What is SEO?

SEO stands for search engine optimisation. It has been a buzz word for quite some time now and has been through a good few facelifts. There are different techniques to make use of and the results will vary a great deal based on your niche and your website. But what is SEO?

The best way that I can describe what SEO is to you is to tell you that it is a process or a long-term investment in your website and your company’s online marketing. It is not a quick fix or a way to get instant traffic to your website.

SEO is the process of creating relevance and authority for your website. This relevance and authority must be created in accordance with the algorithm that the search engines use to rank websites. As time goes by these algorithms are becoming more and more sophisticated. This makes it more difficult to cheat and get quick and long-lasting results.

At one stage it was possible to get a first page ranking for your website for the most competitive search phrases simply by repeating the phrase in the content excessively. This technique is called keyword stuffing and is no longer effective.

Another technique which is outdated is the mass creation of backlinks to your website using the keywords you want to rank for as the anchor text. Google very quickly cottoned onto this idea and has updated its algorithm to penalise websites thought to be using this technique to manipulate rankings.

For SEO to actually work it is imperative that the techniques used do not violate any of the guidelines that Google and the other popular search engines have put together. Of all the search engines, Google has by far developed the most stringent protocols and guidelines. Unfortunately for the unscrupulous, Google also has the development talent to back up their guidelines. If you do not do your SEO correctly your site will get penalised and may even be deindexed, never to return to the search results again.

It is because of this last that it is so very important to make sure that you choose your SEO provider carefully. Your domain and your website are a core part of your online presence and being forced to change your domain would have long lasting and far reaching consequences.

Which brings me to another thing that SEO is... A lot of hard work.

It can be extremely tempting to make use of automated processes to create content and build links to speed up your ranking improvement. The end result of these tactics is not good. You may see some short term benefits, but in the long run the odds are good that your website will be penalised or deindexed when Google’s algorithm puts two and two together and arrives at the answer of manipulation. 

If you are going to do SEO, do it right and you will reap long term benefits for years to come.