Understanding what SEO Services and Website marketing can do for your business

The earliest roots of SEO services can be traced back to the 1960’s where Gerald Salton’s team at Harvard and Cornell Universities crafted an informational retrieval system called SMART. An improved system and some say the forerunner to today’s search engines, ‘ARCHIE’ was created in 1990. Archie’s Query methodology, incorporated a script and regular expression matcher which combined with a database enabled searchers to view these catalogued web filenames.


Some of the search engines that have tried since Archie, e.g. Lycos, Looksmart, Inktomi, Aliweb etc… have either been merged into bigger organisations or have simply disappeared. Google however has become the de facto standard and is still the primary search engine of choice for 80% of the searches made on the Internet – however it is fair to say that Bing from Microsoft is catching up and making inroads into this dominance.


Google has matured and has refined its search methodology by creating and adapting a unique algorithm for determining the true relevance of a search by a user, which falls within its mantra of making a rapid, automated search as close as possible to a ‘natural’ search. Companies soon realised that it made good business sense to be on the first page of Google as it is key to promoting or selling their services or products.


Good SEO = website awareness and good Website Marketing = conversion into sales.


The Internet marketplace is the place to be - no doubt Yellow Pages would testify to this. Time, convenience and relevance are some of the most important factors for today’s searcher with relevance being the key for the search engine. The search engines now are becoming the decision makers, the website style important but how it is used,how it communicates,how easy it is to purchase services and products, are key factors in the sales process.


So what do you do when a user gets to your website?


The main purpose in retail for example is to sell the user a service or product , what rules do you generally follow when you are out and about and are going to purchase something.
The shop will:


a) Display their purchasable items


b) Provide places where you can get more information on a product or service


c) Most important of all, they make it easy for you to buy them.



Similarly these same rules apply with a website. Examples of this are specials deals and impulsive buys at the checkout.


The key is to make it easy and simple for the user, without bells and whistles (unless you are in this trade!) – KISS works!.


However remember you have to do the basics and that is SEO services – get them to your site first then get them to take your products.



SEO services now are key to getting your website to page one of Google