Different types of search engines use different methods to rank websites. Understanding these methods will help you understand the SEO strategies outlined in this guide.

Popular search engines

The three of the most popular search engines are:

Google

Google assesses the value of a webpage based on the number of backlinks ie links back to your website. Links from pages that are seen as important by Google weigh more heavily and increase the ranking of the linked pages. Google also analyses the relevancy of the content on the page and other factors like mobile-friendliness. The Google ranking algorithm changes constantly. It can be useful to keep up to date with the latest changes. 

Bing

Microsoft's Bing search engine ranks websites based on the webpage content, the number and quality of websites that link to your pages, and the relevance of your website's content to keywords.

Yahoo!

Yahoo! is now powered by Bing. 

Google has the vast majority of the search market share. Bing, Yahoo and others make up a much smaller percentage.

If you are targeting customers in China, keep in mind that Google is blocked by the 'Great Firewall of China'. Baidu is the biggest search engine in China with over 75% of the search market.

These main search engines use 'crawlers' to search the internet. See what is a search engine and how do they work?

For more detailed information on how to best optimise your website for a particular search engine, refer to their webmaster pages. All the leading search engines provide information and tools to help you improve your SEO.

Specialist search engines

There are a number of specialist search engines that allow users to search for specific things like videos, used cars, recipes, flights and hotels. SEO tactics can be used to help your products and services rank well on specialist search engines. Listings on these websites often appear in standard web search results. 

Examples of specialist search engines:

YouTube

Digital marketers often describe YouTube as 'the second biggest search engine in the world'. Owned by Google, it allows users to search for video content. 

Amazon

Amazon works as a search engine for products. It is often users' first place to research products on the market. 

Skyscanner

Skyscanner allows users to search for flights and compare prices. 

Facebook

Primarily a social media channel, Facebook receives over 2 billion searches a day, putting it ahead of Bing. Users can search for people, businesses, products and services. 

Many of these niche search engines are directories. This means they rank content that has been manually added. Some may use crawlers to find specific types of content from the internet. See what is a search engine and how do they work?
 

Understanding how search engines work can help your business use SEO to reach potential customers.

What is a search engine?

Search engines allow users to search the internet for content using keywords. Although the market is dominated by a few, there are many search engines that people can use. When a user enters a query into a search engine, a search engine results page (SERP) is returned, ranking the found pages in order of their relevance. How this ranking is done differs across search engines.

Search engines often change their algorithms (the programs that rank the results) to improve user experience. They aim to understand how users search and give them the best answer to their query. This means giving priority to the highest quality and most relevant pages.

How do search engines work?

There are three key steps to how most search engines work:

Crawling

Search engines use programs, called spiders, bots or crawlers, to scour the internet. They may do this every few days, so it is possible for content to be out-of-date until they crawl your website again. 

Indexing

The search engine will try to understand and categorise the content on a web page through 'keywords'. Following SEO best practice will help the search engine understand your content so you can rank for the right search queries. 

Ranking

Search results are ranked based on a number of factors. These may include keyword density, speed and links. The search engine's aim is to provide the user with the most relevant result. 

Although most search engines will provide tips on how to improve your page ranking, the exact algorithms used are well guarded and change frequently to avoid misuse. But by following search engine optimisation (SEO) best practice you can ensure that:

• Search engines can easily crawl your website. You can also prompt them to crawl new content.
• Your content is indexed for the right keywords so it can appear for relevant searches.
• Your content can rank highly on the SERP. 

Directory search engines

Some niche search engines operate as directories for specific types of content. This mean that they only show results for content that is manually added. They do not crawl the internet. SEO tactics can still be used to rank highly for relevant queries within these directory search engines.

Rich media search results

Universal or 'blended' search is how search engines present different content types in the search results to users. As well as the traditional text page results, the SERP will also show rich media content, such as images, videos, maps, articles and shopping pages.

Having several different types of content on your website - for example, an instructional video on how to use your product, or a blog - could impact on your chances of appearing on results pages and how highly you are ranked. 

You can use 'structured data' on your website to help search engines understand and display specific types of content. This is a code added to the HTML markup. Using structured data means that information such as review ratings, images, addresses and phone numbers can appear on the search engine results page. 

