Search Engines are complex machines. They sweep through millions of web pages and rank them all in order of, well, what?

This summary seeks to try and explain their methods and how you can use this knowledge to improve your page ranking and optimise your site using SEO.

How the search engine’s rank

Search engine’s use specific methods to rank the many millions of sites across the internet. Some of these methods are public knowledge although the engine’s like to keep the last few pieces of the puzzle a closely guarded secret.

These are the main ways they garner information on sites and methods they use to rank pages:

Web crawler

Often depicted as a spider crawling across the web that is the internet. They look at all pages on the internet and works out what information they hold. Then when you search they deliver the results, the websites, in order of relevance and importance to help you find the page you are looking for, or most relevant page to your search as quickly as possible.

Algorithms

They take the question you type into your search engine and turn it into answers. They are complex computer processes and formulae that try to work out what your question is asking and what answer you want by taking into account your location, the wording of your question and then display the most relevant sites for your search

But it isn’t all about what the search engines can do, websites can be improved and optimised to push their ranking up by using the knowledge we have of how search engine’s rank sites and changing a site to meet their specifications.

Here at Squibble, we have a five-step SEO plan:

• Step 1: Website Audit- an analysis of how your website is performing and suggestions to improve it. Checking your existing page rank, competitors page rank, keyword, internal and external link analysis.

Then we begin to boost your page rank:

• Step 2: Update content regularly- this boosts search engine rankings and tells people more about your company and what you have to offer.

• Step 3: Link building- we can distribute your site across our PR network and list you as an expert in your field. The more links to your site, the more chance someone will find it, search it and use your services.

• Step 4: Social media sharing- We can share your site, links to specific pages and posts or articles on social media to increase brand awareness, customer engagement and widen your audience.

• Step 5: Monthly reports: we will report monthly on all our activity to help you decide on the next step and show you where you are currently ranking.