In today’s digital world, all businesses need an online presence in order to thrive. To have full control over your online presence you will need a website for your business. Your website will then be indexed (checked over by search engines) along with the other millions of websites on the internet. To make sure your website is working well for your business, you will need to understand the basics of search engine optimisation, or SEO.

There's a lot of misunderstanding around SEO being incredibly techy, indecipherable, having a difficult algorithm and needing lots of money and time to be beneficial. But that actually isn’t the case! By focussing on the experience of the users of our website we can massively improve our SEO and start getting super visible and super discoverable online. That’s right! SEO, like most marketing practices, is actually all about understanding human beings and making great experiences for them.

So, what even is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. Lets break down what this means.

A search engine is a website like Google or Bing that takes internet users search queries and delivers them relevant websites that will answer their questions. SEO is all about making sure your website works as well as possible for these websites. Search engines use complex algorithms to determine the relevance and quality of your website, this allows them to rank your website in search results, and make sure you are visible online and the right customers can find you.

While it can sound overwhelming with lots of terms like 'Keywords’ and ‘meta data', SEO is actually all about best practices online, and making your website as user friendly as possible.

Believe it or not, you and Google want the same thing.

Google wants to give the best website suggestions to their users, and you want users who are actively looking for your services or products. SEO is just about helping Google, so that Google can help your business.

When someone uses a search engine, they will type a query into a search box, something like ‘DIY Squarespace templates’ for example. Search engines will then use a complex algorithm to analyse their data on all the sites online and return the most relevant results. SEO focuses on aligning with search engine guidelines to improve the chances of your website appearing prominently in the search results for your specified industry, location or niche.

Here at Lucky Night Studio, we like to make things more user-focused, so we break down SEO into three categories: Market Research, Accessibility and Authority.

Before we wrap up this post we want to highlight this key point:

Search engines want your site to work effectively and reliably for as many people as possible!

By prioritising an inclusive experience for humans, you will greatly improve the online visibility of your website.

Hopefully now you’re clearer on what SEO is, and that it isn’t as scary or as techy as many make out!

By making use of these tools and getting to know your audience, you can massively improve the visibility of your website and get your business in front of more dream customers than ever!