What is SEO and why does it matter?
Search Engine Optimisation or SEO is the process of improving your website for search engines. When SEO is done correctly your website will show higher up on Google search results and it will also increase the amount of organic (unpaid) traffic to your site. Organic traffic is defined as users who land on your website via a search engine like Google or Bing.
Organic search is the top method used by people to discover and access online content so, optimising your content to ensure it can be found is important. According to our research, over a four-month period, 43 per cent of the traffic to the UL website came from search engines and of that, 90.8 per cent came from a Google search page.
SEO In 5 Minutes | What Is SEO And How Does It Work
Why is SEO important?
According to research carried out in 2019 by an SEO agency, 75 per cent of users will click on the first or second result on the first page that appears in the search results. This means that the higher your content ranks in the search results, the more likely it is that people will find it.
Please note that just because a search term does not rank very well on your computer or phone it doesn’t mean it won't rank highly for other people on their devices. Google shows different results to different people based on a range of factors including their location, age, device, and even the language used.
The people who find your website through a search engine are higher quality visitors than those that find it through other methods such as an ad on social media for example. This is because they are genuinely looking for the information they have been shown and are therefore much more likely to stay and engage with the website.
For example, we know from our research that over a four-month period, the traffic that came to the UL website via a search engine stayed on the site 40 per cent longer than those who accessed the website directly. They were also more active and less likely to leave straight away.
How does a search engine determine what ranks highly?
While we don’t exactly know what search engines are looking for to determine the rankings of pages, there are some industry-known methods to improve a website's presence.
SEO can be broken down into three main areas, each of which has several issues that can be addressed to improve a website’s ranking.
These 3 main areas are:
On-page SEO – Consists of the visible elements of the webpage. Mostly related to the content and user experience of the website.
Technical SEO – Ensuring a website is set up correctly to be indexed by a search engine.
Off-Page SEO – These are all the things not on your website that make your site more reputable and bring more attention to your content. This includes external PR and links to your website.