For most companies additional trade will only arise from online sales when the enterprise’s domain has managed to attain a page one search engine positioning with a search platform for at least one of its pages. Reaching that good ranking is possible without using search engine optimisation processes but unlikely. Equally unlikely is the probability of keeping the page one ranking without continuing search optimization effort. Competitors will be using similar processes to develop their own position, and without sustained effort on your own behalf, your own ranking could change.

For a new company, or for one that has recently rebuilt its website, a degree of trust needs to be built with the search engines before a better natural search engine positioning begins to happen. A good starting point is to ensure that your website is mechanically sound. All the internal backlinks to pass between your own pages should be correct, as these will make a starting contribution to the backlink score of your website. This can also be encouraged by providing a sitemap file to Google. As your website expands, it is wise to refresh the sitemap file, and to name your individual pages in such a way that older pages are still readily indexed by the search engines and do not result in search mistakes.

It is wise to use all of the metatags that can be associated with a website that can make a difference. Many optimisation experts will disagree with the relevance of some, particularly keyword tags, but many still remain useful reminders of what is being done to the website even if making little difference to the ranking. Some metatags such as page descriptions and titles will help in improving visibility on results pages, and are often misused by even the biggest of companies.

While these mechanical adjustments can make a difference, particularly when your organisation is operating in a specialised market, but generally some form of additional publicity is needed, and this is the greater part of the search optimization effort. This is off-page optimisation, where your search engine optimisation professional needs to build the reputation of your company in the wider community, usually through the production of articles that comment on matters related to your company. These articles will probably not mention your organisation directly, but will contain backlinks coupled with your website that contribute to the relevance of your website with the search engines. In time this should result in improved rankings for your pages, eventually landing on page one.

The off-page optimisation needs to continue after attaining a page one ranking but the volume of effort needed should reduce eventually, because your reputation with the search engines is high enough to need small reminders. It is very rare for a website to preserve its page one ranking with no effort at all.

It can take a long time to raise the natural search engine positioning of your pages to the point where your company is prominent on page one of a search engine results page. You need to use search optimization processes to achieve this, but you must continue to use search engine optimisation to preserve that ranking.

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