SEO or search engine optimisation is a really important part of a small business website.

Let me explain why…

Anyone who uses Google, Yahoo! or Bing (formerly MSN) regularly, knows that they usually provide two types of results (see diagram above):

1. Sponsored links

Sponsored Links (highlighted in red above), are paid for by bidding on specific keywords. Anyone can buy them and they are a huge source of revenue for Google in particular. They are located at the very top of the search engine results pages (SERPs) and down the right-hand side of the pages too. They also appear on various websites as advertisements.

2. Organic listings

Organic listings (highlighted in green above), are on the left-hand side of the SERPs below the top sponsored links. Doing well in these “natural” listings can only really be achieved by SEO.

Why the organic listings are better

Experienced internet users know that the web pages sponsored links point to are frequently of lower quality than the ones organic listings point to. Or to put it another way, clicking on organic listings is more likely to provide the searcher with what they are looking for. This is because for the organic listings only, the search engines return a list of web pages that provide (in their opinion) the best matches for the words you have typed into their search box.

This is especially true with Google because that’s what their whole business model is based upon – high quality results for users from unpaid, natural, organic listings.

By contrast, any website can appear in the sponsored links, just by paying enough money to be there – website content is not a factor for sponsored listings.

So in a nutshell organic listings save users both time and money. No prizes then for guessing why Google’s growth has been so dynamic, or why search engine optimisation has become so important.

So what is SEO?

SEO is a whole host of related tasks, which when carried out effectively, will maximise the position a web page has in the search engine results pages. In other words, better SEO = better search engine listings. This whole host of related SEO tasks falls into 2 distinct areas:

1. On-page SEO

On-page search engine optimisation is about the structure and content of a website and the individual pages it contains. Important on-page factors include domain name, page names, use of meta tags, site structure and navigation, the selection and use of specifically targeted keywords, placement of page elements, use of multimedia elements such as pictures and videos, and even the time it takes a page to load.

2. Off-page SEO

Off-page search engine optimisation is about inbound links to the pages within a website from other websites. Google in particular considers both the quality and quantity of these inbound links a very important factor when deciding which pages should be at the top of their organic search results. It also considers the anchor text (the text that actually appears as a hyperlink) to be very important too. As a general rule of thumb, Google considers off-page SEO to be more important than on-page SEO because they surmise that what others say about you is a better recommendation than what you say about yourself.

What can search engine optimisation do for your website?

Quite simply, the higher your website appears in organic listings, the greater both the quantity and quality of your website traffic will be. Usually, a website needs to appear on the first page to see any real gain and the higher up that page the more dramatic that gain will be. Also, generally speaking, the website listed at number one will get exponentially more traffic than the one listed at number ten. For more about this, read What is a Top Ten Listing on Google Worth to Your Business?

SEO and small business websites

Sadly in my experience, most small business owners still rate the visual presentation of their website above having it search engine optimised. This is perhaps partly because they have always been guided by web designers who have little or no knowledge of SEO, (or worse still, outdated or flawed perceptions of SEO), and partly because they themselves fail to grasp the fact that without effective SEO, their website will never really get more than a handful of new visitors.

Remember that with over 90% of the UK search engine market and millions of searches every day, Google is a potentially huge source of income for small businesses, so to maximise the effectiveness of your website and cash in on this vast market, you should always aim for a balance between looks and SEO.