What Is Search Engine Optimisation?

Do you want to appear at the top of Google search results? Of course you do! Search Engine Optimisation, commonly known at SEO, is the key to this. Firstly, you need to understand what SEO is and how you can improve it. 

What is SEO?

Search engine optimisation is the work you carry out on your website so that Google and other search engines can make sense of the content. SEO also includes the authority your site holds online. 

It all boils down to trust and relevance. 

How Can I Improve My Site? 

As stated above, it all comes down to the trust and relevance of your site. So the question is how can you build that trust and relevance with search engines? 

Relevance

Relevance comes from your site, content and source code. Remember that Google cannot see how amazing a design is, they can only go based on the code for your site. Some factors to consider are:

• Does your site load quickly?
• Are you including keywords and terms in your content? 
• Have you set up appropriate H1 and H2 tags? 
• Does any image or video on your site include alt data?
• Are you setting an appropriate page title and description for each page? 

All of the above will help search engines make a connection between your content and a user's search query. For example, if a user is looking for an ashtanga yoga class in Edinburgh, search engines can only direct them to your site if you have set up the content correctly.

Trust

The next factor is trust. This comes from other sites linking to you, whether it's a listing site or a big time magazine, backlinks are unbelievably valuable. 

The way search engines view this is that other sites are crediting you, the more you are referenced the more trust-worthy you must be! 

Set Your Expectations

While you can make small and simple changes to your site very easily, the results do not happen overnight. Here is an example timeline of what you may see:

First 45 days: You build the page, do your keyword research and implement these into your content. You will also start building trust by getting backlinks to your pages.

4 months: When users search for your chosen keywords you’ll start appearing in the rankings. Realistically, you won’t be on the first page and so may not get much organic traffic.

6 months: With some consistency and determination, you’ll start to notice you are getting more organic traffic to your site because you have reached the first page of search engine rankings! 

After 6 months: Your rankings are high and the traffic is flowing to your site however it’s not over yet. You need to maintain your relevance and keep expanding the keywords you rank for.

SEO is not a one and done thing, it is a never-ending and a continuous process. 

So there you have it, everything you need to know to understand the basics of getting your site to rank in search engines! I won’t lie, it’s not easy. Especially as most yoga teachers and yoga studios need to do another million and one things. So why not pick up one of our SEO packages that will allow us to work on the trust of your site in the background and make recommendations of content you need to update.