Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a process of increasing the amount and quality of site traffic for a website or a blog from search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN. It can also be referred to as search engine marketing (SEM). SEO targets direct visitor traffic or organic traffic rather than paid traffic. Paid traffic includes results from sponsored links, such as those displayed on search engines, websites with reciprocal links, search results from paid listings, and results from paid advertisements. Organic traffic, on the other hand, comes from direct user visits.
SEO techniques aim at improving web site ranking and visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs). These SERPs, a part of the Google Content Network, are the ones that show up in search results for particular keywords. The higher the page rank of a site, the more likely it will attract visitors. They are also frequently visited by search engine spiders, who check for new links, new sites, and other signal that the page may need to be refreshed or rewritten.
Organic SEO involves a combination of different proven strategies including optimising the site through content creation and writing highly relevant and high-quality content, maximising keywords, building backlinks, and embedding meta tags.
The concept of organic SEO revolves around keyword density, quality content creation, writing articles and blogs, creating internal linking structure, and including the use of high quality anchor text links. According to experts in the field of SEO, the goal of every SEO campaign is to get top rankings on major search engines such as Google. Content is the most essential part of any online marketing campaign, because it acts like a medium between the potential customers and the company.
SEO experts also look for strategies that generate links from high-ranking websites and then use these links to direct visitors to their websites. This is a slow process, but there is an advantage. With organic SEO results, the popularity of the website will grow automatically as visitors click on the links on search engine results pages.
Many companies rely on pay per click (PPC) campaigns, especially when they do not have a budget for organic SEO measures. PPC, however, has its own set of limitations. Unlike organic SEO measures, PPC advertisements show up on results pages with a distinct “ad” in front, which may be perceived by potential customers that the company has “bought” the top spots on Google, and therefore, less credible. Furthermore, PPC charges whenever a user clicks on the ad. Since not every click can result in a final sale, this may lead to significant ad expenses without a good return on investment. Also, the bidding for keywords depends on the competition, which is to say, when too many companies are bidding for the same keywords, the cost of those keywords and therefore the entire ad expenses would become much higher.
Organic SEO has the distinct advantage of being free from the clutches of paid advertisements, but it still requires you to spend money upfront to get ranked high in search engine results pages. The most important benefit of organic SEO is that it increases your company’s credibility in the eyes of web users. As search engine results are influenced by a site’s credibility, it’s imperative for any company that wants to stay high up in the search engine results rankings to work hard on making sure that the content on their pages is relevant and useful. When occupying a higher ranking, you will gain a significant amount of traffic, which in turn increase the likelihood of people buying your products or services directly through your website. One of the biggest challenges in online marketing is attracting attention from potential customers. People often make conclusions based on what they see and read about a product or a company. By including as much relevant information as possible about your brand, you help people form their own opinions about you and about your products, increasing the likelihood that they’ll buy through your website.
Another benefit of organic SEO is that unlike PPC, you don’t have to pay for the clicks incurred on your website. This means no more worries when someone types your keywords into Google and finds their way straight back. A successful organic SEO campaign will get you quality web traffic free of charge without having the added risk that comes with paying for clicks. In other words, the cost of organic SEO is significantly lower than that for PPC in the long run.
When it comes to local search, organic SEO methods are much better compared to paid advertisements. For example, Google loves local listings and gives extra points to those companies with localised businesses. So, companies that provide their services within a specific area can expect to get a lot of traffic from local searches. Local SEO methods include optimising the homepage and local listing pages. Some of the common local SEO methods include optimising alt and meta data for images and local area, optimising navigation for local listings, local placement of keywords on site content and on page elements, and creating local directories.
All in all, organic SEO is not dead. It’s more important than ever before to be strategic in how you use your content, keywords and links to rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs). That said, organic SEO does require a fair amount of time and effort, even though this time is usually cut down on when done correctly. With organic SEO, you are taking the long view. It is an investment that, if done right, one can reap the benefits in the longterm.
