Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of making strategic changes to a website’s structure, content, and keywords to improve its ranking on a search engine’s search results. Search engines are websites running systems with the main objective of returning relevant information or a list of websites according to a combination of search keywords a user provides. Some of the most popular search engines include Google, Microsoft’s Bing, Yahoo, and DuckDuckGo.

Without search engines it would be difficult for users to find out information on various topics, specific websites, conduct academic research, find businesses, shop online and many more other uses. Search engines have become a starting point for any information search and a gateway to the world’s knowledge. It is for this reason that any organization that owns a website should pay special attention to SEO to improve the likelihood of their website showing up on the search engine results for keywords that are relevant to the activities or service offerings of the organization.

So how do search engines work? When a new website is uploaded in the public domain and accessible through the general internet, search engines will discover the website using web crawlers or bots that index a website, its pages and content in order to list it on the search engine as part of the search engine’s search results. When web crawlers have indexed the information on the website, the search engine employs sophisticated computer algorithms to determine which page results of website’s links to display to the user when they search for information. Web crawlers also have the ability to follow outbound or referenced links to other websites and follow links found in those websites also until the relevant information is found.

Search engines typically list a few websites at the top of the search results that have paid to appear on the list, followed by organic search results that have appeared because of relevance to the search keywords and the popularity of the website. For a website to appear on the organic search results, it has to satisfy certain criteria and through SEO, the websites rank can improve significantly. For businesses that are marketing their services and products online, it is essential that they put in the effort into SEO by partnering with SEO experts that will diagnose and remedy any SEO issues that may arise. The first entry on the search results is likely to get 40% of the web traffic and less that 3% of users will scroll beyond the first page of the search engine results. Being listed on the first page of the search results means that your website is likely to get more web traffic and more leads and customers looking for your services. The best thing about organic traffic is that it is free.

When optimizing a website through SEO, there are a number of areas that can be modified or designed differently. The title of the web page and content should be unique and descriptive. The title should also not be too long, as the search engine may discard a portion of the title and it might lose its meaning and relevance on the search results. Metadata must be included on the website HTML code to describe what the content is about, and this information might be picked up by web crawlers to rank the website in terms of relevance to keyword searches. You can also create an index for your website and upload it to the search engine’s platform to assist the web crawler in finding relevant pages on your website and helping to get the indexing process started. It is also important to anticipate the fact that users might at some point reach a link that does not point to a page that exists because the page might have been removed or updated, and in that situation the pages must offer some type of navigation back to a working page. URLs must also use words and be readable for easy indexing.

There are other factors that might undermine SEO, such as a website that has not been optimized for other types of devices and screen sizes other that a desktop or laptop screen. There are a high number of users who are browsing the internet from mobile devices with small screens and tablet devices; a website has to be designed to accommodate all those users. Another factor that might influence indexing and general user experience is website speed. If the website loads slowly, it will discourage users and web crawlers from indexing it and therefore will rank lower on search results. It is therefore vital that you choose a website hosting company that has fast servers and a high-speed internet connection. You can also choose a webhost that is located nearer to your target audience or that uses Solid State Drives to store webpages instead of the traditional slow Hard Drives. You can also use the services of a Content Delivery Network (CDN) which caches your content and distributes it to its servers that located globally or over large geographical areas for faster delivery of content. You must also consider making your website more secure and use HTTPS because search engines prefer secure content and will therefore rank unsecure websites lower than secure websites. One way to secure the website is to install an SSL certificate form a reputable authority and force the website to use HTTPS. This step ensures that information transferred from and to your website is encrypted and less susceptible to hacking and corruption.

Despite the sophistication of search engine web crawlers and algorithms, some websites still do not get detected by search engines and are never listed in the search results. There are many reasons for websites to remain invisible to crawlers or for them to rank lower on search results. Websites that are referenced by other websites are likely to contain relevant and quality information and search engines are also likely to rank them higher in search results. When the website contains quality information, other websites are likely to add links pointing to that website and this increases its popularity and its chances of being indexed. It takes time for a new website to be indexed by web crawlers and therefore a new website might not show up on the search results for a period of time until it has been indexed. Another reason a website might not be indexed is if the design, structure, and metadata of the website makes it difficult for the web crawlers to comb through the website content. It is also possible to set a policy on the website to discourage web crawlers from indexing the website or excluding some pages from being indexed.

Having a good SEO strategy offers a great competitive advantage for the organization that uses it well. A well optimized website will receive more attention from customers and users because it will rank higher on search engine results and therefore get more clicks, which could translate directly to sales. A high-ranking website with quality content will also get referenced by other websites and this will increase the website’s popularity and relevance even more. When the website designer has also considered mobile responsiveness, the website will be dynamically resized and organized depending on the device it is being accessed from and will improve user interaction and increase the website’s popularity. A good SEO expert will evaluate the website thoroughly and implement the most relevant strategies to improve SEO and will work closely with website developers and webmasters to ensure that the website’s structure, design, and hosting help in increasing the website’s ranking on search engines.

Technolibra Website Design & Marketing services will evaluate and optimize your website to improve SEO and therefore increase traffic to your website. Contact us for your SEO and website development needs.