SEO Search Engine Optimisation

Search Engine Optimisation Summary

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the process of making a website more engaging for site visitors in the eyes of what your desired Search Engine deems best practice. The investment of resources necessary for SEO activities can only be defined by the competition a website is surrounded by; in highly competitive markets more work is involved. A primary competitor may have allocated a large amount of their marketing budget towards SEO activities, but this does not mean that other websites cannot outrank them. The secret is finding the best keywords that work with your website and gain high visibility for these phrases. Over time and with commitment, you will be able to compete with the large competitors.

Search Engine Optimisation measures will take a few months to be fully noticed, initially some improvements will be noticed, but it takes time for your website to be indexed fully. It is essential that your website pages be coded correctly, a search engine can see if a page has been written correctly and if any large errors are visible it could cause a negative impact on your overall search engine results.

Inspire Confidence

Online businesses must be constantly evolving to inspire current and potential customers to have confidence, because it is that confidence that is going to lead to them making a purchase. The more people feel they can trust you, the more likely they are to spend their money. Achieving this online can be hard because you do not have a shop front where you meet your customers directly.

For example, online customers cannot see if you’re neatly dressed or friendly, they’re likely to be sat miles away when they find you on the Internet. So, how do you inspire confidence in someone who can’t see you? Simple: give them information, as much information as they would ever need. The more you offer the more you are demonstrating product knowledge. Content is king on the internet and this is particularly true when it comes to marketing online and search engine optimisation.

The Search Engines

Search Engines are a large index of information and resources; they strive to provide current, relevant results. For this reason Search Engines adapt their website inclusion and ranking criteria on a regular basis. Google, Yahoo and MSN are widely known and are by far as the most popular Search Engines. Google alone has a whopping 70% of the search engine market share. In the UK it’s even higher. It is little surprise therefore, that when people think about search engine marketing (SEM), they think only about the options provided by these, the big few.

Whilst advertising with Google’s paid placement or pay-per-click (PPC) services such as AdWords will undoubtedly get you more business, it can also be prohibitively expensive. Even with Yahoo and MSN offering lower priced advertising due to less competition of advertisers, your primary keywords can be expensive and consume your marketing budget.

The internet is always evolving and many new search engines are being developed to serve different demands and offer information in new formats. Some have promising technology and algorithms behind their user friendly interface. Ensuring your website has a presence within the new and promising search engines is important. For example, Technorati is the ultimate search engines, news porthole for anyone who owns a blog and regularly updates its content.

Quintura.com offers an intelligent way to search. From a simple keyword search, Quintura.com then displays a “cloud” of related keywords on one half of your browser and the search results at the other. While interacting with the keyword cloud, your search updates in real-time.Quintura.com is considered by many to be a real contender for search market share in the future.

A different search engine utilising the most recent technology in an original way is SearchMe.com, which is a fine illustration of a “visual search” engine. Whilst searching on SearchMe.com you will get the results in an assortment of 3D windows displaying the websites visually. This site is exciting to say the least, and for those who value an aesthetically satisfying website, it offers something far more striking than what a text only search engine can.

Remember to keep an eye on the new Search Engines with your Search Engine Optimisation campaigns. It is always good to be found as early as possible within the new promising search engines, this will make sure you don’t lose out as they become more popular, consider regular reviewing of new search engines a important part of your online marketing mix.

Why Search Engine Optimisation

• Organic search engine results are more trusted by search engine users because the website owner cannot guarantee search engine visibility through a bidding purchase process.
  
  
• It has become allot easier to track and report on Search Engine Marketing activity, which allows campaigns to be focused on more keywords and phrases. Previously SEO has often been focused on a small selection of key terms and phrases.
  
  
• SEO does not incur the same competitive keyword costings as the Pay Per Click acquisition model, Pay Per Click allows anyone to create an account and display advertisements, obviously experience and understanding helps improve ROI. Search Engine Marketing has no official training, constant research and development is required to understand what is required to achieve visible rankings.