SEO has become a very important term in today’s online environment. It stands for Search Engine Optimisation and basically refers to how optimised or effective your website is at ranking highly on search engines such as Google for important keywords that you want to be found for. For example if you sell shovels in Sligo then you want to be ranking highly for search terms such as ‘buy shovel in Sligo’ and ‘cheap shovels Sligo’ or ‘quality shovels in Sligo’. Whatever your business promotes or sells, you want your website to be found on search engines by people looking for those products or services.
How is SEO achieved?
SEO is achieved in a variety of ways. Search engines such as Google have complex algorithms which are used to decide which websites should list highest for relevant keywords. Such things as relevant content related to search term, social media links and pages, page speed, links from other websites and online resources, will all play a part. For some businesses it will not be hard to achieve a good search engine presence for their keywords if there are not many competitors vying for the same spot. For other businesses and services it could take many months to achieve results if there are lots of other competitors and information online all competing for the same search terms and keywords.
SEO Strategy
The first step on the road to SEO success is to devise a good SEO strategy which will be effective in the long term. For short term results it is best to go with paid advertising options such as Google Adwords and Facebook Ads. For longer term SEO results to be successful a strategy involving social media, quality content, relevant backlinks and good website structure will need to be devised. When this is put in place results will follow but patience will be needed as it takes a while to get indexed and rank highly for competitive search terms.
