How does SEO work?

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a process that enhances a website’s content and structure in order to increase the quality and volume of organic traffic to the site. Generally, Internet users find a particular website via search engines, usually after conducting an online search pertaining to a specific topic, product or service. This is known as organic search. The success of a website – and the business or organisation it represents – thus hinges on the website’s online visibility among search engines.

When you implement SEO techniques on your website, the site’s rankings will be boosted among major search engines. Carefully researched SEO practices ensure that websites reach their intended audiences and, as a result, lead to noticeable improvements in both the quantity and quality of traffic to optimised websites.

Start with SEO analysis

In order to optimise a website, it is essential for SEO analysts to first examine all the technical aspects of a site, and to pinpoint the areas in which improvement is needed. This analysis covers many aspects, including:

• Site analysis and technical issues:
  • How the site has been built
  • Whether it is easily navigable by Internet users
  • Its spiderability (how easily search engine spiders can crawl it – essential to its indexing)
  • Domain overview
• Keyword analysis
• Competitor analysis
• Current rankings
• Link analysis
• Content overview, including content silo-ing, keyword densities and suggested changes

Once these issues have been identified, analysed and actioned, SEO technicians will begin to optimise the website according to their findings, in order to improve its rankings. Once changes have been implemented, the site’s pages will be submitted to the search engines for indexing. This is a vital part of the SEO process. If your web pages are not indexed, they cannot be found by the search engines – and thus your site will not be found by searchers.

Generally, rankings are enhanced through keyword research and planning – a critical aspect of any SEO strategy. Conducting keyword research reveals which keywords are most relevant to your business or service. Targeting these keywords through advanced SEO techniques will help to boost your site’s rankings and deliver targeted, organic traffic to your pages. In other words, SEO enables you to be found for the very terms that Internet users are searching for.

How long will it take to see the results of my SEO campaign?
Search engine optimisation is a long-term process that should be integrated into a company’s ongoing marketing strategy. Unlike pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, which may yield results after only a few days, SEO techniques take substantially longer to have an impact on a site. However, the effects of SEO are also longer-lasting than those of PPC, for example.

The aim of SEO is to boost a website’s rankings on the major search engines, and this is a process that, while highly effective, takes time. It is advisable to update and optimise your website continually, even once it has achieved top rankings. This is because it’s unlikely to maintain its high position on the search engines without ongoing improvement.

How effective is SEO in boosting traffic to my site?
There are billions of web pages on the Internet, and without SEO strategies in place, your site is likely to get lost among them. Consider this example: If you run a guest house in Durban, the chances of people finding your (un-optimsed) site are slim: Type “Durban guest house” into the search engines, and tens of thousands of results are returned. Searchers, being lazy and of limited attention span, are likely to click only on the first 10 results that appear.

Thus, it is essential that your site be present in the top ten results. If your web pages have been carefully optimised according to relevant industry keywords – such as “Durban guest house”, “Durban accommodation” and “affordable guest houses Durban”, for example – your site is likely to appear in the top results for these search terms. A top ten ranking equals greater visibility and more organic traffic being driven to your site – which, in turn, translates into more business for your company.

Clearly, the effectiveness of an SEO campaign is indisputable. Search engine optimisation should be an integral part of any marketing strategy – particularly in light of the rapid growth of the Internet and its burgeoning number of users.

Bolster your brand with a customised SEO campaign from Purple Cow Communications. Contact Leon today on 021 422 1833 to find out more.