search engine optimisation (seo)

Search Engine Optimisation is the process of increasing your website's position for organic (free) search. Search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo and others all have an organic section where they select which websites to display for a particular keyword or phrase and they control the order those results are displayed in. Organic traffic is the holy grail for website operators as it brings in new business with no (or close to no) acquisition cost. However it is not as easy as it sounds.

There are a number of "SEO Experts" who guarantee you that you will be listed on page 1 in Google. The question to ask is: "Since there are only 10 placements in total on page 1, what do you tell your 11th client?" Of course it is also not just their 11 clients vying for a spot on page 1 but literally billions of websites. Google themselves make it clear that no company can make this claim - check out the guidelines. Google has also taken the time to remind you that when you get unsolicited email from some random company, promising you that their SEO is world class and that they can assure you of being listed first on Google that you should treat the email the same as all your other unsolicited emails for burning fat whilst you sleep, or earning 4200000 dollars for helping some deposed dictator.

So we don't promise that you will be listed first on Google for every keyword that mildly relates to your business but Global IT can bring more customers to your website. When a potential customer enters a keyword or phrase into a search engine, the search engine evaluates billions of websites, determines which ones to show and what order to show them in and most amazingly, they do this in a fraction of a second. Search Engine Optimisation is an ongoing process whereby we look at each of the micro decisions made by the search engine for very specific keywords and phrases to improve the relevant page on your website so it is judged better.

This involves (at the "easy" level), ensuring the page is named correctly, the meta tags are in place and correct, the content on the page is relevant, the structure of the page is search engine friendly, and other pages on your website link to the page appropriately to name just a handful of factors. Then the "easy" work is done and we need to build links using only white hat techniques. This is a process whereby other websites will link to your page as this is a way of building trust with search engines. That is, if website ABC links to you, they are prepared to associate their brand with yours. Now if the search engine already trusts website ABC, then they are likely to also trust you a little more. Accordingly, a link from prominent websites are more 'valuable' than from smaller websites but all links from relevant and trustworthy sites are good.

We feel that it is important that you have some understanding about search engine optimisation (SEO) and hence the explanation above but Global IT will take care of the entire process for you from start to finish.

The amount of work required will vary depending on what state your website is in to begin with as well as the speed you want to go. All this work takes time and we can allocate 40 hours a month or 400 hours a month. We take the time to discuss your specific requirements and tailor a solution that is a best fit.

SEO has great long term benefits for your business but improving your page ranking does not happen overnight. We work with you to identify a list of the most relevant keywords for your business and produce detailed monthly reports to show how our work is improving where you appear for those specific keywords on the most important search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo. Since jumping from page 8 to page 5 won't necessarily give you heaps of additional traffic, these reports serve as a great tool to gauge success until of course you do get high enough in the rankings to see a result where it really counts - in your wallet.