search engine optimisation
Is your website traffic at a stand-still? Your site may need optimising for search engines
What is search engine optimisation?
Search engine optimisation is the process of optimising your website so that search engines such as Google, MSN and Yahoo can reference your pages as highly as possible for specific search terms. Search engines show users the websites whose content most closely matches the users search phrase. Search engine optimisation is therefore about ensuring your site ranks highly for keywords or phrases that best describe your company's niche business.
Why is search engine optimisation important?
Search engine optimisation is particularly important for small businesses who are unable to conduct other marketing campaigns to increase traffic to their website. Research by iProspect* reveals that 62% of search engine users click on a search result within the first page of results, and 90% of search engine users click on a result within the first three pages of search results. Additionally, 36% of search engine users report that they believe that companies whose websites appear at the top of the search results are leaders in their field.
Statistics like these indicate that in order to be seen by the most searchers, marketers need to try to get their websites onto the first couple of pages of search results.
How do I know if my site needs optimising?
For top visibility and the maximum amount of traffic you should aim to get your site listed as highly as possible for each keyword or phrase that describes your company's niche business.
To decide whether your site needs optimising follow these steps:
- How do you think people should arrive at your site - what keywords would you put into a search engine if you were searching for your company's niche business?
Identify the keywords and phrases that describe your company.
- Enter these keywords and phrases into Google or another search engine, if your company operates locally restrict your search by selecting "pages from New Zealand" or equivalent.
How does your site rank?
Results
Does your site rank in the top twenty results for the keywords or phrases identified? If your site isn't ranking in the top twenty results for any of your keywords or phrases it is unlikely that visitors will get to your website from search engines.
Another measure of your website search-friendliness is the number of pages from your website that search engines have indexed.
- In Google, MSN or Yahoo type your site name prefixed by "site:" e.g. site:www.example.com in the main search box, for example for Trunk Media we would put: site:www.trunkmedia.co.nz, this will return all pages from our website that have been referenced by the search engine.
How many of your website pages have been indexed?
Results
If you have considerably fewer pages indexed than actual number of pages on your website your site structure may not be search engine friendly. Search engines may not be able to index all pages on your website due to poor construction.
*"Search Engine Users Behavior Study," iProspect, April 2006
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