Ranking highly on high traffic Search Engines like Google can dramatically improve the success of your business.

There is little point in having a website if you are invisible to your potential customers.  In order for your website to work for you and generate business it needs to be found at the top of the first page Search Engine rankings.

If your industry and therefore, target market is fairly niche then your website probably won’t need too much Search Engine Marketing attention however if you have hundreds or even thousands of online competitors then it needs to be an important part of your marketing plan.

Part of Search Engine Marketing is the optimisation of your website which is essentially a one off exercise specifically taking care of what are known as ‘on-page’ factors.  These factors include the analysis of keyword phrases, keyword density auditing and submission to the Search Engines.

Optimisation of your website can make a difference to your rankings but really in order to continue to gain rankings it is important that the off-page factors are taken care of.  These factors include link-building, domain name considerations, content-based marketing such as blogs and articles, social marketing e.g. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube.  When you reach the top of first page rankings you need to ensure that you stay there. Once you start moving down in rankings you give the opportunity for your online competitors to overtake you and possibly capture your share of enquiries.

Search Engine Marketing therefore needs to be part of an ongoing process and as mentioned, it needs to be built into your marketing plan.  It is an essential part of developing and marketing your business and should not be seen as an unnecessary evil but more of a critical element to the success of your business.

As it takes time for website to increase in rankings it is important that the Search Engine Marketing process is started sooner rather than later. There is a popular expectation that it will all happen overnight. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Depending on several factors, it can take some websites up to 12 months to really start achieving high rankings.