SEO – Search Engine Optimization

SEO is the acronym for Search Engine Optimization. It is the process we follow in order to improve the position of a website in the unpaid (“organic”) results of a search for specific keywords or phrases.

Studies show that 80% of google users only visit websites listed on the first page, while only 20% browse the next search results pages. In Greece, in terms of search engines, the use rate of google is over 98%. For most websites, how high they appear in search results is a matter of “life or death”.

Yes. Studies show that visits to paid listings are below 4% of all search results visits. Users just know how to distinguish ads, and trust organic results more. Also, with the constant rise of ad blockers, many users don’t even see paid entries.

Google is a program that scans the internet, “reads” as many websites as it can, makes an index of their contents, and ranks them for every possible search. Its purpose is to provide its users with the best possible results. The more users use it, the more expensive it can sell paid entries – ads, which are its main source of revenue.

In many different ways, taking into account hundreds of different parameters, which can be divided into two main groups: A. Parameters related to the website itself and the user experience with it, and B. Parameters related to the general presence and influence of the website on the rest of the internet. The parameters and their relative importance are constantly changing. Gone are the days when it was enough to write a keyword 100 times on a website to rank first. Now this (keyword stuffing) carries significant penalties.

The process of search engine optimization consists of two separate pieces, which concern the above parameter groups used by google. On-page seo is about actions we take to improve the website itself, as content, as code, and as user experience. Off-page seo is about promoting the website on sites other than our own.

We start with understanding and analyzing the business activity / purpose of the website. We proceed with customer base targeting, competitor study, and keyword research. We decide the strategy that will be followed and we design the architectural structure of the website. This is followed by writing the appropriate content for our purposes, and a series of changes mainly in the code: html markup, proper url structure, change titles, write descriptions for google, create internal links and sitemaps, install an ssl certificate, and more. As a program, google does not “see” websites like a human. To get an idea, if you are using firefox right-click on any website and click “view source code”. So we re-write the code so that it “is liked” by google, without forgetting the satisfaction of the visitors. The process is completed by optimizing images and graphics, and by generally optimizing the website so that it loads fast.

With off-page SEO, we try to create a good image and build links to it from other websites. This is achieved through social media marketing, writing articles on news sites or blogs, posting on forums, and by registering on bookmark sites, catalogs, google maps, etc. It is a persistent and laborious process that requires a permanent and daily work for several months until the results are visible.

They are both important. But on-page SEO is the base. If our website does not have useful and legible content and does not offer a good experience to the visitor, google will understand that and punish it. In addition to the difference in the code it will find, google also uses statistics such as time spent on the webpage and on the website in general, whether the visitor found what he wanted or continued his search, how fast the website loaded, etc. So without on-page optimization, off-page promotion is almost like beating the air.

Contact us! We will be happy to optimize your website and make a difference for your activity! At bark-ode we take into account search engine performance from the initial stages of designing a website and consider SEO one of its most basic parts.