Do you mean SEO?

SEO or search engine optimisation is still possibly one of the most used jargon terms within the online marketing industry and it’s something people often ask us if we do.

Well the short answer is yes, but it’s never that simple is it?

Having SEO “done” on your website doesn’t automatically and magically mean loads of new business for your company. It might… but usually life isn’t that easy.

SEO literally means optimising your website for the search engines. Still sounding obvious at the moment, but let’s look at what that actually means. SEO is something that the developers do, within the code of your website that means you have a greater chance of ranking higher up on a search engine results page when a user has searched on a particular term.

The inclusion of that keyword/phrase in your sites header is certainly very important here but there are a multitude of other things that we do (and also don’t) that will affect where you rank on a search engine.

But the point is when you asked for search engine optimisation, is that all you wanted? None of the other many many methods of getting your site to list more highly on a search engine.

And in fact we could take a step further back and say is ranking highly on a search engine the be all and end all of your objective. Surely what you actually want is more traffic on your website. Well search engines are one way of getting that but there are many others.

And in fact we can take another step along this path and consider that when looking at traffic on your website it’s quality not quantity that counts.

You could have 1000 people a week look at your website, some of whom may find it all very interesting but none of them become customers. Or you could have 10 who are looking for exactly what you do and sign up to be new clients.

Simply getting lots of people onto your website isn’t enough. You need to have a strategy, thinking about who your clients are, how they might find you, where they might be looking for you, or even where they might be when they aren’t looking for you but just happen to find you anyway (because you were there).

So before you ask a supplier for SEO think about whether what you really mean is can you help me get more business from my website.