GoogleAny search engine optimisation expert will tell you that just about the first question that they get asked by a new client is “When will we get to the top of Google page rankings?”. That of course is the question everyone (including the experts!) would like to know the answer to! 

Has someone guaranteed that they can get you on Page One of Google? The truth is that no one can guarantee at what position a particular website will appear in the rankings on Google, Yahoo, Bing or any of the other search engines for that matter, and when it will get there. 

The position will change day by day and week by week in any case, depending in no small measure, on what other competitive websites are doing with their SEO (which is why I always stress to clients that search engine optimisation should most definitely be regarded not as a ‘one off’ but as an ongoing activity).

Getting the search engine optimisation basics right

There are basically two key optimisation areas that should be followed.  These are ‘On-page’ and ‘Off-page’.
 
On-page (not surprisingly) covers what you do with the content and coding on your website. Off-page is what you do away from, or off your website.
 
What all search engines love and what will get the highest rankings are web pages with lots and lots of ‘relevant’ content, and pages that are ‘popular’.

What does ‘relevant’ content mean?

Quite simply it means content (headlines, body text, captions, images etc.), that is absolutely focused on what your website is promoting, whether its a pure ‘brochure’ site designed to get people to contact you by phone or email, or whether its selling products or services via e-commerce.
 
It is vitally important that content is focused on the keywords you have selected as being the ones most likely to be used by people searching for products or services like yours.
 
What does being ‘popular’ mean?

Popularity, in the context of search engines, is based on how many other ‘relevant’ websites link to yours (e.g. a garden design website linking to a bicycle shop website is unlikely to score very highly for relevancy, whilst a cycle clothing site linking to it, is – you get the idea).
 
Favourable content about you or your business and linking to your site from other sources like blogs and social networking sites also scores very highly with search engines.

Working hard on your Search Engine Optimisation to get found by search engines is one of the most important activities you can do to maximise the return on investment of your website.