Search engine rankings are vitally important to your business, attaining a top ranking will ensure improved visitor numbers and thus potential sales. Consumers are increasingly researching and shopping for goods and services on the internet and commonly use the popular search engines to find information about, or retailers of these goods and services.
It is a well known fact that searchers are more likely to only click on the first 10 or so results and hardly ever view past the first three pages of results. If you want your website to attract these searchers it is vitally important then that your website is as high up the list of results displayed as possible. (The position in the search results that your website has is called its ranking.)
The search engines use a mix of criteria to assign rankings to websites and competition for the top rankings is fierce. Search Engine Optimization or SEO is the process of designing and marketing a website so that it will obtain a top ranking.
Many people will have heard of keywords, these are words or phrases that are associated with your product or service or the information you provide on your site and are words that people will type into a search engine enquiry.
Key words can be used to improve a sites ranking in an organic search (the normal results generated by the search) or to improve your pay per click advertising placement (i.e. google adwords ads that are placed on the sides of the organic search results.)
Keywords are just the tip of the iceberg however when it comes to improving your sites ranking. Some of the other factors considered are the sites popularity, the amount and quality of links associated with your site, and even the quality and freshness of your content. To achieve a top ranking all of these factors among others must be considered and appropriately used.
The search engines all have their own ranking criteria that place different emphasis on particular factors, the criteria not only change between engines but are constantly being upgraded and revised by the specific search engines themselves. In order to achieve the highest possible ranking for your website knowledge of the ranking criteria of your chosen search engine/s is absolutely vital.
It is possible for a website owner to develop and implement his or her own SEO strategies to improve their websites results, but it is technical and time consuming, ensuring that your site is optimized effectively, keeping track of the current requirements to achieve a top ranking and making sure your site stands out from your competition. There are specialist SEO companies that use all of the latest information and technology that you can hire to ensure that your website achieves a top ranking.