SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION AND GOOGLE ADWORDS TECHNIQUES

Utilising the search engine optimisation and Google AdWords techniques to enhance the business of travel companies



Utilising the search engine optimisation and Google AdWords techniques to enhance the business of travel companies

INTRODUCTION

Search engine optimization is the process of building search engine friendly sites that will be more likely to be highly ranked in the listings of search engines. There are two kinds of search engine listings. These are natural and paid. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results, or the higher it ranks, the more searchers will visit that site. SEO can also target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.

Natural, also known as organic, search engine results refer to those listings in search engine results pages that appear by dint of their relevance to the search terms, as opposed to their being adverts, i.e. advertisers. Paid listings are usually labeled in a separate section such as "sponsored listings.” The Google, Yahoo, MSN and Live! search engines combine advertising and search results on their search results pages. In each case, the adverts are designed to look like the search results, except for minor visual distinctions such as their background color and/or placement on the page.

It is important to give more information and background as to why it is necessary to distinguish between the two types of search engine results. According to a report produced by Pewinternet.org, the appearance of the adverts on all major search engines is so similar to the genuine search results that a large majority of search engine users cannot effectively distinguish between them. Only 38% of ordinary users realized that many of the highest ranked results on search engine results pages were actually adverts. It therefore became important within the SEO industry to distinguish between the two types of content. The qualifier 'organic' was invented to distinguish the real search results from the adverts.

The same report by Pewinternet.org shows that users avoid clicking results that they know to be adverts. Achieving high organic search listings is typically preferable to getting in paid listings because natural listings are considered "more accurate" by searchers and is therefore a primary strategy of search engine optimization.

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 increase its relevance to specific keywords and remove barriers to the indexing of search engines. From a client's perspective it is usually better to incorporate SEO when a website is being developed than to try and retroactively apply it because a site's structure may have to be altered.

Eye tracking studies have shown that searchers scan a search results page from top to bottom and left to right, looking for a relevant result. Placement at or near the top of the rankings therefore increases the number of searchers who will visit a ...