This could be by making sure they can locate your store on the high street, your premises within an office building or, as is becoming more and more important in the modern world, your website on the internet. Cyberspace is becoming increasingly competitive and so making sure your website is prominent in the search engines is a big part of getting your company on the road to success.
Don't worry if your website can't be seen on the front page of Google or Bing just yet though as there are ways of changing this. Search engine optimisation or SEO is the process by which your website can be optimised to improve its performance in the search engines. Last year Google announced that they deal with around 100 billion search queries every month; that's over 3.3 billion searches occurring everyday and this is now the first place that people go to find something on the internet.
So isn't it time your business started taking advantage of all these searches? If so then here are a few things you need to consider.
The Foundations Of Your Site -
The first thing you need to take into account is the way your website is built. If there is anything stopping the search engine robots from visiting your site then it could seriously affect your ability to rank well in the results pages.
For example if users have to fill in a form before they can access your site then this is going to be a problem. These robots haven't quite figured out how to fill in these forms yet so they won't be able to tell what's on your site and because of this it's best that it's removed.
It's also important to check for any 404 errors that could act as dead ends and stop the whole site being indexed and to also include a sitemap so that all the pages of the site can be easily identified and crawled.
Things Can Only Get Meta -
Meta tags are used in the script of a website to tell both humans and search engine robots what the site is about. There are a few different types of tag but as far as SEO goes the most important kind are definitely title tags. These can be found on the tabs that you see at the top of any page when you are on different websites and are one of the main indicators used when ranking a site.
The thing to remember with title tags is that they should be no more than 70 characters long, should be different throughout the whole site and should describe exactly what the page is about. Other types of tags are ‘description', which are not used for ranking but will help to persuade users to click on your site once it appears in the results, and ‘keyword' which are largely defunct these days and using them will allow your competitors to see which keyword phrases you are going after.


Keywords Are Key -
If SEO can be described as a cannon that will shoot you to the front page of the search engine result pages then keywords can be described as the cannon balls that you must use as ammunition. In short, keywords are various words or phrases that you will identify from those that web users type to find the products and services that you sell.
For example, if your site sells footwear then your list of keywords is likely to include shoes, boots, high heels, trainers and lots of variations on these terms. The trick is to choose a mixture of words that are both highly competitive with large volumes of traffic attached to them and others that are less competitive and therefore easier to rank highly for. These keywords should then be used in your onsite copy, title tags and anchor text when you build links.
Link Building -
As well as all the onsite stuff that is mentioned above; the main on-going part of SEO is link building. Effectively this is a way of building up the authority of your site by building links to it from other relevant and authoritative sites from around the internet. You can do this through a number of ways but the most effective has to be guest blogging.
By writing blog posts that outline important information surrounding your industry and then posting them on other sites you can essentially build up the ‘reputation' of your site so that the search engines regard it as more important. The more engaging and unique these posts are the better they will be and the more traffic you will be able to drive to your site.
Social Media -
In recent years social media has become a very important part of SEO and it is now vital for your business to interact with its customers via these platforms for many different reasons. By releasing your on and offsite content on networks like Facebook and Twitter you can drive users to your site as well as creating additional links in the form of social shares.
These social shares are a great indicator to the search engines because if something is being viewed and shared by a lot of people then that must mean it is important and useful, so it will then be ranked higher. If you haven't already then it is time to create business accounts on the social media sites that suit your business the best. Think carefully about your audience and the products and services that you sell in order to only choose the most appropriate sites.
Things To Remember -
When embarking on your SEO journey here are a few things you need to keep in mind:
  • Never duplicate anything you do. That includes content, tags or even website pages.
  • Be patient. SEO is not a quick process and it may be months before you see the results you desire.
  • Be unique. The more original and engaging your content is then the more traffic it will attract.
  • There is no blueprint. Although these tips are sure to set you on the way to good rankings there is no perfect recipe for SEO success and so you need to see what works best for your particular site.
  • Things change. A lot. So keep an eye out for the latest algorithm updates to ensure you are not doing anything that could become punishable.
Don't Be Afraid To Ask For Help -
If all this seems a lot of work but you are determined to improve your online marketing strategy then don't be afraid to reach out a virtual branch and ask for help. By hiring a UK SEO company you will be able to ensure you keep up with all the latest changes and that your site is future proofed. Not only this but you will also be able to relax in the knowledge that your time is not being taken up by having to do SEO and better search engine rankings are sure to follow.