Search Engine Optimisation - some great information for you
What is SEO - Search Engine Optimisation?
Here is the definition straight from Wikipedia
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the process of increasing the quality and quantity of website traffic by increasing the visibility of a website or a web page to users of a web search engine.
SEO refers to the improvement of unpaid results (known as "natural" or "organic" results) and excludes direct traffic and the purchase of paid placement.
from Wikipedia
The world of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
The SEO market is filled to overflowing of false hopes, unscrupulous providers, massive over-selling and marketing which all leads to grossly unsatisfied, disgruntled clients who have been burnt and typically hate and mistrust all operators within this space.
The more you understand yourself about SEO, the better you will be able to make informed decisions on what to do, how it is done and who you choose to help you to do it if not yourself.
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) should be seen as a long term strategy while SEM (Search Engine Marketing) should be seen as a more short to medium term strategy.
SEM can see you acheive relatively instant results (page one of Google immediatley once your Ad is activated), while SEO may take many months and may also see you never acheive a page 1 ranking on Google.
There are only 10 positions on Page 1 of Google so that is it. If these positions are in a very busy market sector with many providers all with great online presences, the task of getting your business on this page can be very difficult. The more competition there is, the harder you have to work.
By contrast, if you are in a industry with little competition or competition that has very little online presence, you may see yourself on the first page of Google with minimal effort.
BASIC SEO STRATEGIES
There are 2 SEO strategies
- on-site (on page) SEO
- off-site (off page) SEO
We will go in to the key differences between these 2 strategies.
OFF-SITE (PAGE) SEO - Search Engine Optimisation
Off-Site SEO relates to everything that is not happening directly on your own website or hosting environment. This is primarily having other website(s) referring to your website most commonly via a hyperlink.
Getting high quality inbound links will help your Organic Ranking on Google. An inbound link is a link that is not on your own website, it is another website linking to you.
This is seen (by Google) as another business recommending (or validating) your business (because that is what it essentially is).
High-Quality inbound links are links that are on websites that are within your industry or related industry like say the HIA (Housing Industry Association) having a list of their Members (Registered Builders) and the Member's Profile (on the HIA site) links back to the Registered Builder's own website via a hyperlink
While not considered as a 'high quality' inbound link; adding your profile online and including your web address (and wherever possible a blurb on your business filled with your keywords) is a great way to get your organic Search Engine Ranking moving in the right direction.
There are many Online Business Directories that can help your business get inbound links and many are FREE.
For example, here is our own business on True Local
The negative part about adding your business to the online directories apart from the cost (although most are FREE) are they are SPAM magnets as well as a source of your contact information for sales people trying to sell you everything related to your web site and business.
Thought you had a lot of SPAM at present, wait until you start adding your site to the Online Business Directories.
The next strategy we will talk about is On-Site SEO.
ON-SITE (PAGE) SEO - Search Engine Optimisation
On-Site SEO relates to everything that is happening directly on your own website and hosting environment. This is primarily the Google-Bot crawling your site, reading all the content, content placement and hierarchy, following links and seeing how quickly your page loads.
- adding your keywords as headings, pages names, image names, in sentences and links throughout your site
- having a great url can help (with your keyword as part of your url)
- having your website hosted in Australia (close to your web browsing public), this reduces your page load time and also helps tell Google that you are local (both of which are known factors for SEO)
- critically review your site's 'page speed score', a FREE and reputable service that provides this is GTMetrix (see below) and work towards addressing the issues raised (where possible)
Keyword Research? Here is a great tool (also used by SEO/SEM professionals) to help you find what people are typing in to Google to find products and services they are interested in Google Trends. You can use it to help decide what keywords to incorporate in to your own site that will have the most impact and deliver the best results.
What is GTMetrix?: GTMetrix is a reputable tool used by SEO professionals to help find 'on page' bottlenecks slowing your site down and hurting your Organic Ranking on Google.
Here is a link to GTMetrix if you wanted to test your own site.
Even though you can not test from an Australian based server with GTMetrix without creating an account (presently their test server is located in Vancouver, Canada), the tool still works fine in displaying your web page 'bottle necks'.
The works required to get a great 'page speed' score does extend beyond a Web Site Design/Build but is worth the extra effort to both improve the browsing experience for your public and the extra benefit of improving your Organic listing on Google.
Of course, the most important page to concentrate on (atleast first) is your site's homepage but there would (most likely) be global assets addressed in doing this which will speed up your entire site.
Now I do admit, it did take us quite a few hours to acheive this result but..., take a look at what our site rates on the GTMetrix 'page speed' score (click image below to make it bigger);
Can we help you improve your Page Speed Score?
Of course we can, we will naturally be recommending our Melbourne Web Site Hosting Service as no matter how great your 'page speed' score is, if your site is loading from an overseas (often in the U.S) and often inferior (shared servers are commonly overloaded) your site will still not do as great compared with hosting locally in Melbourne.
Of course, if your customers are in the U.S sure...., that is where you should be hosted.
As far as your 'page speed' score, yes we can definitely help you improve it and charged as per our hourly rate.
If you site's 'page speed' score is currently say an 'F', then I would say perhaps 4 hours of tweaks would be needed to get it up to an 'A' or a 'B', of course this is dependent on your theme and how 'friendly' it is for the optimisations required.
Can we help you with other updates on your site?
We are Web Developers so Yes, we are working on sites everyday. We build sites, update sites and also manage sites. We also offer remote tuition sessions for clients that would like some training in managing their own website.
We’d love to hear from you!
Contact Info
Contact: Youchoose Pty Ltd
Address:
PO Box 5269,
Frankston South, Victoria 3199
Tel: 03 9811 7070
Email: support@youchoose.com.au
Web: www.youchoose.com.au
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