Driving Traffic through Search Engine Optimisation

Anyone who operates a website wants to get more traffic. Indeed, traffic is what keeps the web working. The more visitors you have to your site, the more likely they are to buy your goods or services. But the web is a big place and there is a much competition for available customers. That is where Search Engine Optimisation comes in.

Because most consumers use a search engine to look for products or services, it is very important that your website appear near the top of the search results. Search engines that are spider-driven, use robots to crawl across websites gathering information. These engines, like Google, rank the site on several variables such as how many other sites link to yours, how often people are following those links, keywords within the content on your site, HTML code tags and others.

Link popularity is of key importance in Search Engine Optimisation. Spider-driven search engines crawl the web through links. This means that if you only have a few other sites linking to yours, the spider will consider your site to be of low importance. Therefore, the first part of your optimisation strategy should be to increase the number of sites that link to yours. Online directories, symbiotic linking with business partners’ sites, and pay per click services all can help improve your link popularity. Beware of “black hat” optimisation services. These services act unethically in order to increase the links to your page, often building sites with no real content just to provide another link. Developers of the algorithms used to drive search engines are constantly revising their products in order to recognize such practices. Use of these “black hat” techniques could actually hurt your overall ranking rather than help it.

Key word and phrase selection and density are also important in developing your optimisation strategy. Key words and phrases are what your customers use to search for products and services online. Understanding how your customers think and what words or phrases they will likely use when searching for your product or service is vital. Determining two or three key words or phrases and building your content around them is a good approach. Spiders will analyse your content and index it around key words. Making sure that your site has good keyword density will help the spiders properly rank your site.

Working with a web developer to optimize your site is also a good idea. A web developer can help you structure your site, ensure that you have the proper code, and build themes, which can also help with improving your site’s ranking. As part of your overall strategy, consulting with a professional web developer can be a worthwhile endeavour.

Search Engine Optimisation is more than addressing the issue of keyword searches.  It is more than link building and website development.  Successful Search Engine Optimisation is a combination of these and other factors as part of an overall strategy designed to move traffic to your site.