13.09.21 | Tagged as: Layman's Terms
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation.
In layman’s terms, it’s the process by which your site is optimised, so that it’s ranking within a search engine such as Google is improved.
Ultimately it can generate organic / free traffic for your website.
You may have the best designed website at your disposal and supply the best products or services, but no one’s going to be able to find you on Google without an SEO strategy.
Not invisible per se.
But if you don’t have an SEO strategy in place, then you’re likely to be so far down the rankings, that no one’s ever going to click on a link for your website in a Google search.
If your web developers been good enough to install Google Analytics and Google Search Console, then you’ll be able to get a break down of rankings, impressions and clicks.
Let’s say you have a personal training business in Bournemouth.
You’ve had a website for about 3 months.
You have a few pages but don’t have any formal SEO strategy.
If someone Googled ‘Personal Trainer Bournemouth’ then your website may gain an impression but not a click.
An impression simply means, your website was returned as a result of a users search, but they never clicked on a link that took them through to your website.
So while an impression is a useful indicator our site is being found, we know that we really want clicks.
A click means a potential customer has come to our website for free and if the website is good enough, we can convert them into a loyal, paying customer.
Everyone wants to know the answer to this question.
Firstly we need to clarify what ‘effective’ means?
Getting on page 1 of Google for your desired search term/s should be your first goal.
After that you’ll want to get as high up page 1 as you can.
Let’s say that you’re disciplined in your SEO strategy and follow best practices. You could see results in between 3-6 months, however you could be waiting up to a year or more.
Of course that feels like a long time.
The fact is that the year will pass anyway, and in a year you can either significantly boost the free / organic traffic to your website or you can look back at the end of the year and wish you had done it.
Now it may be a tad unfair to say, but for most businesses, it is the latter.
That’s great news for you though, because you know with a plan, discipline and consistency, you’ll soon be flying high in the rankings.
Of course, if you want to be found straight away, you can spend some money on ads as part of your SEO strategy.
Every time someone clicks on your ad, which will take them through to your website, you will be charged some money.
This allows you to immediately put your business in front of a targeted audience.
The cost of ads is dictated by the value of the search term, so an ad for say ‘Plumber in Berkshire’ will be much more expensive then an ad for say ‘Wetroom installation specialists in Reading’.
Generally the more generic the search term, the more competition there will be for it and this results in a more expensive ad.
In order to have a successful SEO strategy it is vital that your website has an intuitive CMS integrated into it.
A poor CMS, or poorly integrated CMS, means you will be constantly battling with it when it comes to adding new content.
Ensure that whoever you choose to develop your website shows you some examples of previous websites they have built before committing to using their services.
Here at WeCreate, we recommend WordPress as the perfect CMS..
WordPress makes it easy to publish and manage content as well as being extremely powerful and intuitive when it comes to SEO.
