Search Engine Optimization (SEO)... what is it?
We have all used a search engine (e.g. Google). Why? To find what we are looking for. We simply go to Google and type in 'something special' and we find our so many searches about 'something special'.
Now how many pages do you read out of the 11,100,000 listed in the Google index?
Do you read the 265,432nd? What about the 123rd?
No, we usually find what we are looking for by reviewing the top 50 (or 20) ranked sites.
Aren't those top 50 sites lucky?
All search engine rankings are determined by a search engine spider's algorithm. An algorithm is simply a sequential series of logical steps.
All computer programs are algorithms: execute line 1, then line 2, then line 3, etc.
For a Search Engine spider, the algorithm performs an analysis on each page it 'spiders'. This analysis can be quite elaborate and complex, they could include:
- analyzing the header tags of a site (site title and meta tags)
- images of the site including their corresponding alt tags
- analyze word selection within the title, images, body text, first words, paragraphs, etc.
- look at keyword density (the number of keywords compared to the total number of words)
- the number of other sites that link to the site [ read about link logistics ]
- the relevancy of all those inbound links
- site depth (i.e. number of pages)
- the relevance of those pages to each other
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) deals with maximizing these 'characteristics' in order to obtain high rankings. It is the most important technical function one can perform on a web site. The number one driver of new visitors to a website is through search engines. In addition, if a site is properly search engine optimized, the resulting traffic is biased towards those individuals actually searching for your specific product, information or service (i.e. a very targeted viewer).
