Search Engine Optimisation Basics

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a powerful marketing tool that brings a healthy return on investment but, in order for your site to be easily found in the main search engines like Google, a certain amount of optimisation is required. Effective SEO marketing can be a complex affair although you may be able to undertake some of the work in-house. Here are some simple things to consider to get started with SEO on your website:

Researching key search phrases you want to list for (and prioritising these) and optimising the text and code of web pages around them is really important. Google's Keyword Tool is extremely useful for this and there are numerous other online tools around, both free and paid, that can be taken advantage of.

We would also encourage you to set up a blog and engage with your customers, partners and other stakeholders. The content that you create here should be informative, relevant and helpful and will help generate traffic by enabling Google etc. to rank you for more specific keywords or search phrases. Not only can these posts show up in specific user searches, but they can also help your organisation seem knowledgeable and accessible. Reputation is paramount.

By using sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to engage with your stakeholders and promote your blog - and of course your main website - you can generate a groundswell of support which will boost your listings even further. Social media is playing more and more of a role in how online search works, with search engines taking into account shares, comments and mentions from major social sites – as well as building their own social platforms like Google Plus.

Despite the rise of social media, search is still very much driven by rankings based on the number and quality of links to your site. Research and build your inbound links. You should establish cross linking strategies with online partners, although be careful to avoid purchasing or trading links as search engines do not find these legitimate. Getting influential people to link to your website not only drives traffic through those links but also builds your page rank!

Finally, creating effective copy for search engines and your customers needn't be a problem. Your copy should be clear and relevant as you need to sell users the product or service once they are on your site, and should contain keywords so that search engines can determine which search queries would be relevant to your content.

 

For more information on the services we offer to help bring change-making organisations into the digital world, please visit our Services page.