Search Engine Optimisation is one of those things that you either know you need to do or are a bit sceptical / scared of and will resist and resist until the day comes that you can take no more of the phone being dead and decide you need to find out more about it. Because SEO is not a physical product, it can be difficult to understand exactly what it is, how it’s done and more so, what it can do for you and your online business.
In the most simple terms, SEO is about getting your website higher in the search engines for your chosen search terms. As we say, this is the most basic way of summing up what SEO is all about, as generally, a good SEO campaign will increase your visibility in the search engines, allowing more people to find you and your business and therefore in theory, will lead to an increase in enquiries and sales.
When you start looking at SEO in more depth, this is where people often get a little bit nervous, because unless you have a basic understanding about the foundations of SEO, then you could be swimming out of your depth.
SEO is not magic, nor is it something that you could never realistically do yourself, but what you do need is a lot of time to not only learn the industry and keep up with it, but to also have the time to actually work on your campaign, which unless you have a lot of resources, could literally take over your business life. Because there are so many factors and fundamentals to an SEO campaign, you not only need a wealth of free time to control it, but you also need to really manage it correctly and make the appropriate changes when they need to be made.
SEO needs understanding and time, these are the two biggest factors that will determine just how good your results are. Of course, this is why so many people outsource their SEO to the experts, because not only will they have the right tools at their disposal to get results, but they will also know what’s working, and sometimes more importantly, what is not, because until you have identified the issues that you might be having, you could end up with an ineffective SEO campaign to say the least.
Anyone operating a commercial website needs to understand that unless they are in a very non competitive industry or they have a very old domain name, getting up the rankings is going to take time, in fact, a lot of time and more so hard work. But, once you have the foundations in place and are really making progress, you should start to see the results from the work that is being carried out. Of course, you need to make sure that the keywords you are working on are the right ones for you and your business, but if you achieve this, then your campaign should start seeing really effective results.
The basics of SEO have generally remained the same for many years, but the techniques and new considerations are of course the areas that make the good the SEO firms stand out from the bad, which is why it’s so important that not only do you realise just how much of an impact a campaign could have your business, but that you actually take the plunge and get your optimisation moving, because its only when you see the results that you will actually realise just what SEO can do for your business.
By Ian Spencer
