Yesterday we looked at what a search engine is.
We discovered that spider bots crawl the internet, store information in the Index and then when someone searches for something the algorithm looks at everything stored in the Index and decides what to show the search user.
Why do we need to know this?
Well once we understand how this works, we can then start to understand why we need SEO.
SEO = Search Engine Optimisation
If we are ‘doing’ SEO we are optimising our website and content for the spider bots to read and store in the Index. When the algorithm needs us there is all our lovely business details stored and ready to be shown to the search user.
Luckily whilst we are telling the spider bots we are generally making changes that tell our website visitors as well – helpful huh!
We want to tell the spider bots exactly
1. What we do
2. Where we do it
3. Who we do it for
1. Anna is a dog grooming salon offering a premium and luxury service spa service.
2. She is in Syston and covers the areas of Leicester, Syston, Queniborough, Melton Mowbray, Thurmaston, Barkby & South Croxton
3. Dog and puppy owners looking for an experienced, qualified and friendly dog groomer who offer a full range of grooming services from full grooms to a bath and brush up. Particularly puppy owners and those looking for a bespoke, one to one, caring and premium service.
As we can see in the image below when we search for ‘dog groomer Syston’ Anna is on the map thanks to her Google My Business listing and ranking first in the regular listings.
This is because we have used our SEO to tell the spider robots the three things about Anna’s business.
If you are clear on these three things then the spider bots will have concise information to store in their Index about our businesses. Then, when someone searches on Google for your service in your area, the algorithm will have no problem in showing your website to the search user.
If we don’t have any SEO then we aren’t telling them spider bots about our business and the algorithm cannot show our business to anyone who searches in Google – and it’s game over for getting any website visitors or enquiries.
When someone says ‘my website is not ranking’ or ‘I’m only on page 6 of Google’ it is because they have no SEO, they aren’t telling the spider bots those three very important things and so the algorithm has nothing, or very little stored to show the search users.
So actually whilst having a website is important, having a website with SEO is even more so!
With no SEO you will not be shown in search engines and you will not get website visitors.
Tomorrow – How do we do SEO?
