SEO – What Is It All About?

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SEO - Search Engine OptimisationSEO or Search Engine Optimisation isn’t terribly complicated. It’s all about getting your website to the top of the search engine rankings when people type in search terms that are related to your products or services.

It used to be that SEO companies could charge huge fees with the promise of getting your website to the top of the search engines. Many business owners were dazzled and excited at the thought of ranking in the top position on Google, but didn’t really think about how it should fit into their business plan or what it would really mean to their bottom line.

Fortunately Google realised some time ago that a lawyer in Ballarat, Victoria doesn’t want or need to rank well for terms such as ‘divorce lawyer’ in Bangalore, India. So paying thousands of dollars for that number 1 or number 2 ranking may be a huge cost that your business could never really justify or recover. For the vast majority of businesses their main area of interest is the district that they are located in. With that in mind, Google developed ‘Google Places’ which allows businesses to highlight their location, services and products to people who are searching locally.

That really changed the face of SEO as it means that you are no longer competing with the global market place. By using Google Places effectively you can place your business in a higher position where it counts – locally. This is just one of several strategies to improve the visibility and the ‘stickiness’ of your website.

Ideally, when people visit your website you want to demonstrate your expertise in your field by providing an answer or solving a problem and then create a connection with them so that they become regular visitors. This can be achieved through quality website content and interaction with social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook or by having them subscribe to your mailing list. The quality website content improves your rankings in the search engines and the social marketing and newsletters create the stickiness.

Useful SEO Links

There are many places you can find out about SEO and even learn to do it yourself. Here are some of our favourite SEO resources.

The SEOMoz Blog – Moz is one of the biggest names in SEO. They have been around since 2004 and their blog provides a wealth of information to help you improve your search engine rankings.

Search Engine Watch – This is the go-to place for everything to do about search engines and search engine news.