Ranking for Online Success

Search Engine Optimization Service

Search engine optimization (SEO) refers to the process of modifying the code and editing the content of a website on both a page by page basis and as an overall picture. This involves analyzing, amongst other factors, keyword distribution, link location and text, the wording of titles and headings, meta tag content and overall content quality. The intended result is to more effectively communicate to search engines (more precisely, the search engine algorithms) the overall meaning and purpose of each page and to improve its natural search engine rankings by making it more relevant for specific keyword searches.

Optimization is commonly carried out as a separate stage after the site has been built and the content written, but ideally it should be integral to all stages of the site design and development. Optimizing for search engines is normally a vital aspect of a web project, but the popular SEO phrase 'content is king' reminds us that no matter how well optimized a site is, the quality and quantity of the content is the fundamental dictator of how well individual pages will rank. Quality content naturally attracts incoming links and social media attention, though this does depend on the theme and target market of the site.

SEO is certainly not a golden ticket to a number one ranking position for any page (and any 'guaranteed number one ranking' claims should be taken with a pinch of salt) but it's definitely an important piece of the ranking puzzle and should be integral to the design of any site. Although terms such as 'keywords', 'optimization', 'ranking' and 'traffic' are all now common parlance amongst those who aspire to success on the internet, long gone are the days of simply including appropriate keywords within your content with sufficient frequency for the page to be ranked highly. In recent times, the immediate effectiveness of traditional SEO techniques has been diminished as search engine companies have made their results less liable to be influenced by such practices. Current natural ranking algorithms are very complex and involve many factors which themselves shift in importance over time. Moreover, a page's rank is affected not only by the page itself (on-page factors) but also by the entirety of that website and by signals from other sites (off-page factors). Nevertheless, optimizing for search engines still remains a key part of building a successful website.