The best SEO results come from optimising site design and content. This should be done based on the factors search engines use to index web pages. Good site design helps search engines index your site, and increases your chances of a higher ranking in the results pages. Basic SEO techniques include:

• site accessibility
• high quality content
• links to and from other websites
• use of relevant keywords

Make your site accessible

The most important part of making a website search-engine friendly is good design. A well-designed website that will attract repeat visitors and satisfy customers should include:

• well-written, interesting content
• easy-to-navigate pages
• well-designed e-commerce systems 

You should consider the technologies to be used and whether they lend themselves to SEO. SEO can always be improved but, it's harder once the technology is established and the site is built. If you use a content management system, you should make sure it produces SEO-friendly pages.

For more information, see best practices in web design.

More technical considerations include using friendly URLs, standards-compliant code, and dynamically created XML sitemaps that search engines can use to index your website. Ensure that you don't prioritise 'style over substance'. Any features that enhance how your website looks should be balanced with search indexing, accessibility, and usability issues.

Have high quality content

Regularly updated, well-written, relevant content will improve your SEO. It also provides a good reason for others to link to your website and for users to return. Blogs are an excellent way of keeping your content fresh and is well received by search engines.

Descriptive page titles and subheadings will contain relevant keywords. This will help users understand what they are reading and help search engines match your content to related search queries. 

Mobile SEO

Nowadays, mobile devices, such as smartphones, are commonly used to access search results. Research indicates that more than half of search traffic now comes from mobile devices (Statista, 2017). Search engines will 'qualify' content based on how well it renders on mobile devices. Although your website will be viewable on mobile devices, a more effective mobile presence may require a responsive mobile website. You can check if your site is responsive using Google's mobile-friendly test.

When optimising for mobile, consider the nature of 'mobile' search. Should you include location-based keywords in your key phrases? If you design a mobile website, you should consider:

• using CSS layouts (style sheets) to support cross platform compatibility
• page layout and information hierarchy given limited screen space
• the types of content that you use, eg the use of rich media will increase download times
• the placement of any navigation and ease of use on mobile devices
• optimising e-commerce functionality for mobile, eg shopping cart

Keywords are essential to ensuring that your site will be visible on search engines. Think about the terms that customers will use to search for your website. Consider which keywords and key phrases best describe your products or services.

Keyword strategy should be central to your search marketing, as it is vital to both search engine optimisation and any pay-per-click advertising you may do.

Choosing keywords

Choosing keywords is the most important step in building a search engine-friendly site.

You should think beyond broad, generic terms and focus on more specific, niche phrases. This is where the concept of 'long tail keywords' comes into play.

Long-tail keywords may have lower search volumes but are more likely to attract higher-quality traffic. For example, if you're selling tropical fish in Northern Ireland, terms like 'tropical aquariums Belfast' are more relevant and targeted than broad terms like 'fish' or 'Northern Ireland.' This helps draw in potential customers who are closer to making a purchase decision.

Keyword research

To find potential keywords, brainstorm words customers might use to search for your site. Make sure you cover all the different services your site offers.

There are several tools available to assist in the process, such as:

• Google's AdWords Keyword Planner - a free tool (though registration for AdWords is required) for helping you discover relevant keyword suggestions and insights
• Moz Keyword Explorer - a user-friendly platform for discovering keywords and analysing competition

You can also use any data that you may have from web analytics software to see what keywords your customers are currently using to find your website.

Optimising keyword usage

The density of these keywords on your website will also impact search engine results. Look at your competitors' websites and see how they use keywords.

The choice of keywords and the optimal keyword density are difficult to define, although there are tools available that can help you analyse this. Tools are available to analyse this aspect, but the focus should always be on quality content.

Use keywords in your content, page titles, page headings, subheadings and in any metadata that is included in your page code.

Plain English works best

It's important to use real sentences rather than just keywords in your content. Overusing keywords in an attempt to manipulate search rankings can lead to penalties from search engines, so make sure your content reads naturally. Always aim for clarity and relevance over forced keyword repetition or keyword stuffing. See search engine optimisation dos and don'ts.

