SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimisation and is a practice of increasing the amount of web traffic that comes from organic search. SEO aims to improve the visibility of your website and drive more qualified leads to it. There are different types of SEO practices.

SEM involves SEO marketing activities with some paid advertising. Some examples include Pay Per Click campaigns, local SEO, display advertising, shopping or product advertising and search remarketing. SEM and SEO strategies can be cherry-picked to match your business’s objectives.

There are plenty of SEO practices but some basic things you could look into are:
- Link building. This can be done by either publishing high-quality content on your site that others will want to share on their websites, or finding other ways to link your website on someone else's site. An example could be writing testimonials for services and products you have used in the past which get a high volume of website traffic.
- Creating content. This shows search engines you are active and keeps users on your website. This could be in the form of a blog, vlog, study or a podcast.
- Optimise meta descriptions and headlines. You need to make sure you are using keywords, the right character count and catchy phrases.
- Improve user experience. Check how fast your page is loading, if it’s optimised for mobile and whether all links are working properly.

SEO practices are important for businesses because they improve their visibility on search engines, such as Google or Bing, and in turn drive more traffic to your website. With increased traffic, there are more conversion opportunities and therefore the potential for higher sales volume.

SEO works on optimising your position within search engines, which are seen as trusted and credible sources by users. In this way, the higher your rank, the greater the perceived credibility.

At Web Design London we believe web design begins with SEO. Your web design can incorporate various elements that help your SEO rankings. One way that the SEO rankings go up is as a result of a lower bounce rate. Attractive design and carefully selected keywords reduce bounce rates.

Another aspect of web design that helps to reduce bounce rate is the user experience (UX). What this refers to is the ease with which users can navigate through your website to find exactly what they’re looking for. If the structure of the website is unclear, users are more likely to ‘bounce-off’ and search for the same information on the competitor’s website.

Optimising your web design with compressed images that load faster and social media integrations that let them distribute your content online makes their experience better. As a result, users are likely to stay on your website for longer and as a result, indicate to the search engines that your website is valid and useful for web users.

An SEO agency is a company that offers search engine optimisation services that can help your business appear higher in search engine results pages and drive qualified leads to your business.

Web Design London is an SEO agency that integrates various SEO practices, expertise and passion to produce highly-performing SEO strategies that generate more web traffic and more leads for your business.

To generate leads through SEO, experts apply several optimisation practices that not only make your website appear higher in searches but also improve the user experience and convertibility of your website. As a result, there are more qualified leads that land on your website.

SEO copywriting or writing for SEO refers to the process of planning your content, creating it and optimising with keywords that will help improve your rankings in search engine results pages. Producing SEO friendly content makes your website more attractive to search engines.

The short answer is yes, SEO does really matter. It generates a consistent stream of web traffic for your business and builds a good foundation for any future digital marketing campaigns you’re looking to run. SEO means you are playing by the rules of the major search engines which helps your rankings.

It is common to hear from agencies that SEO takes between 4 and 6 months to work. This is not untrue, however, the real amount of time it may take depends on the business, the industry and the goal in mind. At Web Design London, we base our predictions on thorough analysis and keep you updated on the progress on a monthly basis.

It is difficult to say how many different types of SEO there are. We can identify three different approaches to SEO:
1 - A white-hat approach is what Web Design London uses and it’s based all around using wholesome methods to improve the visibility of your website.
2 - A black hat approach is where SEO experts try to manipulate the search engine algorithms to make your website rank higher. At Web Design London we avoid this approach to SEO.
3 - A grey hat approach is somewhere in the middle. It’s not quite as bad as black hat approach but isn’t as ‘clean’ as white hat either. Again, our approach is to try and stay away from breaking the search engine rules.

Another way to categorise SEO practices is to divide it into:
- On-page SEO where the optimisation occurs on the website itself.
- Off-page SEO where optimisation is done outside of the website, e.g. via link building.