What is SEO?

Search engine optimization is the process of making your site better for search engines. If a search engine can’t find your site, then it is going to be difficult for you to get traffic. Are you using an automated web hosting platform like Blogger, Wix, or Squarespace, or run a small business and don’t have much time to put into your website? We highly recommend delving into the basics of SEO to ensure your website is discoverable and ranked by search engines in order to have a strong presence on the internet.

Even a basic knowledge of SEO and search engine optimisation can be an asset in helping to attracting people to your site. If you want your website to not just be ranked high by search engines, but also have the ability to rank in certain areas of the internet like social media or local business placement, then SEO is for you.

“SEO” may also refer to a person who’s area of expertise is Search Engine Optimisation. They are called an SEO or Search Engine Optimiser and their job is primarily focused on implementing strategies and practices in order to improve the presence of a business on the internet.

SEO and Search Engines 

SEO makes it easier for bots to find your site and make sense of your site! Search engines such as google, bing and yahoo have programs called “bots” that constantly follow links throughout the internet.

SEO makes it easier for bots to find your site and make sense of your site! But how do they work? The bots are looking for websites and the pages within them that are most relevant to the keyword you have entered. They then look for the best content within these websites and then pass this information to search engines.

The more relevant your site is, and the more useful information you can provide, the more likely you will be to rank higher in search engine results! Google, Bing and Yahoo are constantly endeavouring to improve their algorithms so they can be as accurate as possible. Search engines run thousands of web crawlers looking at all of different websites in search results (the list of links).

Does SEO include Social Media?

Does social media apply to SEO? Yes, search engines are very advanced now and take multiple factors into consideration, including social media presence and sharing. They also take context into consideration. You should have a presence on social media and try to attract an audience of your customers and potential customers. How can we determine which social media platform we need to use? There is no right or wrong answer. You should look at what is the most popular and the most used in your niche and with your target audience. Again, there is no right or wrong answer other than what makes the most sense for you.

What are some of the mistakes we should be avoiding when using social media? The biggest mistake people make are not staying on top of their content and posting consistently. Publishing relevant content on social media is a key factor when it comes to building an audience, having good conversions and attracting links back to your site.

Do I need SEO?

If your web content is not highly ranked then you will receive less traffic, fewer views and less exposure.

If you believe your content is useful to others, then you need to ensure that they can find it by optimising your site. Having a high ranking site is not necessarily the same as getting more traffic.

The website must be unique, informative and well presented in order to attract traffic. A website that has not been optimised will unfortunately not get much traffic because it is not considered important and relevant by search engines.

Organic search engine optimisation is the act of optimising your website so that search engines view your site favourably. Once a site has been optimised for the search engines, it will be able to rank higher in their results pages.

To rank higher you need to do two things: produce excellent content and ensure that your content is accessible.

Search engine optimisation or SEO is not an overnight task, it takes patience and perseverance in order to achieve a good ranking in organic searches. 

If you are serious about getting more visitors to your website, then there is no real substitute for optimising your content. It is not easy to optimise websites, but this article will guide you on how to do it.

Rankings are important because they signify how important a particular site is in relation to the search engines. When a website loses its rankings, then its popularity can be positively affected.

So SEO is just about search engines?

Yes…and no. You see, search engines are designed to predict how much value and appeal your content will have for a visitor. When a visitor comes to your site, they’re more likely to spend more time on sites that have higher rankings and appear higher on the first page of search results.

So if you want people to stay on your site for a long time and keep coming back, then search engine optimization is a great way to do it. But let’s use an example to show you exactly what we mean. Imagine that a Google visitor types in the phrase “how to build an online business.

If a search engine, such as google search, determines that your site is difficult to navigate and missing helpful content then your site will rank lower. However, if the search engine determines that your site is easy to navigate, helpful and easy to get to, then your site will rank higher.

So search engine optimization, or SEO as it is often referred to, is a matter of creating a website that reflects the content on the website…it’s not simply about making it look pretty or only appealing to algorithms. 