Keep up to date on how your keywords are performing

In addition to doing the obvious searches on keywords to see where your site comes in the listings, most search engines allow sites to check their status in their indexes. You can use these to monitor your search position to see how changes affect your search rank, and to determine what keywords to add in future.

If you are also using pay-per-click advertising, you can use this to test and refine your keyword strategy by working out what has and hasn't worked in your advertising campaigns.

Search engines often return results as users type using predictive software - this may affect your keyword strategy. It is important to keep up to date with how search engines are indexing and how any changes to functionality may impact your search ranking and keyword strategy.

One of the most important factors for website's search ranking is the number of high-quality, relevant links to it from other sites. Google in particular uses backlinks to determine rankings in its PageRank system. Yahoo! and Bing also use it as one of several factors affecting their rankings.

What are backlinks?

Backlinks, also known as inbound links, are links from one website to another. However, not all backlinks are created equal. The quality, relevance, and source of a backlink significantly impact your SEO performance.

Website owners should be aware of Google's updates which impacted the rankings of websites that violated Google's webmaster guidelines. These updates banned several 'black hat' SEO techniques. They involved artificially boosting a webpage's rank by manipulating its backlinks.

Quality backlinks

A successful link-building strategy should prioritise quality over quantity. A backlink is most valuable when:

• it comes from a respected site with a high page ranking of its own
• the website is relevant to your own
• it naturally fits into the content, enriching the reader’s experience

Link building tactics

You could build backlinks by:

• Building reciprocal links with partner sites - eg they will include links to you in return for links back to them. Businesses can link to their clients and suppliers through recommendations or case studies. For example, a wedding venue business might link to recommended florists, make-up artists and caterers. 
• Submitting your site to online directories and resource lists.
• Approaching media sites to cover interesting stories or press releases that link to your site.
• Offering to write guest content for other sites relevant to your subject area. Your contribution can include links back to your website. 
• Link baiting - including attention-catching 'viral' content to encourage social media users and online journalists to talk about your brand and link through to your site.
• Employing an agency to build links for you. It's important to choose the right partner, as it can have a significant effect on your success. If they use manipulative 'black-hat' techniques, it could lead to you being penalised or even de-indexed. For more information, see choosing a search engine optimisation agency.

Ultimately, having high-quality content on your site will encourage others to link to it.

Avoiding linkspam

Because of the importance of backlinks, some try to increase the number of links by any means possible, regardless of whether the linking is relevant. For example, by commenting on irrelevant forums just to post links or by using link-building software. These methods are 'black-hat' techniques. They try to manipulate rankings. They are not best practices and should be avoided.

Some search engines may penalise or remove your site for adding too many backlinks in one day. Links from websites considered spam could penalise your website.

Focus only on reputable, relevant websites. Links should appear naturally in the content and useful to users. 

For more details on frowned-upon manipulation tactics, see search engine optimisation dos and don'ts.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing how search engines crawl, understand and rank online content. For businesses, this means creating content that AI models can understand so customers can find you.

LLM SEO (Large Language Model SEO) and GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) are AI-focused content strategies that differ from traditional search engine optimisation (SEO).

LLM SEO optimises content to be clear, context-rich, and structured for AI language models like ChatGPT or Google Gemini, helping them understand and use the content effectively in responses.

GEO targets generative AI engines that create direct, conversational answers. It focuses on building authority, brand mentions, and citation-worthy content to ensure inclusion in AI-generated summaries from platforms like Microsoft Copilot or Perplexity.

In summary, traditional SEO aims to rank web pages on search engine results pages (SERPs), while LLM SEO focuses on making content understandable by AI. GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) ensures that AI cites your content directly in answers.

Positioning your brand for AI visibility

Businesses need to adapt by ensuring they are a trusted brand and creating content that AI models can read and understand.

Here’s things you should consider to positively impact your AI visibility and reach.

Understand what people are really looking for

AI helps search engines understand the meaning behind queries, so your business needs to focus on matching user intent and broader concepts, not just exact keywords. Using techniques like natural language processing (NLP) and semantic analysis, AI interprets the true context of what users ask. For example, if someone searches for "cheap cars," AI knows they want budget options even if your content says "affordable cars" or "car deals."

