What is SEO?
SEO means Search Engine Optimisation (or Search Engine Optimization with the USA spelling) and it stands for the process of increasing the relevant traffic to your website from organic search engine website listings.
What is an Organic Search Engine Listing?
When you search using a search engine, you will see various different parts to the results page.
The results often include Paid ads in the header, footer and sidebar (and sometimes mixed around the page).
The “organic” listings are all of the non-paid links / listings on the results page, which are ranked there through the merit of their SEO.
What makes a website good from an SEO perspective?
A “good SEO’d website” would have to include:
- Pages optimised both for the keyword their consumers search for, and the intent which they want to satisfy.
- Unique and engaging website content and digital media.
- High number of quality and relevant inbound links from trusted sources.
- Consistent business information across the web.
- A website that’s crawlable, accessible, and indexable.
- Utilises schema.org markup to connect with the knowledge graph.
What should you watch out for with SEO? Understanding Google Penalties
The majority of web searches are done through the Google Search Engine (source) and so this section refers strictly to that.
Google has an algorithm that ranks the website listings, and it has been refined over time to make it hard to manipulate.
This has resulted in a website being able to be “penalised” which means it is demoted in rankings, because of several factors:
- Google Panda Penalty: this relates to the quality of the website content and pages that link to you. It usually involves duplicate content issues.
- Google Penguin Penalty: this relates to the quality and anchor text variety of the inbound links to your website. Most experience penalties from automated mass-scale link building.
- Google Possum Penalty: the Possum update relates to local SEO, including proximity, where non-central websites were filtered out.
- Google Hummingbird Penalty: hummingbird related to synonyms and enabled Google to understand content more deeply. Websites that had a different page for every keyword variation were often impacted.
- Google Medic Penalty: the medic update related to website quality, trustworthiness and expertise, mainly in “your money or your life” niches (those seen as having a big impact on someone’s life) such as medical, loans, ecommerce and finance.
More Information on SEO
SEO by UK Area
Tasks Involved with Search Engine Optimisation
- Keyword Research
- Link Building
- Schema.org Markup
- On Page Optimisation
- Internal Linking
- Citation Creation
- Google My Business
- Outreach
- Influencer Marketing
- Press Releases
- Social Media Marketing
- Google Analytics
- Google Search Console
- Google Tag Manager
- Remarketing
- Conversion Rate Optimisation
- Content Marketing
- Ecommerce Optimisation
- CMS Management
- Website Upgrades
- Technical SEO
- SEO Audits
Popular Website CMS for SEO
- WordPress
- Magento
- Shopify
- Opencart
- Woocommerce
- HTML
- Google Sites
- WordPress.com
Popular SEO Tools
- Screaming Frog
- Ahrefs
- Google Search Console
- Google Analytics
- Scrapebox
- Pitch Box
- SEMrush
- Moz
- Google Docs
- Google Data Studio
- Deep Crawl
- Link Research Tools
- BuzzSumo
- BuzzStream
Types of Businesses That Do Well with SEO
- Plumbers
- Locksmiths
- Lawyers / Solicitors
- Gardeners
- Accountants
- Marketing Consultants
- Independent Schools and Colleges
- Universities
- Online Courses
- Digital Goods
- Ecommerce Stores
- Clothing Brands
- DIY Stores
- Furniture Retailers
- Gadget Stores
- Online Publishers
- Data Websites