If you want to get more traffic and be ranked higher in search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo…or if you are just looking to improve the appearance of your site, then you’ll want to learn how SEO works. It’s best to begin with a simple strategy to make your site helpful to visitors first and once that is developed it will be easier to move on to the more advanced SEO strategies.

What does SEO entail?

So what does SEO entail? Specifically, SEO focuses on UX or user experience, Content, Website Structure, Backlinking, Site speed, Server speed, Scalability, Design, Accessibility, Relevance to the searched topic, Age of the site, Domain authority, Sitemaps, Structured Data, Social Media presence and User reinforcement among many, many other considerations. But what do all of these terms mean? We will take you through a step by step outlining of each part of the process. If you’re looking to quickly improve your site’s ranking without first learning how to properly use keywords and research… then you are going in the wrong direction. SEO is a highly technical field and you have to learn how to use SEO properly before ever even attempting it or it will cost you thousands of dollars.

The first step in SEO is UX or user experience. It may sound like a new concept, but the user experience is a crucial part of any website’s success.

The goal of experienced SEO professionals is to drive users to their site and keep them there, while still making it easy for them to find what they are looking for. The importance of this cannot be overstated, although it seems that many general website owners do not understand how important the UX truly is. In fact, if you want to find a good site to use as an example, just look at Amazon.com. When you look at Amazon through the eyes of an SEO professional, it is obvious that Amazon has done a lot of work towards UX as one of their primary goals is to attract customers that may be looking for something specific and then guide them into purchasing more products all while doing so on their site. Additional aspects such as backlinking, server speed, design, accessibility, content relevance and a host of other issues will be addressed as we move along.

What can I do right now for basic SEO?

Create content that is unique and useful to site visitors, not just to the search engines. Your content needs to be engaging, helpful and easy to read. This is not the time or place to try and “stump” anyone with your vocabulary or impress them with your writing skills. Most people are not interested in reading text that is filled with complicated language, long sentences or even long paragraphs. It needs to be simple for users and for search engines as well. Providing a good user experience is more than just writing good content though. Compress photos to download quicker , as they are often a large file and can slow down your site.

Avoid using stock images or photos that are not yours, as they will get repetitive and the search engines do not like to see those, especially if they know you have them everywhere. Keep your content updated and relevant, or you will lose traffic quickly and then you will never be able to get it back.

Make sure your website is secure. The website should be accessible through all major browsers and it should not have any issues. There are several different forms of security that can be utilized, such as SSL certificates and encryption, but the most important one is the use of HTTPS. This is a connection that encrypts your site’s content and also makes it inaccessible to people using a regular HTTP connection which is how many people get around their internet filters.

Have easy navigation, make it easy to find what you are looking for and make sure visitors do not leave your site and do not come back. Keep the site load times short, or even better, make them invisible to the user. Many sites load slowly, which impacts their rankings because many people will click away from a site that takes too long to load. If a user does not want to wait for a page to load it is better for them if it does not exist at all.

Use the correct header tags for content structure, ensure its easy to access on mobile! Ensure your website has a clear purpose, do not waste people’s time. You should be able to find any website’s address within a matter of seconds and you should be able to understand the site’s main purpose quickly as well.

Do not use excessive CAPITAL LETTERS or EXCESSIVE EXCLAMATION MARKS in your writing. Both of these are considered extremely unprofessional and spammy by both humans and search engines alike.

Do you need a professional SEO?

Bitvalley Digital is Perth’s fastest growing SEO company in Perth for a reason.

Our SEO services guarantee to get you the most cost-effective and impressive results, with no out of ordinary fees or contracts. We promise results for your website.
So, what are we doing differently than the others?

We understand that your website all-important to your business. We will work with you and explain what can be done before starting. We are SEO specialists in Perth.
You need outstanding results – that’s why we focus on long term results instead of short term gains. We work closely with our clients to deliver the best possible performance an ROI.

 If you want to move ahead of your competitors, then using Bitvalley SEO, a Perth SEO Company, can help. We can be there to do the work for you, keeping your website ranking competitive and your business relevant for people looking for a service or business like yours.