Put simply Search Engine Optimisation is the work of ensuring that the pages within your website rank as highly as is possible in the natural (or ‘organic’) listings for keywords relating to your business. It is the consensus within the web industry that this is the single most cost effective method of getting potential customers to your site.

Search Engine Optimisation - hooking new visitors in

There are several reasons for this :

• Natural listings within a search engine are generally more trusted than sponsored listings.
• A user is 70% more likely to click on a natural listing than a sponsored one. (Evidence has shown that the top 5 natural listings can gobble up 60% of clicks on a search query).
• Users clicking on a natural listing are thought to have more ‘commercial intent’ (i.e. they are more likely to make a serious enquiry or buy).
• Natural listings are significantly cheaper per click than sponsored (or paid) listings in the longer term, and this benefit will only improve as the cost of paid clicks rises.

At CF Partnership, we don’t blow our trumpet overly, but quietly beaver away in the background moving heaven and earth to get results for our clients. Its very difficult to be specific about how we achieve such high placements but here is a flavour of the important ingredients that make up a successful SEO campaign :

• In depth keyword research. Your site needs to rank for actual keywords for actual searches that your potential customers are actually using !
• Competitive research. In choosing keywords to attack its crucial to look at the competiveness of those terms versus the number of searches for that term. Naturally the more competitive a term the more resources needed to achieve a high ranking.
• A reputable, well-hosted and well named domain. Ideally it should be well aged too, as Google places particular importance on domains that have been historically trustworthy.
• Web page content. “Content is king” is cliché thrown around a lot in the SEO world, but good, authoritative fresh website content is crucial to a successful campaign. A site that rarely puts out new content will find it difficult to rank highly, which is why blogs are such a powerful tool.
• Website tags. Underlying every website is a bed of computer code support it. Within that code are a set of different ‘tags’ which ‘instruct’ the Search Engines as to what your business (and keywords) are all about – optimizing these regularly is key to your campaign.
• Lastly and most importantly you need the respect and recognition of your peers !  In ranking your site Search Engines pay particular attention to the number and quality of links on other web pages pointing back to your site. A finely tuned link building project is the final ingredient in the mix.

Good SEO is the result of a close working partnership between the website owner and the web marketing consultant.

Click here to contact us and find out more about how SEO can deliver real prospects to your site.