After reading the article below you should have a basic understanding of what SEO is all about, how it works, and why it is so critical as a cost effective means of attracting a consistent flow of targeted skills to your careers website.
If you do not know the answer to question in the subject line, I suggest you speak to the powers in charge to find out if a search engine optimisation strategy is in place.
What is SEO?
“Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results. Typically, the earlier a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.
As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website primarily involves editing its content and HTML coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. ” Source – Wikipedia
SEO Benefits
- High ROI
SEO brings you a higher Return On your Investment than any comparable form of marketing.
- Long Term Positioning
Once in place, a properly designed and optimised site should stay long term in the rankings compared to Pay Per Click (CPC) where costs and outlay are ongoing and unpredictable.
- Targeted Traffic
SEO can increase the number of visitors who are actively searching for jobs in the spaces in which you operate
- Promotion that Doesn’t Sleep
Imagine having your own marketing and promotions company working exclusively just for you! One that works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days every year. That’s the of SEO!
- Increase Brand Visibility
SEO can give your brand a high international profile. and for a comparatively low outlay.
- Higher Response
SEO can mean increased number of targetted CV registrations and applications
- Faster Loading Pages
Properly validated and optimised files will be smaller and leaner, meaning less server requests/overheads and quicker download times.
- More Cost-Effective
SEO is among the most cost-effective ways of marketing.
- Increased Accessibility
Observing sensible optimisation procedures can make your site more accessible to all users.
- Cross-Browser Compatibility
A properly optimised site will be as near as possible validated to high standards. This means that it works in all browsers, meaning your site may be viewed by the greatest potential number of visitors.
- Navigable by the Engines
All links should function correctly and all pages should be accessible to the engines, thus making your site easy for the engines to index and properly categorise.
- Usability
Observing basic optimisation guidelines should mean that visitors have a more pleasant user experience.
Source – http://www.kruse.co.uk/seo-benefits.htm
The Basics of how search engines work
Although search engines vary wildly in the details, most engines work in the following basic way:
- They crawl your site’s pages, following links from one page to the next and reading the content of each page.
- They analyze each page, extracting information such as the page’s topic and keywords.
- They index your pages, which involves storing information about each page in the search engine’s index.
- They return your pages in their search results. When someone searches for something using keywords that match those of a page on your site, the search engine returns a link to that page in the search results.
The key point to understand here is that every search engine’s job is to match the search phrase entered by the searcher with the best possible pages in the search results. They do this by looking at the words the searcher enters — the keywords — and comparing them with pages in their index. The pages that the search engine feels most closely match those keywords appear at the top of the search results.
The only way a search engine can do this is by looking at the content of your page (as well as the links that link to the page). Therefore it stands to reason that you should make sure your pages prominently contain the keywords and key phrases that visitors will be typing in when they’re searching for your page content. This is the essence of SEO. – Source – http://www.elated.com/articles/seo-for-beginners
