Search Engine Optimisation is with out a doubt a difficult art to master. The BIG question is where do you begin?
Do you try and tackle it yourself? Ok, the logical thing to do is start by researching the subject, and the obvious place to look is the internet, right? So you do a search: “Search engine optimisation” So you get a Wikipedia result for number 1, this tells you what SEO means, this is a start! After that you get 1000’s of results for companies offering Seo Services – useless to you if you are going to try it yourself!
Second search “search engine optimisation basics” yields a vast array of results. GREAT! You spend hours going through the results, after your eyes become square and you scratch your head a bit you realise that they are all telling you different things?? This begins to get annoying!
Right, by now you are losing interest, then a brain storm!! “YouTube” – A quick search for search engine optimisation brings some interesting results! From some guy rapping to more people trying to sell you more services.
After all this you will be thinking one of 3 things, 1: What the hell do half of these things mean? 2: That is great but how the hell do I apply all this to my website? 3: I will get someone else to do it for me.
So, if you are thinking something similar to number 3 then you look on the internet for a search engine optimisation company. Any of the first page results will give you the service that you want, as long as you have a massive budget you will be fine. Probably up to £1000 per month for the top 3 on first page results. Lets face it you are never going to go on to the second page of the search results to use a company that cant even get on the first page for their subject.
After half a day wasted you are non the wiser, if not more confused.
The long or the short of it is that to achieve great results it takes months and months of structured on and off page optimisation to get where you need to be. Statistics from Yahoo say that 70% of users will only click on the top 3 results of any search.
If you are adamant that you are going to go it alone then here is a fantastic starting point: Google Guide To Search Engine Optimisation
We will be offering tips on website search engine optimisation over the next few weeks. Please keep re-visiting our blog for more tips and tricks.