SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is now a big internet buzz. It is often consulted when starting a new website or when launching a new product or service. But what does it mean, and how should you implement it? SEO is the process of affecting a website’s ranking on Google. This ranking is achieved through specific SEO techniques and practices. Unfortunately, the SEO community (and experts) don’t all have the same opinion on the best approach to achieve good rankings. There are people out there who will advise you that you just need to be louder and work harder. This is not correct. At the end of the day, if you do the right things, your website’s ranking should be permanently at a higher position than your competitors.
Most website owners who are just starting out, don’t know whether they need to SEO or not. Well, the answer is, yes! You should definitely consider doing a little SEO.
SEO is not dead.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is very important. It has changed over the years, giving search engines new ways to rank sites on their search result pages. At the moment, Google takes up 70% of all searches, followed by Yahoo at 26%, Bing at 7% and Ask.com at 5%. The technology behind search engines changes and develops all the time. This means that rising to the top of the search rankings becomes more difficult. One area where SEO has been growing is mobile. Google now takes mobile search traffic into account when ranking websites. This means that even if your site is working perfectly well on your desktop, it probably won’t rank very well on mobile due to the high demand for mobile - optimized sites.
How SEO can help
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is more than just making your site visible to Google. It is also not just about making your site known, it is also about making your site stand out. Google is increasingly penalizing sites that duplicate content. Do not worry about this. Google’s algorithm is getting very advanced, and it can detect when a chapter on a website is duplicated to another.
When shopping for SEO, always search by the individual terms you want to rank for. Traditional SEO companies will often give you a package deal. A bit like buying a washing machine. You get a washing machine, a black one and a white one. But which computer do you want?
Spending on one product or service and having it rank well for one term and rank poorly for several terms, means it is not good value for money. A much better investment would be on a few services, where it will provide the best return. For getting seo tips for blogs check our Sunday best Blog.
Looking to get your website spotted by the popular search engines? Not sure how to do it or where to start?
Many people end up looking for SEO companies which promote the use of fake reviews. If you search online for SEO companies, you will find a lot of companies which state that they can do SEO, however, with no evidence. You will notice that the number of reviews on the sites is very limited. Some are unlikely to have been written by customers and may even have been planted by the site themselves.
You need to look for companies which have genuine reviews. If a company has been around for a while with many good reviews, then they are a company you can trust.
How can you validate these reviews?
Some review sites give the ability to check the reviews. Most of these sites have an option to ‘see all reviews’. You can use this option. You will need the username and the password that the user has shared. Look for accounts with the same username and also review about the same product.
Additionally, the industry standard for legitimate reviews is 5-star reviews. If a company has more than 5-star reviews then you know that they have a lot of happy customers.
Look also for the highest rating possible i.e. 5 stars. This means that the company has over 75% of their customers giving 5-star reviews. You can look out for companies who have a high rating on all of these sites.
How do the reviews affect SEO?
Reviews affect SEO and having an insufficient amount of reviews is a major red flag in the eyes of Google. If Google sees a business with only one review then it is likely to take that review seriously. If they see 2 reviews then they are less likely, but with enough reviews they will assume the site is legitimate.
This does not mean that companies who have fewer reviews will guarantee that their product will not be found by the search engines. Their may be less competition which means a smaller chance that they will be ranked. However, they are more likely to get ranked because Google will see them as a more relevant site.