Intro to search engine optimisation (SEO)

(narrator) Hello.
Welcome to our introduction to Search Engine Optimization,
also known as SEO.
We're going to be finding out
how search engines understand your website,
so you can tweak it accordingly.
This means your content will be shown to lots more potential customers.
First up, some advice from Adrian on how learning about SEO
really helped his business.
Optimizing my site for organic search has been absolutely essential.
I wouldn't want to be in a position where I'm just running a site just on ads.
It needs to be ads and organic--
that's a fully balanced business model.
Get your site completely sorted out.
Make sure your site is as clean as it can be,
looks great, works in response to theme,
to make sure every page on your site is doing what it's supposed to do.
The first thing I do in the morning
is click to see where I am for "Best Man's Speech".
I'm nudging on page two of Google now which to me is like Christmas.
If I have the best site with the best information,
I will stand out.
And that's the plan. Simple.
Every day millions of people search online,
for everything from airline tickets to zoos.
This means there are millions of opportunities
for businesses to appear in front of potential customers.
Let's say you own a small farm
and want to expand by selling your produce online.
SEO helps search engines understand better what you have to offer.
This means when someone searches using a word or phrase
related to your business
like, let's say, "heirloom tomatoes",
you're more likely to appear in their results.
When a search engine returns results, some of them are paid advertisements.
The rest are unpaid results that the search engine believes
are relevant to the phrases entered into the search box.
These are referred to as "organic results".
Search engines have formulas or algorithms that help them order the list of results.
The search engines constantly scour the web for new content
and try to make sense of it.
Where your website appears in these results
is affected by the words you use on your site.
"Fresh farm produce", for example, as well as other factors,
such as how many websites link to yours.
Does this seem confusing?
Well, how's this?
Think of a search engine like a matchmaker;
the goal to find a searcher
exactly what he or she is looking for on the web.
But how does this work?
Well, to present the best possible results,
the engines look for as much information as possible about websites.
They might look at how popular sites are,
or what other people or sites are saying about them.
They might consider words on web pages, or key words in the code of a page
to better understand the topic.
Each of these components will help search engines
find the best match for your search.
Search engines can now also consider the searcher's geographic location.
A search from the UK will display a localized set of results.
Chances are the same search originating from France
will show different results.
And with the explosion of mobile usage,
search engines now consider the devices people use
when they perform a search.
But just like a matchmaker who's been in business for years
gets better and better,
search formulas evolve and add more and more information along the way.
Are you wondering what you can do
to make your site more attractive to search engines?
We'll touch more on this in other videos,
but here's a good starting point.
What search engines value most is unique, engaging, relevant content,
because their job is to find and show the most useful stuff.
So there we have it.
Search is a simple thing to use and many of us use it every day.
But what's happening behind the scenes is constantly changing.
To effectively promote your website online,
you've got to keep tabs on what search engines value most
and make sure your website gives it to them.
As we go along, we'll tell you much more about how search engines work
and help you to create a strategy for improving SEO
in order to achieve your business goals.