Research shows that, across the Internet, in excess of 70% of search engine users prefer organic search returns to the 30% of Internet users who utilise sponsored listings or PPC.

Despite the popularity of Pay Per Click among marketers, approximately 80% of clicks at Google occur on organic listings, not on the PPC ads.

It's not just web users who like natural listings - The Direct Marketing Association cites website marketers who report search engine positioning as the most effective way to drive traffic to their sites (66%). Email marketing came second with 54%.

With 78% of web users abandoning their search if the first 3 pages don't provide an answer to their question, and 28% not even scrolling past the second page of results, it is clear that the only cost effective way to market a web site online is to obtain several top-10 search engine rankings in the major search engines for your keywords. Perhaps this goes to explain why recent reports by Sempo indicate that 43% of advertiser respondents have shifted their budgets away from other marketing programs to Organic SEO.

Professional and successful search optimisation is a multi-disciplined process - to some, an indefinable balance of science and art, technology and craft. SEO is often regarded as something of a 'black art', a marketing alchemy. SEO involves an almost intuitive combination of copywriting, web design, web development, marketing, advertising and analysis. The blend and proportion of each skill depends upon the experience and expertise of the marketer.

That's not to say that SEO needs to be left to chance. A little research and a few recommendations should be able to lead to the door of a reputable, experienced and ethical SEO partner skilled in delivering measurable and bottom line benefiting results. At Click Consult, we apply our skills, expertise and experience through an integrated suite of SEO services.

The first search engine created was Archie, created in 1990 by Alan Emtage, a student at McGill University in Montreal. The commercial search engines that we are familiar with today started to appear in the mid 90's - Yahoo Directory in '94, LookSmart in '95, Ask Jeeves in '97, Alta Vista '95, Google was launched in 1998.

It didn't take long for website owners to recognize the value of having their sites highly ranked search engine results. The more visible the site, the more people clicked on the site - clicks turned into cash as the Internet became monetised through advertising revenues, e-commerce and other commercial opportunities. Webmasters sought to find ways by which their sites would appear at the top of search returns and in so doing created what has since become the multi-million dollar Search Engine Optimisation - SEO industry. The earliest known use of the phrase search engine optimization is attributed to search specialist Danny Sullivan from a spam message posted on Usenet on in 1997.

Over the last decade SEO techniques used to ensure top positions in search results have changed repeatedly, as have the search engines and the ways in which they determine which website is relevant to any given query. It's a game of cat and mouse, with the search companies working hard to keep ahead of ever-resourceful webmasters and SEO marketers.

In the early days, search engine optimisation comprised mostly of using descriptive file names, page titles, and Meta descriptions. As search algorithms advanced, page factors such as keyword densities grew more important. Then Page Ranking based upon the number and strength of inbound links became the main determining factor. As each of these search criteria became used and abused, the algorithms evolved. These days, the search engines use sophisticated and complicated algorithms incorporating over 200 criteria to determine site ranking.

The current top 10 determining factors are:

• Keyword use in title tags
• Anchor text of inbound Links
• Global popularity of the site
• Age of the site
• Link popularity within the site's internal link structure
• Topical relevance of inbound links to site
• Link popularity of site in topical community
• Keyword use in body text
• Global popularity of Linking Site
• Topical relationship of Linking Page

SEO has implications across the board for any organisation and should be approached holistically. Successful SEO addresses the systemic inclusion of website design, development, content, technology, management; usually with input from sales, marketing, design and technicians. It is both complex and challenging to implement.

The foundation of any SEO campaign is key word and phrase definition. Based upon business objectives, suitable terms are identified that will attract visitors. These visitors will likely convert into leads, customers providing sales, votes and downloads through the call to action they experience through their site visit.

Once business objectives are clear, analysis and search engine preparation is the next stage in optimising the website. It's important to identify duplicate content that might cause search engines to apply ranking penalties. Code issues that damage high search ranking are addressed with clean, current standard compliant HTML code. Spider entry issues are identified and resolved and keyword density in title tags, body content, headings and links are analysed. There may also be link issues that prevent a high ranking.

At Click Consult, once we've identified and resolved obstacles to high search engine ranking we go about optimising sites so that search engines can easily crawl them and add them to their indexes. A high ratio of content to code is mission critical as is a fast-loading, accessible search engine friendly structure. Close attention is paid to core web programming principles.

Page-titles, page-descriptions, meta-tags, keywords, meta-tags and internal HTML hyperlinks are deployed. We add a site map if possible, helping spiders to follow links and find more of the web site.

Search engines very much appreciate text content. They also like structure. Each page on the site should contain high quality copy and use structural elements - heading, paragraph and other HTML tags - to indicate importance to the search engines. We work closely with our clients, ensuring high quality content and structure. Our objective is simply to make it as easy as possible for search engine spiders to gather as much useful information as web users require.

Link analysis is another critical aspect of search engines' ranking algorithms. Global Link Popularity is arguably the most important SEO criteria. Google, Yahoo and the other major search engines love to see sites that have quality incoming links from other relevant sites. At Click Consult we work hard with our clients to develop relevant linking opportunities, free and paid. Resources include current associates, online directories, press releases and blogs. We offer an extensive database of directories and potential links for this purpose.

Truly natural or 'organic' search engine optimisation not only improves your site ranking, it also benefits your overall Internet Marketing campaign. Your site value will be increased, improved HTML code will increase usability, content will teach visitors more about product and increased link popularity will increase the site legitimacy - a virtuous SEO circle that we'd be delighted to discuss with you.

Contact Click Consult to find out how we can raise your web profile and get your site to the top of the search engines.

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