What is SEO

Search engine optimisation or SEO is the process of having an effect or optimising the online visibility of a website or a webpage in a web search engine’s unpaid results page. SEO are often referred to as the earned, natural or organic way of appearing in the search engine results page. It also refers to the process of optimising your website, so it appears on the first page of search engines like Google, Yahoo! and Bing organic results page. More often than not, the earlier or higher ranked the website is, and the more frequent the site appears on the search engine results page, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine’s users. The more visitors a site receives, the higher the likelihood of converting them into potential, or even repeated, customers.

SEO is becoming the preferred solution for any company who would like their website to gain more presence and visibility online. SEO services companies would boost or improve the rankings of a particular company’s website on the search engine results page (SERP) of search engines and web portals such as Google, Yahoo! and Bing. They would optimise the website through methods, strategies, tactics and techniques to boost or increase the number of visitors to the website. The SEO companies would help to make any site more relevant, maintain its relevance and move it to the top or nearer to the top of the search engine results page.

As a form of Internet marketing strategy, SEO takes into consideration the way search engines work, how programmed algorithms dictate search engine behaviour, what people tend to search for, the actual, exact and specific search terms or keywords typed into search engines as well as the most preferred search engines used by the targeted audience. It includes adding or editing a site’s content, doing HTML and its related coding to both increases the website’s relevance to specific keywords as well as removing barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. Another tactic of SEO is to promote a site to increase the number of backlinks or inbound links. Moreover, the advancement and ease of mobile search have made it the preferred choice for most searches, surpassing desktop search, prompting a multitude of different approaches to Internet marketing strategies.

Types of SEO

Basically, SEO can be classified into two categories: white hat SEO and black hat SEO. White hat SEO refers to highly recommended techniques that conform to the search engines’ guidelines and involves no deception of Internet marketing. While SEO is not only about adhering to the guidelines, it does include creating content for users, not just for search engines but to ensure that the content is accessible to algorithms and are being indexed as well as ranked accordingly for the user, rather than attempting to trick the algorithm for its intended purpose.

On the other hand, black hat SEO relates to attempts or methods to improve the rankings of a website through practices which involves deception or ways that search engines do not approve. Unlike their name, the distinction between them is not as clear as black and white. It is still ambiguous as the guidelines of search engines are not written out plainly as a series of rules or commandments.

How to track your SEO performance

There are several ways to keep track of the website’s SEO performance. Every site has different metrics or performance indicators that matter but none is more important as much as conversion, the default bottom line for any organisation. Take note on the keywords that have a higher conversion rate based on the specific search query terms or phrases. The decision to increase focus on the rankings for those terms and improve on the visitor experience on the page will undoubtedly lead to more conversion.

Secondly, keep track of the search engine share of referring visits. Monitor the contribution of each traffic source for your site monthly that includes direct navigation like typed in traffic and bookmarks; referral traffic from links across the web, promotional or campaign branding links and search traffic queries from major or minor web search engines. Knowing and understanding the exact numbers or percentage will help to identify the weaknesses and give a basis for comparison over time on your marketing efforts; the things that are done correctly as well as the things that can be further improved.

The last metric to keep track of is to note the visits that are referred by specific search engine terms and phrases. Keep a record of the keywords that send traffic on a regular basis to help identify new trends in keyword demand, gauge the performance on key phrases and find newer terms that would significantly bring traffic that is potentially under-optimised. There should also be a track search referral counts for keywords outside the top keywords and phrases as these areas could be the most valuable to boost the website on search engine results page.

Remember, you are doing SEO is for users, not for search engines. Ensure that the content you wrote have added value for your users. Make it flow naturally, without using excessive keywords. The more users find your content useful to them, the higher the possibility of search engines reward your site with better ranking.