The importance of SEO

Posted on the 1st October 2011

We all know what SEO stands for (or do we?) It is an abbreviation for Search Engine Optimisation. But…what exactly does SEO do? Basically – it is the method of analysing and constructing individual web pages, as well as entire sites, so that they can be discovered, analysed, and then indexed by various search engines.

SEO can make the content of your web pages more pertinent, more striking, and more easily read by search engines and their crawling and indexing software.

Why would this be of huge significance to you? Would it be imperative to you if customers were incapable of finding your telephone number or finding the address of your business? I do not think that many businesses could carry on for very long in this circumstance.

This situation can apply to a web site. Can prospective customers find your current web site without difficulty? Traffic to your web site could be exceptionally low. Potential customers may not even know that your site exists.

“Wait a minute!” you say. “We have a stunning web site, and we include the web site address in all advertising campaigns. Why would people be unable to find our site?”

Of course, your current customers and persons previously familiar with your business would be likely to find your web site without difficulty. Wouldn’t they?

Are you completely sure that your advertising has reached enough potential customers? Did you think that some people simply do not read the newspapers? What about people who didn’t get the issue of the magazine where you positioned a costly ad?

Did these people hear the BBC radio broadcast when your commercial aired? Were they watching channel 4 during the news hour? Were they on the direct mail list for which you paid thousands of pounds?

And then what about those search engines that everyone uses? Possible customers will type a word or two into the box, hit ’Enter’, and instantly find a listing for your company’s web site. One more click and you have another visitor. Search engines sure can be grand.

Yes, they certainly are great, and the ‘type-and-click’ scenario above does happen. However – More often than not, however, it doesn’t happen without a whole lot of work. Search Engine Optimisation is that work.