Search Engines and your business - Part 1
08 Jan 2010
In the first of a 4 part series, learn about why SEO is more important than ever.
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) has been a major part of daily life for companies succeeding on the web over the last 10 years. More than ever, Google and other search engines find ways to make content more targeted, relevant and useful to a potential customer. In some ways, this means it is far simpler for your business to succeed online and in a shorter space of time than it traditionally has been.
Lets examine how some of the advances in SEO can directly affect your online presence compared to years gone by.
Improvements in Technology
Major players such as Google have invested millions of pounds in technology and architecture to allow 'bots' to crawl faster, with more accuracy and store far more data than ever before. This means they can visit your website more often, understanding and reading more content. They can decipher complex code presented to them by web designers and decide which parts of your website are the most important, influential and relevant to any given searcher. This allows designers and developers to trial new techniques without having to wait months to see the effects and enhancing the SEO world for all involved.
This improvement in accuracy means that if your website is built in a 'standards compliant fashion' with relevant content, you have a far better chance of being in with a chance of top positions, rather than sitting under the radar or being cast out with the spam.
The improvements in speed allow businesses to reach out with their products faster. Search engines are displaying content, in some cases now, that has only been live on the web for literally minutes! In days past, companies would have had to wait up to 3 months before content was 'spidered'.
Some key points to remember about websites for 2010:
- Semantic, standards compliant code, wins every time
- Ensure any content you put on your website is unique to you
- Keep updating your website as much as you can
...in part 2, we'll cover what types of content are best, how to optimise them and how a comprehensive strategy can bring you more customers in 2010.