Web Toastie

Speaking to my parents recently, they were interested to know what type of job I wanted once I had graduated from university. I spent time trying to explain that I wished to go into search engine optimisation – but all I seemed to get was a look that resembled a confused dog trying to understand why you are shouting at it for jumping on the furniture.

Inspired by ‘What is a copywriter?‘ by Rob Wood, the following article attempts to explain what search engine optimisation actually is.

What is a Search Engine?

Before learning about search engine optimisation, it is important to know what a search engine does.

A search engine is a tool designed specifically to allow people to search for information on the Internet. Search engines can be used to search for a whole host of things, including news, images and videos. The results of a search are presented in an ordered list, ranked by the search engine in terms of what it deems most relevant.

To determine how relevant a Web site is, search engines take lots of things into consideration; including keywords and inbound links to the site. There are many popular search engines, including Yahoo!, Ask Jeeves, and Live Search – but Google is by far the most used.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

People tend to be familiar with using search engines, but it is through the use of search engine optimisation (or sometimes luck) that Web sites appear higher in the rankings.

Search Engine Optimisation (or ‘SEO’) is the process of gaining a higher volume of Web traffic through higher rankings in search engines. The concept of SEO is best defined by SEOmoz as…

The active practice of optimizing a web site by improving internal and external aspects in order to increase the traffic the site receives from search engines.

There are many different techniques used to improve SEO such as:

• Relevant Content
• Keyword Optimisation, and
• Link Building

Interested to learn some techniques in detail? Keep an eye out for a series of articles listing tips and tricks for improving SEO on a WordPress blog (aimed at beginners).

I Get Loads of Page Visits – Why Do I Need SEO?

Putting it simply, no matter how much traffic you’re currently receiving, there is always room for improvement. When this blog first started up, there was very little (actually, zero) visitors, but having more spare time recently has allowed for lots of SEO to be carried out – which has resulted in significantly increased traffic.

The below graph from Google Analytics shows the recent increase.

A few hours of SEO time was dedicated to improving areas of Web Toastie, and it has paid dividends as the number of visitors is increasing every day.

Resources

Keep checking back for a series of articles detailing the improvements that can be made to a WordPress blog, to increase the amount of visitors. In the mean time take a look the following helpful links.

• Hobo – Search Engine Optimisation Basics
• SEOmoz – Beginner’s Guide to Search Engine Optimisation
• Google – Search Engine Optimisation Starter Guide

And to leave you with a quote from @theGypsy on Twitter:

to all those that say SEO is dead/boring… I’ll say it once more; as long as search engines are evolving – so must SEOs…