The Difference in views on what Search Engine Optimisation is

There seems to be a lot of differing opinions on what search engine optimisation is and what makes for an SEO friendly website.

We’ve come across a lot of web designers and clients who believe that they websites are optimised for SEO and so don’t need work doing to them.  This is due to the build process on the website.  A website can be designed in a way that makes it search engine friendly, but this isn’t the whole story. Although having a website that has built into it’s infrastructure unique page titles, meta descriptions and keywords is a core part of the SEO it’s not the whole story. 

SEO is an ongoing task, once keywords have been decided on, they are not set in stone.  Most SEO companies will acknowledge that the search terms used to promote a site will change, both with changes in search behaviour and trends for new search terms but also as the set of keywords used on a site are tested and the site develops.  On going monitoring of keywords and their performance for a given site enables you to ensure that your website is performing at the maximum possible.  Any keywords which aren’t performing for the campaign should be swapped out for alternative keywords. 

So having a site that is SEO Friendly is important but tweaks and changes to the optimisation of the site is important to enabling your website to drive the traffic that you need for your business.  On Page optimisation also needs to be complemented with an ongoing link building campaign.

We have also come across people who believe that link building is the only thing that is important for SEO and the on page work to make a site good for search engines is not actually important.  Creating inbound links for your website is important but must be complemented by good on page optimisation. If your site has duplicate meta descriptions or title tags then this will harm the way that any link building you have on your campaign works in terms of increasing your rankings.

There are a lot of views of what SEO is and it is important for your business to ensure that the SEO company you are working with is providing you with a well rounded campaign that focuses on all aspects of your website and not just one area, such as links.