Improving online visibility of the web pages with Search Engine Optimization: Laurea University of Applied Sciences

This project was commissioned by Laurea University of Applied Sciences (UAS). The organization’s website has a wide range of users from all over the world. It is important that the contents on the website are equally accessible to users with different abilities and disabilities (e.g. visually impaired & auditory). Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the practices that contribute to im-proving web accessibility. A functioning website is one of the main means of communication for organizations. Improving the web visibility and accessibility is important and challenging. This thesis includes a literature review of the latest books and online materials about SEO, which is one of the most important and cost effective technique for digital marketing. It helps the website to rank higher in organic search results, improve the user experience and brand awareness. The action research method was the utilized research method. The aim of this thesis is to improve the online visibility of the web pages, while the objectives are to implement on-page SEO and cre-ate a handbook. It is the final outcome aimed to help marketing department to achieve several goals, which include recommendations and information on SEO best practices. The thesis focuses on the Google search engine. Only organic traffic is taken into consideration while analysing the results. The results were compared six months before introducing the SEO and after SEO implementation. For the home page, the data from the Google Analytics shows an in-crease of visitors via Google organic traffic by 46.10% while increase of unique visitors by 56% in the organic traffic. SEO is a continuous process and is constantly changing. Future research could be conducted on the role of artificial intelligence, voice and mobile search in SEO. While other areas to focus on could be the importance of SEO for user experience and improving web accessibility