Tag: SEO

8 Essential SEO Tips

SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is a term that refers to several ways and means of getting your page ranked higher in the SERPs or Search Engine Results Pages. Why is this desirable?

If you have ever searched online for something, you will very likely have clicked on one of the websites that the search engines offer from their first page. And of all the choices on that first page, you most likely clicked on one of the first three.

So, if you can get the search engines to show your website in that position, you will get a great deal more organic or free traffic than a website that is on the second, third or other pages.

But how can you get the search engines to choose your website and put it on their first page? There are some SEO challenges you may come across, so here are 8 SEO tips to help you.

  • Search engines are looking for relevance. If you have great information that is not relevant to your website, it won’t show up. So make sure that the information is something that your potential customers will find relevant and the search engines will take note and act accordingly. But relevant text is not the only thing you need.
  • Links are an important part of the SEO process. Your website needs to have internal links – to other pages in your website – and external links. The latter should be to quality websites, not junky ones with tonnes of ads. Any links should give value to your visitors, so they should go to sites similar to, but not in competition with, yours.

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Four Myths About SEO You Should Be Aware Of

Mention search engine optimisation, or SEO, to a room full of business people and you’ll see a variety of reactions, many of which will involve puzzled faces, grimacing or even a bolt for the nearest exit. It is understandable, given the vast amount of conflicting and confusing information that exists relating to SEO.

Sadly, there are some elements of this information which are likely to do more harm than good if applied to a website’s SEO strategy, and yet they appear time and time again on SEO forums, discussion groups and social media posts. Some of this information may seem to make sense at first but a look at the guidelines given out by the main search engines will show they are myths.

Myth #1: You Must Use A Dot Com Extension For Your Domain Name

Whilst dot com is desirable, according to Google it is not the case that they prefer dot com domains and rank them much higher than other extensions such as dot net or dot org. It is true that in the very beginning, Google could only recognise dot coms, but those days are long gone.

If you are a local company, seeking to attract local customers then it is more beneficial to select a domain with your country code such as ‘.au’ in Australia, or ‘.co.uk’ in the United Kingdom.

Myth #2: Keyword Research Is No Longer Useful

Many business owners, and sadly, SEO agencies too, seem to think that ‘they know best’ when it comes to what potential customers will search for. As a result, they optimise their websites and backlinks based on this presumption and then wonder why there has been no uplift in visitor traffic.

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