Ensure high-quality content

AI evaluates your content based on its usefulness, accuracy, and trustworthiness. Publishing clear, reliable, and up-to-date information increases your chances of ranking higher.

Optimise for voice and image search

With growing use of voice and visual searches, AI better understands these types of content. Make sure your images and videos are properly labelled and optimised for search.

Personalise results

AI tailors results based on factors like location and past searches. Ensure your content is relevant and targeted to your audience’s needs.

Learn from user engagement

Search engines analyse how engaging and relevant your content is, including clicks and time spent on pages. Content that is valuable, clear, and current gets preference because AI values user satisfaction and quality signals.

Optimising for AI visibility

To help your business show up in search results, it’s important to follow SEO best practices:

• write clear, useful content that answers customer needs
• use natural language and long-tail keywords (eg, “How to choose the right product”)
• add structured data so search engines can understand content better
• optimise for voice search by creating content that answer common questions (e.g., frequently asked questions, how to guides)
• make sure your website loads quickly, displays well on mobile, and is easy to use
• keep your content fresh and accurate to stay relevant

These approaches align with both traditional SEO essentials and the evolving requirements of AI-driven search engines to maximise your search presence.

Common pitfalls to avoid when using AI in SEO

AI can improve search visibility for businesses, but it’s important to understand and avoid common pitfalls.

Relying too much on AI

AI can’t replace human input or judgement. You still need to review your content and make strategic decisions.

Using poor quality data

If the data you feed into AI tools is poor or inaccurate, the results will be unreliable. Clean, well organised data is key to getting useful insights.

Not keeping up with search engine changes

Search engines update their algorithms regularly. If your SEO strategy doesn’t adapt, your business could lose visibility.

When setting up a new website, you will need to let search engines know about it. This allows them to start including it in their search results.

Registering new sites

You will only need to inform search engines of new sites with newly registered internet domain names. You can do this by filling in search engine forms with the address of the home page for your site.

The webmaster programmes run by some search engines, eg Google's Search Engine, allow you to submit maps of an entire site. This tells the search engine to start using programs called spiders, robots or crawlers, to index your website. See what is a search engine and how do they work?

This can take time - especially if you are including niche engines in addition to the main, more popular, services. 

You will probably not need to do this for websites that are already established, because existing links from other sites will have already led search engine crawlers to your site.

Submit sites manually

Where possible you should submit your website manually, rather than use an automated tool. Use of automated submission engines can lead to sites being banned by search engines. Manual submission can take longer but usually only involves completing an online form and is only necessary when registering a new site for the first time.

It can take up to a month for a site to appear in an index after it has been submitted. In practice the quickest way to appear in a search engine index is to be linked to from a site that is already regularly crawled by the major search engines.

The popularity of smartphones and digital assistants means that it is increasingly important to consider voice search as part of your search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy. 

What is voice search?

Voice search uses speech recognition on smartphones and other devices. It lets users search by speaking their queries instead of typing them. The most commonly used examples of voice search applications include:

• Siri (developed by Apple)
• Alexa (developed by Amazon)
• Google Assistant (developed by Google)

These applications, also known as 'digital assistants', can be used on Smartphones or other digital devices such as smart speakers (eg Echo or Google Home). 

Voice search allows users to:

• make search engine queries
• request specific information such as weather forecasts or sports scores
• launch applications
• search for audio and video content
• use voice dialling

How to optimise for voice search

One of the key ways to optimise for voice search is to create content that answers a user's question. This type of content often appears at the top of a search engine results page as a 'featured snippet', which provides a summary of an answer extracted from a webpage. Digital assistants often use information from rich snippets to respond to voice search queries. 

You can create strategic content that aims to answer user queries by:

• ensuring you have an effective keyword strategy
• researching popular queries with online tools
• use a question and answer format when writing content - eg FAQ pages
• answer questions concisely, within one paragraph
• use subheadings, lists and tables 

Long-tail keywords are effective for voice search as queries are more conversational. For example a user may type 'dog-friendly cafe in Bangor' but say out loud 'hey [assistant], where near me can I get a good coffee and bring my dog'. Think about how real people talk and ask questions verbally when developing your keyword strategy. 

