The Ultimate SEO Guide: Introduction

We live, eat and breath SEO yet everywhere we look we have yet to find people who fully understand just what SEO is, its complexity and the level of work required to ensure it is a concept grasped right. We've decided to take action. Each day we will be breaking down SEO bit by bit to ensure you understand it fully.

It may be three letters but there is a lot too it; stick with us and we guarantee the ins and outs of SEO will become second nature.

SEO stands for search engine optimisation, the process in which a website is fully optimised so that it may become visible in search engine results…let us explain this a little further.

Go into Google and type something into your search engine and the first thing you will notice is three results at the top in a yellow box and a few down the side of the screen. These are referred to as sponsored links in which companies pay out substantial excesses to get to the top spot but anything below these are what SEO specialists will refer to as organic search results.

Achieved by a lot of hard work and sheer determination organic search results are those websites that have created unique content, gained links from high quality sites have constructed a well-built website and regularly updated their online presence. To put it simply, these are the companies who know just how important online marketing is, just what it takes to successfully implement a strategy and have put in years of hard work to get there.

SEO can be broken down into two main areas. The first is the crucial onsite optimisation in which each area of your website is integrated with the right SEO elements that help it receive a substantial push in search engine rankings. The second is off site optimisation, equally as crucial this complements your onsite optimisation and refers to the creation of high quality content, links and through such arenas as blog posts and social media an overall presence that will divert an audience back to your website and hence your business.

It's pretty simple; if you have an online presence then you want the online community to notice your brand and potentially buy into it and that's what SEO allows. The internet is vast but with the right SEO strategy the odds of becoming visible increase massively. With SEO the odds of growing at the right pace and most importantly with the right quality level you desire will improve…remember it isn't just about becoming visible to just anybody but to the right people i.e. your potential customers.

Once you've grasped the basic understanding of SEO then you can begin tackling the complexities. It gets tougher but with our step by step guide we will break down each element and ensure that it won't be long before SEO becomes second nature.