Search Engine Optimisation
Search engine optimisation is the process of increasing visibility of your website on search engines such as Google, Bing etc. The better visibility you are the higher you will place on the search results when searching for specific keywords. The goal of SEO is to attract and bring website visitors to your website.
SEM is Search Engine Marketing which is just SEO but also driving traffice with paid search traffic.
Search is often the primary source of traffic for a business as whenever people want to buy/learn more about something they will search for it on search engines, social platforms or retailer websites.
There are three main types of SEO
- Technical SEO
- On-site SEO
- Off-site SEO
Technical SEO
Create a website that can be crawled and indexed by search engines. What technical elements matter here: URL structure, navigation, internal linking, and more.
User experience (UX) is also a critical element of technical optimization. Search engines stress the importance of pages that load quickly and provide a good user experience. Elements such as Core Web Vitals, mobile-friendliness and usability, HTTPS, and avoiding intrusive interstitials all matter in technical SEO.
Another area of technical optimization is structured data (a.k.a., schema). Adding this code to your website can help search engines better understand your content and enhance your appearance in the search results.
Plus, web hosting services, CMS (content management system) and site security all play a role in SEO. SearchEngineLand
Content Optimisation
Optimise content for both people and search engines For people
- Relevant topics
- Relevant keywords
- Well written/gramatically correct
- Unique/Original (Better than other competing webpages)
- Readable/Structured (Think headings, paragraphs, sub headings etc)
For search engines
- Appropriate title and header tags
- Meta descriptions
- Image alt-text
- Open graph and twitter cards metadata
Off-site Optimisation
These may not be considered to be strictly SEO in the conventional sense
- Link Building
- Acquire sites with similar SEO rankings and redirect to your site
- Brand building/PR
- Content marketing
- Social Media marketing, claim your brands handle and post relevant info to redirect to your site
- Claiming, verifying and optimising information about your website on other platforms
- Respond to ratings and reviews
e.g just build your brand and get the word out everywhere you can. Make yourself known. For other platforms such as TikTok, YouTube, Facebook these will have their own ways to market based on their ‘algorithm’.