Search engines such as Google rank sites in search results they believe to be popular and relevant. Relevance is measured by looking at the content (mostly the text) basically to find out what your website is about or what service you provide.  Popularity is a little more complicated and is based on several things; the most important of these is how many links you have pointing to your site. Think of a link to your site as a vote. Not links are equal and quality links are from relevant sites with similar content.

So how do I get my site listed on Google?

The 2 most important things are great content and high quality links. SEO is not a way to trick the search engines and site content should always be written with the reader in mind. Great content will encourage your readers to create links and naturally build links. This sounds simple right? It’s just not that easy and that is why web masters use SEO to improve their chances.

On page SEO.

On page SEO is a way to help Search engines identify what your site provides and assess its relevance.  This is why content is so important. If you don’t have text on your page how is Google going to know whom you are or what you do. Keywords are the terms people type into the search box when looking for a website. For example if someone is looking for beginner advice on SEO they may search for “beginner SEO tips” they are then the keywords. Keywords should be included in your content but look natural and still be written to provide the reader the best experience possible.  Cramming hundreds of keywords into a post will simply look like spam and may even possible get you banned from Google.

There are also options embedded into the HTML code itself so if you have written the page code then the meta details are a great place to start.

So still want to know what is SEO?

Search Engine Optimisation or SEO is the simple activity of helping a website be found by the search engines for keyword that are relevant to your site. It is a way to make sure you are getting traffic from the right people so you can convert them into sales, clicks, members or what ever you are trying to achieve.  It s a way to get you noticed by the search engines and show just how popular your website is so that they rank you on the first page and you get more traffic.