'On Page' & 'Off Page' SEO...
'On-Page' SEO...
...is all about changes you can make directly to a site to make it more Search Engine ‘friendly’. This is the easy part and involves correctly setting up internal-linking, using H1 & H2 header tags, seeding keywords at the correct density and in appropriate places, and to some lesser degree, using meta-tags. If all that is complete double-dutch to you, then don't worry - you're not alone!
The bottom-line though, is that while it is the easiest to control, it has the LEAST affect on your ranking. In fact, it is widely believed that it has very little effect at all anymore. Many years ago, you used to be able to dupe the SE's with lots of on-page factors - but that's been completely closed down for several years now.
The only time that 'on-page' becomes important is when you have taken care of 'off-page' and have a lot of inbound 'back-links' to create some authority. At that point, careful tweaking of on-page factors and internal linking can yield some excellent results.
Off-Page SEO...
...is what's really important. Imagine it as a 'voting' system. If another site places a link to your site then that site has given you a vote of confidence. They're saying, "Look at them - they've got something interesting to say..."
The link to your site has two main parts - the actual URL or web address of the page they are pointing someone to, and the 'anchor text' or 'keyword phrase' that is highlighted on the web-page for you to click. This generates one ‘vote’ for a particular page on a web site based on that anchor text phrase, i.e. one vote towards this site appearing higher up in the natural listings when we type in that phrase in the search box.
This always works like this - the anchor text and page pointed to are irrevocably tied together. You can't create a vote for a page without some highlighted anchor text - and that anchor text is what the SE's use to tell them what that page is about and what it should show up under when searched for.
Let’s say that again - because it's VERY important... The anchor text controls which searches you'd appear for.
Therefore, can you see why "Click HERE for more information" is next to useless for creating SEO value? In this example, we created a vote for the phrase 'Click HERE'. Who in their right mind would type in "click here" in the search box to find a site? No-one of course. That is why the anchor text is SO important. It signifies the keyword phrases that you want to rank for. (And by the way, if you DO Google "Click Here" you will always find the Adobe Reader download site at the top. Is that because Adobe want to rank for 'click here'? - of course not - it's just that so many sites have a 'Click HERE to download Adobe Reader' phrase on them, that they're number one for that phrase.)
In other words, the SE's use the anchor text phrase to cast a vote for a page. And doesn't that make sense? Google wants to emulate what a real human being is looking for and would like to find. In several ways it doesn't matter what your page is about, if all the anchor text phrases that point to you say 'yellow balloons', then that’s what you'll rank for! That is the vote that is cast.
Now it's not quite as simple as that (of course...) because the SE's also use the page title and wording of the page being pointed at to correlate the results, plus a whole bunch of other factors as well (including how spread-out and relevant the sites are that are linking to you, and what sites are pointing into the site which contains the anchor text) - but the essence of this shows that the single most important factor in SEO is lots of back-links from as many different sites as possible - with the correct phrases used as anchor text.
Picking the keyword phrases that you want to rate for is an art in itself, (and you should perform a lot of keyword and competitor research before putting any strategy into place), but the bottom line is this: What would a customer type in the search box in order to find your product or service?
...The answers to this question supply your anchor text keywords/phrases!
But these keyword phrases can't be just randomly chosen without thought, investigation and testing. It's so often the case that the phrase people expect is NOT what produces the most results. Human beings are odd creatures and we all have our own ideas of how to find what we want. One person looking for a good night’s sleep might type in "Orthopaedic beds" or "New Mattress", whereas another person may type in "I can't sleep".
Would you really want to trust your marketing to vague ideas and feelings about what might be typed in? The importance of the investigation, testing and measuring of these phrases cannot be underestimated - they are absolutely key to the volume of enquiries and sales you can make via the web. An analogy could be drawn with a listing in the Yellow Pages. If you are a Plumber and you're listed under Stationary Providers, you won't get much business!
Some Words Of Caution...
Do not START to SEO with phrases that yield millions and millions of results. In a search for 'Car Insurance' on Google in the UK, you would find around 70 million results. Anyone can see it's not wise to try and compete with 70 million other pages when you're just starting out!
But... If I typed in "Southampton Car Insurance" (assuming I was a car insurance provider in Southampton) - then there are only around 300,000 results. A big number still it seems - but actually quite a small number when it comes to web searches.
I would have a far better chance of getting ranked for that phrase quickly than I would for just 'car insurance'. In fact, if I wanted to rate for phrases like 'Car Insurance' it would probably take a long time and a very large budget, as I would be competing with the insurance giants! Not a wise choice at all - and actually not the best way to go about things either.
Therefore, we're looking for phrases that yield less overall results - but quite accurately sum up what we do or the product/service we offer. In the industry, we call these 'long-tail' searches - as they contain multiple keywords. Depending on how competitive your market is, the phrases could be from 2 to 7 words long. Typically they will be 3 or 4 words long. We normally recommend performing SEO on phrases that return less than half a million results at the start (in some cases, we may go with a higher count – particularly if the current page 1 results are not well SEO’d.) Then, as we build back-links, we’ll automatically start to gain some ground on the bigger search phrases, and if we put in enough effort, we can go after those big phrases in 3-12 months time. This strategy is also far more targeted at the start - as we go after the high-converting phrases with 'commercial intent' - i.e. customers who are looking to purchase!
It's also useful and wise to build back-links to individual sub-pages on your web site, not just your home page. We call this 'deep-linking' - and Google in particular likes this. If you have a couple of category pages for example, which contain links to individual products, then it’s worth driving appropriate search terms to those pages too. Don't just create back-links to your home-page. Google and the other SE's are looking more and more at how individual pages on your site are listed and treated.
Conclusions...
Hopefully this will give you some insights into the concept of SEM/SEO. It's actually an incredibly complex and ever-changing art, as the Search Engines never keep the rules the same. The basics endure, but the strategies used are constantly evolving.
As highly successful promoters of online businesses ourselves, we believe that SEO is the lead generation tool of choice. Where else can you get free targeted advertising and marketing? Everyone is moving on-line now. Gone are the days of Yellow Pages and business directories. If you want to find something now, you just type it into a Search Engine. It's the only future-proof form of marketing left.
Although PPC (Pay-Per-Click) is more immediate and is very useful in testing phrases, ultimately, it's SEO that will yield the longer term, lower cost results.
