Natural search engine results

Search engine optimisation will work on improving your natural search results, whereas search engine marketing will work on paid-for inclusions or advertisements.

The two areas should compliment each other, with the advantage of search engine marketing (SEM) giving you more instant visibility and search engine optimisation (SEO) working on the content and structure of your website to improve your natural search results over time.

Choosing the right keywords, or search terms

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is not all about just getting your website to appear on the first page of search results. It is more important to make sure you are targetting the right search terms that you want to be found on.

Choosing the right search terms is key to ensuring that you are targetting keywords that people are actually searching for i.e. the quantity and quality of visitors relevant to your products or services.

Good keyword research is one of the first things we look at before working on your Search engine optimisation strategy. It can be surprising to see what actual search terms people are searching for as opposed to what you presume they are searching for. This research tells us which search terms are of higher value and will generate more quantity and quality of visitors to your website.

As an example, say your company makes the worlds best television brackets and you have designed your website to talk about the great 'XL10 television bracket'. You may appear at the top of search results for 'XL10 television brackets' but what are people actually searching for? If only a handful of people search for your products by name then you will receive a small amount of traffic to your website. However, when researching what people are actually searching for, it turns out that a large number of people are searching for 'television wall brackets' then you'll need to start working on your website to ensure your website appears in search results when people search for 'television wall brackets'.

This is a very basic example but if you've ever wondered why your website is not receiving the amount of traffic you would like or expect, then it may be that your website talks about the wrong things i.e. targets the wrong search phrases.