Search Engine Optimisation - SEO
One of the places you want your website to be is on the first page of google search results and preferably up in the top 10. This is often easier said than done. While there are many search engines out there the most commonly used is Google - so this is the place you want to be.
How your website ends up depends on so many factors - some you can control and others you cant. Google has a complex algorithym to work out the most relevant website to your search term and places it in order accordingly. It also can change this algoriyhm at any time so you may think you have it worked out and then your website ranking slips. Because it is out of your control I believe that if you set your website up initialy with all the correct SEO in place and your content is unique and worthy of being read and is occasionally updated that there is no point worring about it.
Some of the main factors that influence your rankings are:
Content
The content of your website must be up to date relevant unique content.
HTML Head Tags
Titles, Keywords and Descriptions, and Alt Tags are all important.
Number of Competitors
The amount of competitiors in your "topic". If you do a seach in google for something very popular like "money" or "property" investment it is going to be a lot harder to get to the top of the rankings than a search for " rare bungle beetle"
Links
Number of links out and number of links in. Where the links are going and where they are coming from. Relevance and Quality counts!
Traffic
How much traffic you get - will determine where you show up in the rankings . So you need to work on other ways of getting people to your website as well. (Offline advertising and social media networks )
Natural Organic Listing Versus Paid Advertising
Understanding the difference in an organic google search result and a sponsored link is really important. If you look closely next time you do a search on google you will notice that there is a main column of results and a narrow column to the right of this.
The column on the right at the top has the heading " sponsored links" and the listings you see here have been paid for to be there. The placement of who is first or fifth in the list is something that is worked out by how much the advertiser wants to pay per click. The higher the amount paid the higher up the list the add appears.
In the main column at the top there is another " sponsored links" section with a pale yellow background. To appear here the advertiser has worked out a premium price to get these top spots.
Underneath the sponsored links in the main column is the area of what is referred to as " natural organic results." The website links/ businesses you see here have not paid anything to appear here. Google has worked out from its complex algorithym the most relevant website to appear depending on the search terms that are entered by the user.
To appear on the first page of google results is every website owners goal. A website that is fully optimised and has up to date relevant content is nearly always going to appear higher in the rankings than one that is poorly constructed, has long download time for pages and is out of date content wise.
If a website that is fully optimised and still not showing upon the first page in the natural search results it may be in a highly competitive market such as money or property investment . In this case it is worth looking at sponsored links and paying to appear in the google results or other advertising avenues to increase traffic.
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