Organic Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a long term strategy to improve brand visibility and rankings in search engines, attract larger and better targeted volumes of search engine users and ultimately, increase market share and grow your business.

Here is a basic guide to explain what organic SEO is and how it can benefit your business.

What is Organic Seo?

Organic SEO refers to manual type of page optimisation versus automatic submittal and page alteration. When people refer to organic SEO or white hat strategies, they almost always use it as a blanket term to describe the unpaid, algorithm-driven results of a search engine such as Google, Yahoo and Bing.

The description of organic SEO is not limited to what shows up in the “natural” search engine results – it includes the methodologies used to achieve such rankings. A search engine results page may be divided into two main parts:

Organic – or natural – search engine optimisation (SEO) is the process of improving the rankings of a website in the “natural” or free search engine results

Pay per click (PPC) – this is a paid advertisement that will appear next to the organic SEO results when people search using keywords that appear in your advertisement

Organic SEO and pay per click advertising may be used in conjunction with each other. Organic SEO is a strategic and long term approach to online marketing where PPC is a tactical, fast response mechanism and may be utilised when quick responses are required such as launching a new website with a brand new URL or launching a new product with a short lead time.

Three core factors that influence organic searches

1. Search Engine-friendly website technical infrastructure

A web developer and SEO expert can work together to create a website that is user-friendly as well as SEO-friendly. A website should include web pages to target keywords and the optimisation of all title, description and keyword meta tags to increase your search engine ranking.

Organic SEO Tip 1 - Typing site:www.yourwebaddress.com into the Google search box will show you how many pages Google has indexed. If you have only a few of your many pages listed then there is likely to be a technical issue with your website infrastructure

2. Web Content

Web content should be keyword rich and contain pertinent keywords that your target market is using to search for your product and service. In addition, search engines give a higher priority to websites that have web content which is continually refreshed and updated.

Organic SEO Tip 2 – Write great original web copy with key phrases strategically placed but remember to write for the reader and don’t get carried away with trying to please the “spiders”.

3. Links to your web pages

A search engine sees a link to your website like a vote of confidence in your site from another webmaster and as a validation that your website is credible. Search Engines now also take into consideration the quality and theme of site linking to your site. So, the more websites who link back to your website that are high quality and of a similar or related theme, the greater your search engine ranking will be.

Organic SEO Tip 3 – Ensure you gain a link into at least one of your pages, preferably your home page and link out to at least one other high quality website… ideally half a dozen or more. These contextual links will boost the relevance of your pages and so help your website rank better for your keyword phrases. Refer to our article on Link Building for more practical tips on how to increase links back to your website.

Organic SEO versus artificial SEO

Some companies employ techniques to try to artificially manipulate the search engine rankings. There are called black hat techniques. The table below demonstrates the difference techniques used to increase search engine results pages (SERPS) and rankings achieved through artificial and organic SEO.

Black hat techniques and ‘get rich quick’ SEO schemes can lead to your web pages disappearing in search engine rankings and worst case scenario, your website is banned. Search engines are always changing their algorithms to search for websites that employ these black hat techniques in order to remove them from their indices.

Organic SEO and white hat tactics are a long term SEO strategy that doesn’t cut corners or use dubious methods to increase search engine rankings but more importantly maintains your search engine ranking and keeps you on page one of search engine rankings.