Search Engine Optimisation. (SEO)

The objective of Natural referencing, commonly called “SEO” (Search Engine Optimisation), is to increase natural or organic traffic (non-paying) on a website. It aims to improve a site’s visibility on search engines (“search”) such as Google. This involves, among other things, optimising the site’s structure, its performances, its “on site” content, setting up specific files (sitemap.xml, robots.txt), increasing the rate of updates, etc.

Clear and properly done natural referencing ensures high, targeted and long-term visibility, and your competitors will find it hard to put it into question. Targeted visibility is the key to a converted audience.

The site’s performance (page download time) and the optimisation of your contents (keywords, titles, contents, rich snippets, etc.), the ergonomics, click rate (CTR), popularity (including Page Rank), assessment of your domain names, your url, the need to develop landing pages, your presence on social media etc… all these are points that should be assessed together during an SEO audit (SEO test, SEO analysis).

SEO is an unstable concept that changes on a regular basis. Within SEM, or Search Marketing, SEO is a big job that ought to be carried out by a professional SEO agency, acting on a wide range of factors.

Local SEO

Any business active within a catchment area must optimise its local referencing (commonly called local SEO). Local referencing aims to position (i.e. to have it appear under the top Google search results – search marketing) a company’s website when a search request involving geographic criteria is run.

There are two types of search requests on Google (or any other search engine) which require a local referencing approach.

The first is a search without geographical specification (e.g. “sports hall”, “tennis club”, etc.). The search engine determines the position of the person running the search, whether this is done from a fixed or mobile browser. The search request must be identified by Google as one including a local nature. Results are then localised. The closer the sports hall is to the person running the search, the more likely it is to appear in the top results. But a company that has optimised its local referencing will also be likely to appear in the top results.

The second is a search including geographical specification (e.g. “sports hall Uccle”, etc.). It doesn’t matter where the person who’s running the search actually is as the results will be localised within the requested area. Companies that have optimised their local referencing will also be likely to appear in the top results.

Although it’s usually complicated to position oneself based on competitive searches, to improve and even manage to optimise one’s SEO, local referencing is easier – and this makes sense.

But competition is on the increase. Techniques (micro data, directories, customer opinion sites, and particularly Google+ local, the result of a merger of Google’s geolocalisation tools) are evolving. This is why it pays to work with a professional partner such as Mission-Systole on the optimisation of your local and online visibility.

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