As voice search is often used to find local businesses, make sure your address and contact information is listed prominently online. 

Optimising sites for search isn't hard, but doing it well can be a challenge, especially if you're making changes to an existing website, rather than creating a new one. Make sure the search engine optimisation (SEO) tactic you use follow search engine guidelines.

SEO dos

White hat SEO tactics are those that search engines recommend. The following steps will help your website become more search engine friendly.

• Picking your target keywords. Use descriptive phrases rather than generic terms. Search engines are more likely to give sites offering 'organic Armagh apples' a higher rank than one offering just 'apples'.
• Keyword Placement. Place keywords on your pages - generally the higher on the page, the better. Put keywords in the page title and introductory paragraphs. Keywords should also be used as part of sentences, but avoid 'keyword stuffing' - the practice of using keywords indiscriminately. For more details, see search engine optimisation: keyword strategy.
• Simplify page layout. Complex layouts don't work well with search engine crawlers. If it's easy for a human to read, it'll be easy for a search engine to work with.
• Attract incoming links. Good quality, relevant content brings in links from other sites. For more details, see search engine optimisation: links strategy.

SEO don'ts

Activities which attempt to manipulate search engine rankings are known as 'black-hat' techniques. Attempting to use any of these techniques will make a website look bad, and may lead to your website being de-indexed by search engines.

The best way to avoid this is to remember that websites are for visitors rather than for search engines. Things to avoid include:

• websites that automatically redirect visitors to pages
• hidden text on pages
• buying or selling links
• blog comment spam
• bait and switch - allowing content to get a good ranking for a particular keyword and then changing it 
• pages with nothing but keywords and links to other websites - eg link farms
• content intended only for search engines
• links from websites that replicate content belonging to other sites

Any attempts to trick either users or search engines are considered 'back hat' tactics. 

You can use a search engine optimisation (SEO) agency to handle all your site's SEO needs. An agency can help you with:

• content for your website
• site architecture advice
• keyword strategy
• integrating your search marketing activities

You will need to work in partnership with whichever agency you employ. Effective SEO requires a deep understanding of the site that is being optimised, including knowledge of the business and the target audience.

How to choose an SEO agency

Ask around before engaging an agency and draw up a shortlist. Get references from previous customers, to help understand how a prospective partner works. A good consultancy should want to know as much about you as you do about them. Engaging a search engine consultancy is like working with any other business service provider, whether it is IT consultants or accountants. You need to ensure that they are right for your business.

Be wary of agencies who make claims like 'guaranteed first page on Google' or number one rankings. There is no way to guarantee rankings because search engine algorithms change constantly. Avoid agencies who use 'black hat' SEO tactics. This can lead to your business being penalised by search engines.  

See choosing a search engine optimisation agency: checklist.

Building a relationship

Make sure that any contract you sign with an agency includes enforceable service level agreements. Engaging an SEO specialist can be expensive, so make sure that your chosen partner will deliver.

You should expect any relationship to be long term, as search engine rankings can change dramatically over time. This may be due to the actions of your competitors, or changes in how search engines index pages. Make sure that you communicate regularly, and that your SEO partner provides you with regular and auditable reports.

Once you have decided to work with a search engine optimisation (SEO) agency, you need to choose one that is appropriate for your business. This is an important decision, as choosing the right or wrong partner can have a significant effect on your business.

The following checklist should help you make this decision:

