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seo fundamentals

Most businesses in the western world will have to come to terms with SEO (Search Engine Optimization) within the next 5 years or be out of business. There is saying that Eventually all businesses will be Internet businesses …

“Eventually all businesses will be Internet businesses”

… or they will be out of business. For a while it seemed that this quote had to be taken with a pinch of salt. It was difficult to see how Online Marketing is relevant to ‘Joe the plumber’, or SEO for a local solicitor but that has all changed…

With the latest improvements to Google indexing (Caffeine) now local businesses are able to feature among the Top 10 of local searches in a way that previously would have been possible but costly and to some degree ‘Overkill.’ What is the point in a local business appearing in the Top 10 for a national search term when they can’t potentially service enquiries from far afield.

The over 50′s are the fastest growing group of Internet users as Google goes mainstream. To sum up just as you could go global with an Internet business now you can go local.

So what is it about SEO or search engine optimization that every business owner or website master needs to know. SEO or search engine optimisation is the ‘Art’ or science of improving search engine ranking/position for a particular search term. Wikipedia defines it as “Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a web site or a web page in search engines via the “natural” or un-paid (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results.”

‘Natural’ search or ‘organic results; differs from the ‘Paid results’ (PPC – Pay per click) that one often sees for a search engine usually to the top and RHS of the natural results.

In order to determine where a particular website or page is ranked search engines measure a number of factors that affect the overall search results. A page is ranked highly if the search engine deems the website to have ‘Authority’ for that particular search term. A ‘Search term’ is the word or phrase that a user enters into the search engine ‘Rectangular box’ in the hope that the search engine will provide them with what the user is looking for. ‘Authority’ refers to when a search engine deems a particular website to have more relevant content on the subject keyword than other websites and as a consequence are ranked highly and favoured by the search engine.

The situation is complicated by the fact that search engines are able to rank websites according to your location and your past search history among many other factors that affect search engine ranking.

The key factors that affect search engine ranking

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