Understanding SEO: Build Lasting Website Success

Often when the subject of search engine optimisation is brought up, there are many people that put their hands up, saying they ‘know it’, but many people lack the depth that can result in a thorough assessment to positively impact the brand.

There are quite a few programs and tools out there that allow you to run your website through their automated system, generating different results, however, the technical information you get from these programs is barely half the battle, in truly making optimisation efforts to your website.

Q> What is SEO and how is it different from SEM?

Laura> SEO stands for search engine optimisation. It’s the process of configuring and maintaining your website, allowing people to find your domain when they enter relative keywords in a search query. The greater number of relevant keywords on your site through titles, headlines, descriptions and copy, the better.

SEM stands for search engine marketing, but is also known as PPC, pay-per-click. It’s the process of buying traffic to your site through paid search listings. You create a search ad in Google AdWords (for example) and bid on relevant keywords in order to get your ad to appear in the top spot in the results page, for the user to see and click on.

Performing search engine optimisation is sometimes overlooked. If a company has a website and some advertising budget, they often consider running a search engine marketing campaign (SEM), maybe some paid social, but search engine optimisation might not even be on their radar. If you were developing an SEM campaign, wouldn’t you also want to develop an SEO campaign to go along with it?

Q> What is the benefit of performing search engine optimisation (SEO)? And how often should it be done?

Laura> Search engine optimisation is an effort that’s done for the long-run and is not an initiative that’s reliant on a budget to bring in the website traffic. SEM is reliant on budget for results that could possibly be short term, so if you run out of advertising budget, it’s good to have back up efforts where your website has the perfect amount of keywords and the appropriate ones integrated throughout. It’s like a singer losing their voice halfway through a song, but their backup vocals are there to help them finish the verse.

Consider performing search engine optimisation when your company does the following:

• Launches a new webpage on the website.
• Revises or rebuilds the website.
• When an original piece of content is produced and posted on the website.
• When there is a new product or service made available.
• When there is a new location/new local webpage, made to the business.
• When the website has been modified for a special occasion, season or event.

Q> How can I run both SEM and SEO while ensuring I’m not duplicating efforts or wasting budget?

Laura> The two methods of SEM and SEO work great together like a healthy marriage, but you have to make sure the two efforts are talking to one another to create a balance.

With a strong communication process, coordination, and commitment you’re bound to see the results start to pay off over time to prevent competing, unnecessary spending and cannibalisation.

Here is an example of what it’s like to approach the two.

Let’s assume you run a winery. You sell red wine and white wine. You’ve had your website for a few years, and you get a decent amount of traction to the webpage that showcases the red wines, in particular. This is because you have the right keywords and in the right places. In fact, you notice that when you type ‘red wine’ in the search query, your webpage for red wine appears in the first-place position of your search engine results page, organically.

You’ve decided to come out with a new rosé. You’ve built it’s own webpage on the site with directing links, and you have a bit of advertising budget. While you’ve done the SEO, you decide to run an SEM campaign, because the new wine needs a little boost of traffic.

As you compile your search keywords for your SEM, note the keywords that you don’t need to include would be anything to do with ‘red wine’, since organically, the page is doing well. This saves you budget. Majority of your keywords will focus on the rosé, but as your campaign starts to ramp up, note the keywords that are driving your highest CTR and see if they’re worth integrating throughout your rosé webpage. You can then start to dial back the bidding on these keywords as your budget comes to an end, but you still have relevance, since you’ve incorporated them into your page. You might also consider running some ‘white wine’ related keywords too, to give that page a bit of help.

Q> I’ve decided to do SEO, but I don’t even know where to start.

Laura> The company research is what gets the ball rolling and the creativity flowing. Come up with a brief that asks questions about the business. Here are just a few examples:

• What’s the purpose of the website?
• What are the company goals?
• Who are my competitors? Why?
• What have my paid advertisements been this year?
• What have my organic efforts been this year?
• Do I have website analytics and am I seeing the correct results?

It’s amazing how many people start the research without the knowledge you get from a brief. There is so much additional perspective you gain and sometimes you can come up with questions that make a business owner realise they’ve been missing something in their mission statement.

You can determine some obvious keywords or categories that you think represent the website and see if the page appears in the SERP (search engine results page). You can also call up the company webpage directly in the SERP and see what other webpages are listed around it.

Q> I can’t see anything wrong with my website, but I’m still not seeing results.

Laura> Let’s face it. Sometimes our ego gets in the way, but we have to tell it to take a back seat for the sake of making decisions that could lead to a bigger payoff.

Consider seeking some outside perspective, but here are some questions you’re looking to find the answers to:

• How is the flow of the website? (i.e. easy to get around and you can find what you’re looking for?)
• How is the design of my website? (i.e. are the images too large? Or is there video affecting the load time?)
• How is the language throughout the site? (i.e. are the words too niche? Is there slang? Is there too much copy?)
• Are all the pages necessary to have on the site?

Conclusion

It’s difficult to step outside our own mind and consider what someone else could be thinking, in order to see additional perspectives. However, an outsider perspective is sometimes necessary in order to understand if the company website could be improved.

What do you want your viewer to do when they find your site? Should they be directed to one particular page that’s most important to your business? Do you want them to take their time and explore the overall site? Do you want them to fill out a form or click on a specific button?

It can be time consuming, but the more questions that can be asked from the mindset of the potential customer, the more robust you can be in coming up with optimization strategies.