What is Search Engine Optimization?
A lot of businesses, both online and in real time are relying on the internet to hopefully acquire more buyers that will lead to more sales and income. The process of search engine optimization or SEO is fairly easy, provided that you understand the different approaches and invest in the right resources that will get you good targeted traffic. You have to understand the different factors that will make your web site more visible to the world.
Describing SEO
SEO or search engine optimization is the process of developing and boosting the quality and volume of traffic to a given website via search engines. Search engines will search for the most relevant web sites as visitors type in the given keywords through organic or algorithmic methods. In most cases, the earlier a web site presents itself in the search results list, the higher number of visitors it will get from the search engine. Some of the most popular search engines include Yahoo and Google. SEO can target various types of search like images, local searches and vertical search engines that are industry-specific. Web presence is provided to the web site as you gain more relevance.
The Background of Search Engine
Optimization
Search engine optimization or SEO has been used strategically by thousands of individuals and companies all over the world to generate higher revenues. It is also one of the cheapest ways to continually advertise your web site and get a lot of targeted traffic who are truly interested in your services and products. It is important that you learn more about its history first to determine the right approaches that will appeal to your target market.
How It All Started
Website content writers and webmasters started to optimize web sites for search engines during the middle part of the 1990s, since the initial search engines were still cataloguing the early Web. In the beginning, a webmaster can submit the webpage address or URL to different search engines that will send a spider to navigate and crawl the given page. The spider will gather links to other pages from the page and return the information located on the page to be indexed.
The entire process involves a search engine spider that will download a page and store it on the very own server of the search engine. The second program or indexer, will gather different information regarding the page, like words in the content and location, together with the weight for given words and all other links contained in the page, to be placed in a scheduler for later crawling.
Increased Value
Web site owners understood what it means to increase the ranking of their web sites and being visible to their target market through search engine results. They can then create the opportunity for SEO practitioners using either black hat or white hat. Danny Sullivan, an analyst of the industry in the 1990s, indicated that SEO or search engine optimization may have been coined and used frequently in 1997.
Early versions of the search algorithms heavily depended on information given by the webmaster like the keyword meta tag or index files in search engines such as ALIWEB. Meta tags function by giving a guide to every content of web pages. The Meta data can be used to index pages that were found to be unreliable due to the choices made by the webmaster in the given keywords. It can become an inaccurate representation of the web site's true content. Inaccurate and inconsistent meta tags can change the rankings of various pages.
Keyword Density
Keyword density was incorporated very much during the early parts of SEO. Search engines would usually suffer because of ranking manipulation of overuse of given keywords. Search engines needed to adjust to make sure that results pages will only present the most useful web sites, instead of unrelated web pages that only had several keywords, but really did not mean anything. More complex ranking algorithms were created and developed by search engines to ensure that visitors only got the most useful results possible.
Modern Results
At present, rankings in search engines are very accurate and dependable. In 2004, search engines have used different factors in the algorithms of rankings to significantly minimize link manipulation. Some of the best search engines use more than 200 various signals. The algorithms are not disclosed by the biggest engines to prevent unscrupulous webmasters from manipulating the results. Some of the best SEOs have used various approaches, with different techniques and opinions posted in blogs and online forums.
As an Internet Marketing Strategy
SEO is very much related to internet marketing. It considers how search engines function and what are the usual things that visitors on the internet look for. You can optimize the web site by changing or editing the content, associated coding and HTML to boost its relevance to given keywords as well as eliminate barriers to the indexing functions of search engines.
SEO can also mean search engine optimizers. The term was coined by a group of consultants who function by optimizing projects for different clients. Some SEO services are performed in-house by various types of employees. The techniques of SEO can be included into the development and design of the web site, since SEO effectiveness needs to change according to the HTML code of a given site. Being search-engine friendly usually means having the right web site design, content management systems, navigation tools, shopping carts, images and videos and menus to help optimize the site for increased search engine exposure.
More Strategies
There are different strategies that can be used to optimize visibility in search engines. According to eye tracking studies, searchers will scan search results pages from the top to bottom and left to right, to find relevant results. Positioning at the top or near the top of the rankings leads to increased number of searchers who will most likely visit your web site. Having more search engine referrals do not usually guarantee added sales.
SEO is not truly the right strategy for every given web site, since other internet marketing strategies can be more effective, depending on the objectives of the site operator. The success of the internet marketing campaign will ultimately drive organic traffic to your web site, but you also have to incorporate other approaches like paid advertising and affiliates. Using these resources will help increase the people who will most likely be interested in your given products and services.
Your Investment
SEO help you generate your ROI or return on investment. Search engines are not paid by web site owners if they get organic search traffic. The algorithms change, so you cannot be sure if you can stay at the top of the rankings. Updating your web site content and boosting the elements that make a good web site will help you get your money back quickly.
Learning SEO For Beginners
Search engine optimization (SEO) can be a daunting process to learn for any person who is unfamiliar with it. However, this process is one of the more important skills that you must learn and master if you plan on making some money on your online site or business. This seems like a tall order for a novice in the whole SEO game, but fortunately for you, there are a couple of things that you can learn about that can help you understand, and hopefully implement, the entire process to help improve your site’s ranking.
What is SEO benefits to my website?
The first thing that you must know before anything else is what search engine optimization (SEO) is and how it can benefit your online site.
Just in case you do not know, search engine optimization is an important skill that will allow your website or webpage to get better rankings in search engines, such as google, thereby making it easier for people to discover it. There are a lot of techniques and processes involved in SEO, which is why learning how it works first of all is the most important first step that you must take.
Basically, SEO helps online sites, or online businesses, to get a certain amount of exposure on the web by making them more visible and easier to find through the use of search engine’s indexing software, thereby making it easier to redirect traffic to your site and business, improving your chances of receiving a steady stream of market.
How is your site or page ranked?
Before your website can make full use of SEO, you must first get it indexed by search engines. How this works is that search engines find your website or webpage through the use of different indexing programs, such as crawlers or spiders that basically follows all links that lead to your site or page and downloads copies of it as it goes.
After this, your site or page will be analyzed and indexed based on some algorithms and criteria set by the search engines, thereby giving your site its ranking. This can be achieved through effective link building, which requires you to create connections to other sites that have similar contents to that of your site.
Benefits of SEO for your site
One of the more obvious benefits of SEO is that It can help improve your site’s web ranking in search engines, thereby increasing the amount of web traffic that you website can generate. Since your site is now easier to locate in the web, it is a safe bet that there will be a significant change in the amount of visits from potential customers that your site can get. Keep in mind that making your site easier to find makes a whole lot of difference for your business’ survival, especially for those based online.
Avoid spamming
Spamming is one way of getting traffic directed to your website, however, this type of method will only work for a short period of time, and will ultimately lead to your site’s failure.
This type of method works by literally tricking traffic to get redirected to your site through the use of some deceptive techniques, such as using irrelevant keywords and using duplicate content on other sites just to try and increase your site’s page ranking.
Initially, this can generate some traffic to your site, but it will create some problems later on for your site, making it a big possibility that you might even lose some potential customers along the way.
Conclusion:
Learning how the entire SEO system works is your first step on managing your online business or website, especially for a beginner such as yourself. Understanding how it works can help you determine what other steps you need to take in order to fully realize and take advantage of the entire SEO process in turning your business into a complete online success.
