What is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?

People are always talking about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) but do you really know what it means? It’s a term that’s often bandied around but given that there are still many companies out there offering ‘the world’ to businesses wanting to improve their search engine rankings (and by ‘the world’ I mean, #1 on Google of course!) and businesses buying that ‘promise’ I would guess that many small business owners with websites don’t really understand what SEO means.

I found this cool video that explains clearly what search engines are all about.

As it says in the video, the search engines are always changing their algorithms for determining relevancy on website, which is ultimately what affects the results that they show. Their algorithms are very closely guarded secrets that people in the internet world don’t know, but those people that can help you to make your website more search engine friendly know in general terms the sorts of things that will help. But don’t fall into the trap of believing that everyone who says they can help you to improve your search engine ranking can actually do that, especially those who give you guarantees – Google et al are changing all the time so even if something works today it may not work tomorrow.

Generally, you need to be adding regular fresh content to your website that is built around the central themes of your website and expertise (and includes your keywords) and is linked to from other relevant sites, as well as ensuring the basic ‘behind the scenes’ structure of your site is good (more on that another day!).