What is search engine optimisation (SEO)?

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the work of helping search engines understand what is on your website, and helping people find it and decide whether to visit. That is how Google itself describes it. SEO concerns the ordinary, unpaid search results. Advertisements are bought separately, and Bing labels them as such.

How a search engine finds and ranks a page

Google describes its search as three stages, and Bing describes much the same process.

1. Crawling. Automated programs called crawlers find pages by following links from pages they already know and by reading sitemaps that site owners submit. They download what they find.
2. Indexing. The search engine analyses each page and stores it in its index, a very large database. Google does not guarantee that a page it crawls will be indexed.
3. Serving results. When someone searches, the engine picks from the index the pages it judges most relevant and of the highest quality.

The same search can bring different results for different people, because the searcher’s location, language and device all count. Bing lists what it weighs: relevance to the search, quality and credibility, how people respond to the results, freshness, location and language, and page load time.

What the work involves

Most of it is ordinary care for the website and its readers. Google’s starter guide asks for:

• content written for people, that is easy to read, original and kept up to date
• a clear, accurate title and a short description for each page, different on every page
• links whose wording says what the linked page holds
• images placed near the text they relate to, each with a written description

Underneath sits the technical side: a search engine has to be able to reach and read the pages before any of this counts.

What SEO is not

• A payment to the search engine. Google says it does not accept payment to crawl a site more often or to rank it higher. Bing does not allow payment to improve a position in its ordinary results either.
• A secret method. Google’s guide says it holds no secrets that will automatically rank a site first.
• A guarantee. In Google’s words, no one can guarantee a number one ranking. If a provider promises first place, Google’s advice is to find someone else.
• Instant. Google says some changes take effect in a few hours and others take several months, and suggests waiting a few weeks before judging a change.
• Repeating keywords. Stuffing a page with the same words breaks Google’s spam policies, and Google Search does not use the keywords meta tag at all.

Where to start

Search Google for site: followed by your domain name, such as site:example.com.au. If pages from your website appear, Google has the site in its index. Then run our free website health check, which loads a page the way a search engine would and reports anything telling search engines to stay away.

For a fuller list, see An SEO checklist for a small business website. If you would like the work done for you, it is described on our SEO page.