Search engine optimisation (SEO)

Search engine visibility can help customers find your products and services online. Search engine optimisation (SEO) improves website content, structure and technical performance so search engines and users can understand your pages.

The higher you rank in a search engine's index, the more visible you will be. If your business has a website, read our top tips to help ensure it gets found:

1. High quality content

Regularly updated, well-written, relevant content will improve your SEO. Remember to write content primarily for users, not search engines. As search engines become more sophisticated, they are able to identify content that is the most useful and relevant to the user.  

Avoid duplicate content, from both other pages on your own website and on other websites. Your content should contain your target keywords for the page, but beware of 'keyword stuffing'.

Read content marketing.

2. Meta tags

Meta tags summarise what the site is about and have a role in the search rankings. The most important meta tags are the title and description.

The title tag should include your page's main keyword, your company name, and possibly your location. The description tag is what users will read when your page comes up in search listings. It should contain your main keywords and read like a sentence, not a list. Meta keywords are no longer used by most search engines.

3. Build good quality links

One of the most important factors for determining your ranking in search engine results is the number of high quality, relevant links from other websites to your site - otherwise known as backlinks. The links must be relevant to the content of your site and they must be from reputable websites. Beware of 'black hat' tactics for gaining links - these could result in your website being penalised.

See search engine optimisation: links strategy.

4. Include a sitemap

Search engines can use sitemaps to index your website. Having a sitemap makes every page of content easier to find, reducing the number of clicks both web crawlers and users have to make before reaching the required content.

5. Track your results

SEO should be treated like any marketing campaign and tracking the results is a key part of the process. Without feedback, it will be unclear what search terms are being used to find your site, or which site elements attract the most traffic.

Find out more about measure your search engine optimisation results.

6. Paid search marketing

If your website does not rank well organically, you can use paid search advertising through platforms such as Google Ads or Microsoft Advertising. Paid search can support visibility while your organic SEO develops.

See pay-per-click and paid search advertising.

7. Mobile

Consider mobile experience as part of your SEO strategy. Make sure pages are responsive, fast, readable and easy to use. Use PageSpeed Insights, Lighthouse and Core Web Vitals reports to identify performance and usability issues. Check if your site is mobile-friendly.