What is SEO?
So many times as a businessman looking to unleash your brand on the internet you will often come across the acronym SEO. So exactly what is SEO? Well it stands for Search Engine Optimisation which is a complex practice to optimise a website for search engines. Originally it involved simply informing search engines what the basic content of a site was through basic methods, but these methods began to be abused by people trying to make their sites rank number one on search engines. Many sites would just repeat similar words associated with a certain topic and make no real sense to the reader. And due to the importance to rate highly on search engines the quality of content on many high ranking pages began to drop dramatically.
But Search Engine like Google began to fight back and make changes to their search algorithms that would penalise such bad practises.
Instead websites had to become much more user orientated if they wanted to get higher in search engine results (sometimes referred to as SER’s). One of these requirements was to increasing the speed of websites through various methods and improving user experience. Additionally websites that are mobile friendly also gain higher rankings as this too improves user experience.
Using the internet is becoming an increasingly improved experience for people thanks to these ‘rules’ created by the big search engines. But the changes are consistent to make sure that they not being abused. Additionally the exact ‘rules’ to follow are kept secretive, again to prevent their abuse. Google used to Rank every page on the internet with a number between 1 and 10 based on the quantity and quality of sites that link to any particular site. However they had to stop informing the general public of ranks for certain sites as many site owners of high ‘page-rank’ sites began to sell links.
Now SEO experts rely on helpful hints from Google’s Matt Cutts (former head of their web spam team and current head of Search Quality Team) and a lot of analysis to determine best practices. But, as stated by Matt Cuts on many occasions the best practice is good quality content and user experiences.
SEO can be put into two categories. One is on-page SEO which involves best practises a web good developer adds to the site. And the other is off-page SEO which involves Social Media interactions and link building which, if done well, can intern build your sites traffic on their own.
At Web Design Eastbourne we create all our sites with basic on page SEO making sure your site has the best possible start when it’s launched on the web.