1. Do they claim to guarantee a high ranking?
   Any service offering this is to be avoided. Google and other search engines change algorithms frequently to prevent SEO agencies from doing this. Search engine rank changes regularly, and a site that was on top today could be further down the page tomorrow.
2. Do they provide a clear work plan and expected results? It's important to get an outline before any work commences of what work the agency will actually do and what results they plan on achieving. 
3. Are they a personal recommendation? Services recommended by friends and colleagues are worth considering, as word-of-mouth recommendations are a valuable source of information. It's also worth looking at recommendations in online forums, along with positive and negative comments about an agency.
4. What do others say about the company? Online sentiment can help you evaluate prospective partners. Popular services generate a lot of online comments - as do those that have a negative reputation.
5. Do they have customer references? It's important to hear about an agency from its customers. Customer references are important, especially if an agency is happy for you to contact customers directly. It's also a good idea to check if the agency is part of any professional bodies.
6. Is their site optimised? Explore the agency's own site and look to see just how well optimised it is. You should be able to see the site's keywords, then search on them to see how well ranked the agency is. One that doesn't make the rankings is unlikely to be a suitable partner.
7. Do they attempt to break search engine rules? It's important to find out if a prospective SEO agency uses unapproved or 'black-hat' techniques to list sites on search engines. Avoid sites that use automated submissions or run their own link farms. Links farms are a group of websites that all link to each other in an attempt to improve their page ranking on search engines.
8. Do they get links from real sites? Some agencies run their own sites full of links as a way of delivering the backlinks search engines look for. These techniques go against search-engine rules and a good agency will provide backlinks from real, relevant sites.
9. Will they work with you long term? Site SEO is an ongoing process and any SEO partner should be willing to work with you over a long period, helping to keep your site competitive.
10. Are they open? SEO is not a black art - ask how they intend to promote your website and improve your search ranking. If they are unwilling to reveal this information it could be because they are using 'black-hat' techniques which may harm your business.
11. How do they communicate results? The agency should be proactive in making recommendations on how you can improve your search ranking by providing you with regular reports and insight. If you are receiving automated reports, with no clear recommendations, then this is not good value for money.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) should be treated like any marketing campaign and tracking the results is a key part of the process.

Without feedback, it will be unclear what search terms are being used to find your site, or which site elements attract the most traffic. Monitoring your site's traffic will show which parts of your SEO work. It will show what is effective and what needs changing. This will help direct traffic to the right areas of your site.

Using web analytics

Web analytics is a key way of monitoring the success of online campaigns. A tracking code is added to each page of your website which collects user data. You can then analyse this with a free tool, like Google Analytics. It uses these codes to give you reports on how users interact with your site.

You will be able to access data about how many people visit a page, how long they stay on your site, and where they came from. You can also look at the search terms that lead users to your page. 

See what is web analytics?

Get reports from SEO partners

If you use an SEO agency, it should provide regular reports showing how their optimisations are working, along with any plans to improve current search engine ranking. It's also important that reports include output from SEO tools and the major search engines' site analytics. If your website is maintained externally, ensure you have access to its statistics. You need to monitor performance and generate reports.

Use browser tools for quick information

You can quickly see the effects of SEO on your pages using browser tools. Google's Analytics plugin for Chrome can give a quick overview of on-page analytics. Tools like SEO for Firefox and SeoQuake can be used to analyse the search engine rankings of your site and your competitors' sites.

Benchmarking

After collecting your key metrics for at least six months, you can analyse your site's progress and the effects of any changes you've made. You can also compare your site's performance to your competitors' - helping you to identify areas for future improvement.

You can take steps to target customers in different regions and countries through your website. Key international search engine optimisation (SEO) techniques include localising your site content and structure.

You should remember to balance your targeting approach so as not to discriminate against users in particular regions. Within the EU, regulations apply that prevent unjustified 'geo-blocking' practices. If you sell goods and services in the EU, you should familiarise yourself with the rules.

Websites targeting multiple regions and languages

To reach non-English-speaking international customers, consider offering tailored content.

International website structure

There are three main types of global websites:

• multi-regional - target users in different countries who speak the same language, eg UK, Australia and the Republic of Ireland.
• multi-lingual - target users in different countries who speak different languages, eg  UK, Spain and France.
• multi-regional and multi-lingual - target users in different countries, some of whom speak the same language and others who don't, eg UK, France and USA.

Think about you how you structure your website to reach these groups. For example, you could have a dedicated site for each country you aim to target, or you could offer language options from a single website.

