Ask yourself a question? How did you end up here? You must have been searching for how search engine optimisation (SEO) works or something closely related to that inquiry? Whether you used Google, Bing, Yahoo and all the other search engines to arrive here on this page, You will begin to understand how SEO ( Search Engine Optimization ) works.

What is SEO?

SEO is all about the way you have your Titles ( Keywords ) and your content Organised throughtout your website. Ideally your Content must include good information along with all the keywords you want to rank for. Each piece of content must be informative and show a good flow of keywords that relate to your business website and also what users might type into the search bar to find that information. 

SEO is Basically focused at getting more Search Traffic to your website.

All business needs traffic Coming to their website but so many are not Optmised to attract Customers. There are many different factors when optmising your business website and I will list just a few that are a must before launching your new website.

Website Structure. 

With the introduction of the likes of upwork and fiver.com , it is a lot more afforable to get a website built. The days of paying 10s of thousands for a business website are gone. The reality today is you can get a website built for a litle as a couple of hundred quid from many countries outside of Ireland.

Problem is a great number of these people that offer these services are not up to scratch and do very poor work. Ive seen many come to me over the years to fix such websites and in many cases a complete rebuild is necessary. 

Websites need to be structurally strong which means built well and correctly set up on your chosen server. They need to be secured and have all the right Policies and GDPR put in place. They need an SSL certificate in place so it is not seen as a potential threat to the visitor who wants to enter your website. 

Website Speed.

Website speed is essential both on desktop and on mobile. Slow websites are a big no no to the search engines. Google is the most popular search engine and their ranking are very much based on the loading speed of a website. Having the right Hosting Provider like Maxer ( Formally Spiral Hosting )and a well constructed and optmised website is the secret sauce behind any fast loading website. Get this right at the beginning and you are on a winner.

Navigation.

Navigation is another basic requirement for your website. It needs to flow nicely and is easy to understand and enjoyable to navigate around. If the visitor has any problems getting around the website , they will simple leave and go somewhere else. This is called 'bounce rate' which tells the Search engines how long the visitor stayed and where they left. This gives them a general idea of the quality of the website and the visitors experience.

Title of the website.

The title of your website is critical and must represent your overall business intent. Every title after that must relate to the main website title in its own way like an extension of its many meanings. Each Description on all pages must also reflect the main title and discription in some way. This enables google and the other search engines to properly assess what the website is all about and to make a determination of its quality and layout of information. 

Google Search Console

With the above mentioned implemented, you will have to submit your website to the Google Search Console and the other search engine consoles. This is you registering your website to them and then be indexed so they can feature your website on their Search engines correctly. All websites need to do this to start the ranking process.

You then need to submit a sitemap to each search engine to have your website crawled and monitered by each. When each Search engine has indexed your website it will see your titles, Content, Keyword Phrases, Relevant keywords, Images, Products, Categories, Tags and any blogs you have written that explaines your business in more detail.

Search Engine Rankings. 

So with all these measures implemented at the beginning, your business is in a very good place for search Engine Rankings. You have just carried out a basic technical SEO on your website and are set up to start attracting Customers and more search traffic to your business.

Blogs.

Blogs are problebly the most underrated and misunderstood Content marketing tecnique for ranking very well on the search engines. A simple blog with the right title, discription, Images and keyword phrases can reach 10s of thousands of potential customers.

If a potential Customer has a search query that you can answer and answer well then the search engines will make sure that this information is made available very favourably in the Search rankings. Do not underestimate the power of the blog as it is a very nice tool to target the client that you are looking for by answering a question they might have.  

Blogs are also a very good way to get your information out on social media channels. You can used them to share any video or blog that you may have and help you to link to other media channels.

Content is king.

Content is king they say so I always advise my clients to extensively write blogs about every aspect of their business and share that expertise to the people that are interesting in the information. Like I said before, there are many meanings to the main title of your business so blogs are the best way to explain that in detail.   

Make sure the title of each blog has a target keyword that customers want to know about and make sure it has relevant Content related to that topic.

The more quality content you have on your website the better the rankings you will have. The content has to be very good so dont be lazy about your information and have some images or video included if possible.

Linking.

Links are also very important when trying to rank a website. Again, links are not understood very well and when I try to explain their importance, I correlate them to writing a book. People seem to understand links more with this correlation.

Links are basically linking your website like a web of information within a website and outside of it. Its a bit like the index at the very back of a book or a reference to another chapter within the text. The internal links are the references to other parts of the book or in the website's case , the links to other Blogs that have more information. External links are the index at the back of the book or links to more information outside of the book or an outside website for further information Related to the topic discussed in the information.

Having these links, give google a more in-depth look and how the content is constructed and the relevance of the links to further information on any given subject. This adds another ranking factor to a website and that is 'Authority' on a particular piece of information and its links to other authority websites of simular or more comprehensive information.

The last one are backlinks which is basically other websites linking back to you as a place of good information for their own readers. It is like someone reading your book and recommending it to others.

If the newspaper for example, wrote an article about your book, this would abviously reach more people. So when a high ranking website recommends you by linking to you this says the same and will reach many more readers.

Links are essentially sending you to more information about a particular subject or topic both within your website and outside of it . 

Summary 

I could write many more pages of Content on SEO and how websites could easily use this to their distinct advantage. Once understood, this knowledge can be introduced step by step so this can be seen to be working in real time.

I have had the pleasure of working with some great companies and have implemented many of what I have just discussed. I have seen the results of this Search Engine Marketing formula for many businesses over the years .

Some businesses will go the route of Google ads for some quick results and short term traffic. SEO is for those who want to build a longterm steady flow of search traffic and do it gradually over time. Its not a quick fix type in Marketing but the building of a brand from the ground up and keeping it there with Good content so it remains at the very top of the search engine rankings.  

I hope you enjoyed "What Is SEO and How it Works" . I have some other blogs you might be interested in. I wrote one Blog on the correlation of SEO with Writing a Book Called SEO Explained In Simple Terms.

Please have a read of the next blog that takes a deeper look into the understanding of how SEO works. Leave a comment of you have any questions. I would be very happy to connect with you and answer anything you wish to discuss further.

Thanks for reading.

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