What is SEO and how does it work?

SEO is a commonly used abbreviation for Search Engine Optimisation. SEO is the process of increasing the relevance and authority of a website, or other online properties such as videos and reviews, so that they are found ahead of the competition in online search results for related key-words and queries.In the past, if you needed to find a local dentist, emergency plumber or any other business service, you may have used a physical business directory such as the Yellow Pages or a telephone directory enquiry service. These days, with the internet becoming increasingly convenient to access from our computers, smartphones, tablets, TVs, music players, and even watches, online search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo have caused a huge decline in the popularity of physical and telephone business directories as you can see in this trend graph for Yellow Pages:The latest government figures show that around 90% of people in the UK have access to the internet and use it on a regular basis. With such a huge amount of people having the internet at their fingertips, and constantly searching for products and services online, using digital marketing strategies such as SEO to make your business brand, products and services easily found on the internet by your target market is crucial in today’s digitally driven world.Due to the huge increase in popularity of search engines over the past decade, it’s not surprising that businesses year after year are implementing search engine optimisation as a marketing strategy to stay ahead of the competition. This graph shows the dramatic increase in spending on SEO in the USA from 2008 and indicates just how important it is as part of a digital marketing strategy for businesses both now and in the future:At Shake Digital we typically help our clients and partners with the following search engine optimisation services:

1. Local SEO
2. Product & Brand SEO
3. E-commerce Website SEO
4. Video SEO
5. SEO for Reputation Management
6. Conversion rate optimisation
7. SEO courses & training

Local SEO

Prospective customers are looking for a business like yours online. Make that connection happen with an effective local search engine optimisation strategy.Local search example:Lets say you are a plumber with a service area spanning the whole of Edinburgh. Ideally, in order to attract as many new customers as possible, you’d want to be found on page #1 of the search engine results for the search term “Plumber Edinburgh”, along with other similar and relevant phrases that are searched for online by thousands of people every month.If, for example, your business was showing up on page #5 of the search engine result pages in Google (SERPs) for the search term “Plumber Edinburgh”, it’s very unlikely that you would get anybody finding your business for that particular phrase and most likely you would be losing potential customers to your competitors.This is why SEO as a marketing strategy can be a crucial factor in the success of modern day businesses.