of Google or Bings search engine when a prospect searches for a product or service you offer is every business owner’s dream. But with millions of posts and blogs getting published every day, it can be kind of tough to stand out. However, this isn’t to say that it’s impossible to make your site more attractive to a search engine and increase specific, high-intent traffic. With a few tips and tricks on SEO optimisation, you can increase visibility and ranking on the search engine results pages (SERPs).

So, what is search engine optimisation?

What Is Search Engine Optimisation?

Search Engine Optimisation, popularly known as SEO, is all about the methods you can employ to ensure your site’s visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs). For instance, if you owned a small bakery business and just posted an article on making a chocolate cake, you would want the search engine (commonly Google) to include your post as one of the top results when someone searches for that keyword.

When it comes to SEO, there are various practices you can employ to improve your site’s user experience, performance and visibility in organic search results. These include everything from behind the scenes, such as your headlines, content and page structure (on-page SEO), to all the promotional strategies to increase your website’s ranking (social media marketing, link building).

But before we dive in, let’s first look at how the search engines determine who gets to rank at the top.

How Does SEO Work?

So, how do search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and Bing determine the order in which pages should appear in the search results? Well, here is how it works: Google or any other search engine uses bots to crawl pages on the web. These crawlers then bring back all the relevant information they can find for a given query to the search engine and put them in an index. That index is then fed through an algorithm that tries to match the information collected with your question.

What Are Some of the Factors That Go into A Search Engine’s Algorithm?

Relevancy

When someone searches for something on the web, it’s the search engine’s job to provide high-quality and relevant results. And while we might never really know how search engines narrow down their lists, some factors will influence these results, and they are all based on relevance. For instance: the searcher’s location, history, or time of the day/month/year.

Content Quality

A search engine’s customer is happy when they find quality content that matches their needs. Therefore, regularly publishing helpful content such as blogs, videos, or other valuable media types goes a long way in boosting your website’s visibility and ranking.

User Experience

Below are various practices you can implement to provide the best user experience:

  • Ensure your site loads quickly and is easy to navigate
  • Optimise your site and its content for any given screen or device
  • Have relevant internal linking to keep visitors on your site and reduce the bounce rate.

Tags for Image Links

When uploading images, most people forget that search engines cannot ‘see’ pictures but can ‘read’ the alt text. An ideal alt tag should describe your image as accurately as possible to increase the chances of appearing top in the search engine’s image search.

Domain Names

For domain names;

  • Use sub-directory root domains instead of sub-domains
  • Include a ‘keyword rich’ domain name with caution as it can attract closer scrutiny and a possible negative rating
  • If you operate a site without the www. prefix, ensure that the user will still be redirected to your site even if they include it in a search.

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