Search engine optimization or SEO, as it is frequently referred to, is the process of optimizing the chances of your business website, being highly positioned in the organic search engine results pages (SERPs), like Google or Bing.

With a 92% market share, Google is still the most widely used search engine by far! Organic results are web pages that appear naturally, i.e. not as a paid advertisement, like Google's Pay Per Click, due to their relevance to the search being performed, the number of backlinks they enjoy, social signals etc.  The exact algorithms used to determine the organic search results are a very closely guarded secret of course! When most people want to find something, they go online and “Google it”. Google has become so synonymous with the internet that the Oxford English Dictionary has now adopted it as a verb! Over 75% of users never scroll past the first page of search engine results As the majority of consumers today head straight to search engines like Google and Yahoo when it comes to finding products and services offered by local businesses, good search engine optimization vastly increases the chances of your website and other business content being seen by your target audience. Even if the consumer doesn’t intend to purchase online, they will still search for information about a business, product or service prior to visiting the business in its physical location. Your reviews and reputation of your business online is paramount to attract this type of consumer who is ready to pay you for your services.

The most highly sought after position in the search engines would be #1 in Google, but to be on the first page of Google, preferably in the top ten, is what most people strive for when conducting an SEO campaign. The higher your business appears in the search results, the more chance you have of making a sale.  It’s a proven fact that most searchers, over 75% in fact, never go past page 1 of the results, and websites in the top ten positions get the majority of clicks. Getting your business front and centre of your target audience at the exact moment they’re looking for your type of product or service is 8.5 times more likely to result in a sale.🙌

Keywords and Key Phrases

Search results are displayed according to how relevant the search engine believes the content to be to the search being performed.  They do this by comparing the “keywords” or “key phrase” being searched for, and the “keywords” and “key phrases” which appear on the website or web page the content is on. This is why it’s vital to know your target audience so you can include the various words and phrases they would use when looking for your particular type of product or service in all the content you put out on the internet. Depending on how competitive the keywords for your business are (how many other businesses are competing for the same keywords and phrases) it can take several months to climb the organic rankings, but the results will be well worth it and can generate substantially more leads, customers and sales at a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising. Positions 1 - 4 on the first page of Google search results, receive 68% of all click-through traffic i.e consumers who 'click-through the their business from the search results page.

Google My Business

If your business serves local customers, it’s vital that you take steps to ensure you appear in the Google Local search results 72% of consumers that did a local search visited a store within five miles.

These are the entries in Google’s own free online business directory (which Google has taken from various sources) and are triggered when the searcher uses a key phrase combination of “city + keyword”.  You may find your business in the local listings, even if you’ve done nothing yourself to make this happen. Google sees these results as more relevant when somebody is looking for something local to their current location, which Google determines from the IP address of the computer or other search device being used.