Whether you’ve been tinkering with your site’s SEO for years or have just launched your first company blog, you almost certainly need an SEO overhaul to sort out the kinks, changes and updates that are forever popping up. So, let’s take a look at what SEO is, how it changes, and what you can do to improve SEO on your website.
What is SEO?
If you’re in any way involved in digital marketing or websites, you’ll probably already know what SEO is. If you’re not then it probably sounds like an alien language but don’t worry, it’s not as complicated as it might seem. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. That’s search engine as in Google or Bing, and optimisation as in making something as good as it can possibly be.
What this boils down to is that you should use various techniques that will make your website as good as it can be for the search engine algorithms. SEO is one of the most important aspects of any website, since this is what allows you to be found by your target audience – it boosts your visibility and ultimately gets your product or service out into the world.
Each search engine has an algorithm that will rank websites whenever a user enters a search term. For example, if you search for ‘Coffee shop near me’ on Google, it will return a list of the coffee shops in your area. How does it know where they are? Because these shops’ sites contain all of the SEO information that makes them relevant to your search.
Why Is SEO Constantly Changing?
Search Engine Optimisation is like a game of cat and mouse with the big tech companies such as Google. The cats (that’s us) are looking to optimise our sites for their algorithms, while the mice (that’s Google) are constantly changing how it works…and not telling us about it, either (does that make Google an invisible mouse?!).
So while there are some tried and tested SEO techniques that are sure to improve your website’s visibility, you need to stay up to date and on the ball if you want to consistently rank highly in online searches. The best way to do this is to regularly review, analyse and overhaul your site’s SEO and stick with one of the most basic tenets – produce high-quality, relevant and timely content.
Black hat SEO techniques rarely work and never for long; stick to the gold standard of SEO practice by concentrating on your keywords through high-quality, relevant content!
Never Cross to the Dark Side
It’s great to analyse and update your SEO but one thing you should never do is turn to black hat techniques, which are every bit as malevolent as they sound. These are changes to your site that go against search engine policy and often aim to ‘trick’ the algorithms into giving a higher ranking to a page or site than it deserves. Some of these tricks include keyword-stuffing, hidden content, link farms and article spinning – all techniques to avoid.
Not only is this bad practice but it directly contravenes the policies of companies like Google and Bing, meaning you open yourself up to permanent site damage. They never work in the long run, so rather than gambling on these fast-buck tactics, stick to the cornerstone of good SEO by creating high-quality, relevant content
Whether you’re just delving into creating content for your site and want to showcase it to a bigger audience, or you’ve noticed a drop in organic traffic and think it’s about time for an update, you could probably use an SEO overhaul. SEO is the single most important thing when it comes to your brand or company’s online visibility and it should be given the attention it deserves.
