Search Engine Optimization - SEO

SEO also called Search Engine Optimization is the process of improving the volume of traffic to a website from search engines via "natural" or unpaid search results. The theory is that the higher a website appears on search results, the higher the number of people will visit that particular site. From an internet marketing strategy standpoint, SEO represents one of the most effective and long-term strategies for establishing a web presence. However, it is not always the best means of internet marketing for every type of website.

The following picture shows an example of how webpages appear within the search engine:



General SEO Methods

Most professionals in this industry would agree that after all the preliminary work has been completed in creating a website or webpage, the next step is the get the site indexed. Indexing is the process of including a website along with all of its pages to a search engine. The webmaster submits the web address of a page, or URL, to the various engines which would send a "spider" to "crawl" that page, extract links to other pages from it, and return information found on the page to be indexed. The process involves a search engine spider downloading a page and storing it on the search engine's own server, where a second program, known as an indexer, extracts various information about the page, such as the words it contains and where these are located.

Hopefully, before this step is initiated, a webmaster has done all of the meta-tag and keyword specific work for the website. Each indexed website is assigned a Pagerank. Pagerank is a function of quality and quanity of backlinks (also called inbound links). Page ranking ranges from zero to ten with 10 being the highest achievable rank. Once a website has been indexed, so begins the painstaking process of building up links to this site so as to increase its rank within the search engine. These links are typically referred to as backlinks. Backlinks are links which point directly to a specific website or webpage. If these backlinks are effectively established, they aid in increasing positioning within the search engine.

The following exhibit shows the general pagerank calculation:



According to SEOReasher, below are four statistics that demonstrate the the value of SEO:

1. 42% of search users click the top-ranking link. 8% click the second-ranking
link, and the click-through rate (CTR) continues to drop thereof.

2. 62% of search users click a link on the first page of search results

3. 23% of searches progress to the second page. Presumably the difference between
62% ans 23% stems from searchers trying either another keyword or another
engine, or giving up.

4. 77% of search users choose organic over paid listing when searching, 67% choose
organic search when purchasing


Beware marketers, there many so called professionals who would have you buying millions of backlinks in an attempt to perpetuate their business. There are many common misconceptions regarding the general application of this SEO method. The number of marketers selling backlinks on the web is enormous.

My recommendation is that you approach SEO from an informed standpoint. Do as much research as possible to understand the process. Once you've gained a reasonable understanding of this type of internet marketing, begin to search for reputable professionals who can provide quality service with a long-term approach. This will increase your chances of improving your site's web position.