seo oxford

In SEO terms, a keyword is a term you would wish to be found for. Unintuitively though, keywords in this sense are not necessarily single words. For example. If you have a site that sells woolly hats, your SEO keywords could be “woolly’ or “hats’, but they could just as easily be “woolly hats” or “hoxton bonnet” or even “funny multicoloured hats with bobbles on top”. It all depends on what the people you wish to attract to your site are searching for.
There are generally two types of keyword, known as short tail and long tail respectively. The difference is the number of words in them – short tail keywords are one or two words, whereas long tail consists of three or more words. So in the above example, “Wooly hat” would be considered a short tail keyword. It is more likely to be searched for, but this also means there will be a lot of competition. Short tail keywords also tend to have lower conversion rates. In contrast, “funny multicoloured hats with bobbles on top” would be a long-tail keyword, and because it is far more specific, less people will search for it. But those that do are more likely to end up as a conversion.

This is a key question before you engage in any SEO campaign.  For some, the only measure is how high you appear in the search results on Google. However, this is a very narrow view and only takes certain search terms into consideration.  

As well as ranking position for particular keywords, an overall increase in site traffic should be looked at, as well as actual conversions on site (how many of your visitors actually do something while they’re there, like buy a product or download a resource, or even just get in contact).

In its strictest sense, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is any work done on your site’s pages to make them more likely to be indexed by Google for particular keywords, so that they are more visible in search results.  (There are, of course, more search engines than Google. But since all of them put together account for less than 8% of all searches, they are rarely accounted for in SEO practices).

Although the strict meaning of SEO is making pages more visible to search engines, the current understanding of it has expanded to include methods to push sites further up the rankings, including strategic backlinking (getting other sites to talk about yours) and content targeting (writing copy specifically to be picked up for keywords).

Adding ‘Oxford’ to the end of the above question is an example of SEO practice, making this question and answer more visible to anyone searching for SEO information in the Oxford area. See what we did there?

Yes, if out of date practices are used, they can incur penalties from Google. Historically, the relationship between SEO and the development of Google’s search algorithm has been akin to an arms race. Google sees any attempt to game its system as contrary to its mission to provide the best possible results for any given search of the web. Therefore, previous practices such as keyword stuffing or link farming, which would have once elevated your site in any search results are now going to have you sent to the naughty step (in this case, waaaaay down the results).

You will probably have a fair idea of some short tail keywords to aim for already. Any succinct descriptions of what your site offers would be the most obvious picks. However, the more keywords you can optimise for, the greater your likelihood of attracting traffic to your site from all kinds of searches. This is where keyword research is critical. Knowing what people are likely to search for requires watching what is happening in searches already, what your competitors are ranking for, what is converting well on your own site, and a number of other factors.