There are three main options for an international website structure:

• Country code top-level domain names separate countries into different sites through a dedicated code, eg 'website.co.uk', 'mywebsite.es', 'mywebsite.fr'. This option offers an effective method of geo-targeting. You will need to register the country code top-level domain. This is the favoured SEO approach for global websites, but it may be more expensive than the other options.
• Subdomains allow you to add a country-specific subdomain to a generic top-level domain (eg .com, .org). For example, you could have a Spanish language subdomain 'es.mywebsite.com' and a French language subdomain 'fr.mywebsite.com'. This method is easy to set up. The subdomains can act as separate websites.
• Subdirectories offer the simplest method. They are different sections of the same website. They will usually appear as a path in the URL, eg 'mywebsite.com/es' or 'mywebsite.com/fr'.  

You should note that .eu domain names and certain EU Member State domain names such as .fr (France) have EEA residency requirements meaning you may not be able to register such domain names if they don’t meet the eligibility requirements. Read more about registering and renewing .eu domain names in the UK after 1 January 2021.

Before deciding on the best approach to target specific countries and languages, remember to look at your web analytics. Consider if the volume of visits and conversions match the effort required to develop a dedicated web presence for that group.

Localisation

It's important to localise content for different regions and countries. Remember that there can differences between regions that speak the same language. For example, there are different spellings in US English and UK English, eg color and colour.

You should consider localising of the following elements on your multi-regional or multi-lingual website:

• URL
• title
• meta description
• navigation
• headings, text and images
• currency - this is especially important for e-commerce websites
• local office address
• local office phone number (or appropriate dialling codes)
• local time

International keywords research

Keyword research in other languages can be challenging. You could get the help of a native speaker or professional translation service to assist. Remember that a direct translation of a keyword in English may not be the most relevant keyword.

Online keyword research tools can be a useful resource. See search engine optimisation: keyword strategy.

International link building

Links from local sites are important for SEO in each region. Local backlinks will carry more weight than those coming from other countries.

Build links for your international website by engaging with local media and bloggers in each region. 

See search engine optimisation: links strategy. 

Search engine visibility is the key to online success. Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the practice of enhancing aspects of a website to improve its ranking in search engines.

The higher you rank in a search engine's index, the more visible you will be. If your business has a website, read our top tips to help ensure it gets found:

1. High quality content

Regularly updated, well-written, relevant content will improve your SEO. Remember to write content primarily for users, not search engines. As search engines become more sophisticated, they are able to identify content that is the most useful and relevant to the user.  

Avoid duplicate content, from both other pages on your own website and on other websites. Your content should contain your target keywords for the page, but beware of 'keyword stuffing'.

Read content marketing.

2. Meta tags

Meta tags summarise what the site is about and have a role in the search rankings. The most important meta tags are the title and description.

The title tag should include your page's main keyword, your company name, and possibly your location. The description tag is what users will read when your page comes up in search listings. It should contain your main keywords and read like a sentence, not a list. Meta keywords are no longer used by most search engines.

3. Build good quality links

One of the most important factors for determining your ranking in search engine results is the number of high quality, relevant links from other websites to your site - otherwise known as backlinks. The links must be relevant to the content of your site and they must be from reputable websites. Beware of 'black hat' tactics for gaining links - these could result in your website being penalised.

See search engine optimisation: links strategy.

4. Include a sitemap

Search engines can use sitemaps to index your website. Having a sitemap makes every page of content easier to find, reducing the number of clicks both web crawlers and users have to make before reaching the required content.

5. Track your results

SEO should be treated like any marketing campaign and tracking the results is a key part of the process. Without feedback, it will be unclear what search terms are being used to find your site, or which site elements attract the most traffic.

Find out more about measure your search engine optimisation results.

6. Paid search marketing

If your website doesn't rank well organically on search engines, you can buy your way to the top with paid promotion on Google AdWords or Microsoft Advertising. You write your ad copy, choose your keywords, and set a daily budget, and then your ad is ready to go. You can also target your ads to customers in certain cities or regions.

See pay-per-click and paid search advertising.

7. Mobile

It is important to consider mobile in your SEO strategy. Google now labels websites that are optimised for mobile as 'mobile-friendly' within its mobile search results, meaning that if yours is not, it can negatively impact your ranking in mobile search results and the click-through rate to your website. Check if your site is mobile-friendly.