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What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

by
Jim Bruce
founder: Ristvin Marketing


It's the top of those search engine listings that you're aiming for …

Search Engine Optimization (SEO), is at times a complex and ever changing process. Search Marketing (SEM) is the companion of search engine optimization as it uses SEO to gain more visitors to a website that result in a sales conversion.

Search engines constantly change their ranking algorithms, shuffle their database indexes, merge results and share content. The only consistent thing about marketing your website to the search engines is that what works fantastically well today probably won't work as well tomorrow. Your website will vacillate up and down in its ranking position as the dynamic factors of the search engines change.

That's why many businesses need an experienced search marketing professional who keeps their fingers on the pulse of the major search engines. If Google hiccups, and changes in the algorithms result, professional search optimizers know about it. If Yahoo! gets stubborn, they'll coax your rankings back to the first page.

Working with search engines is a long-term, high maintenance relationship that search optimizers are dedicated to manage so you and your company won't have to. Most search engine optimization firms will perform these tasks at an investment level you can feel good about.

Exactly How Does SEO Work?

This is the million dollar question that can be difficult to answer. It can be almost guaranteed that for every knowledgeable person you ask, you'll get a different answer. That's because marketing to the search engines is like any creative or artistic endeavor, such as cooking, painting, carpentry, etc.

If you ask five artists to paint a certain scene, you'll get five unique representations of that scene, each with a different artistic slant. Ask ten people to craft you a chair and you'll get ten distinct chairs, each with its own unique materials and style. The same is true of SEO.

Because each of the search engines change their ranking algorithms (the equations they use to analyze a website's reputation and rankability) so often, and each using such widely varying criteria, there are literally hundreds of ways to promote your site and get it to the first page of search results.

However, there have emerged certain universal guidelines regarding what central principles and elements that are vital to your search marketing strategy. There are also very clear rules and guidelines against certain "black hat" practices that attempt to spam, cheat or trick the search engines.

Fundamental SEO Principles for Online Success

1. Content

Content will always be your key SEO ticket to top rankings. Without solid content, any rankings you achieve will be short-lived. For content to help your ranking, however, you need a lot of it on your website. It has to be updated regularly, and most importantly, each page of content must target a specific keyword term.

However, if your site possesses content that is auto-generated by content software or is poorly written, i.e. a human visitor would not find it useful and informative, the search engines will eventually figure it out and demote your site. It is even possible that they will blacklist you and preventing you from showing up in their search results at all. This is where a SEO expert can come in handy.

A SEO professional will help you develop well-written, keyword targeted content for your site that is updated consistently and monitored for rankability and SERP positioning. Your business will enjoy the added benefits of an ever-growing resource library of information relating to your business that your site visitors will enjoy and which will also help target your sales conversions.

2. Links

Specifically, one-way, inbound links from authoritative sites in your niche market will increase your page rank. You can find out how authoritative a site is by looking at its Page Rank (using the Google toolbar). These are the websites that you want to link back to yours.

Page Rank, (PR), is a ranking system Google devised to show how much web connectivity, weight or authority a particular site has. No one can say the exact algorithm and methodology Google uses to assign Page Ran. However all SEO experts agree that it largely has to do with the amount of incoming links a website has, how long it's been around on the internet, and the visitor activity on the site (yes Google even knows how long someone remains on your site after they click through from the search results!).

What this means for your website is that you want as many high PR sites linking into your site as possible. These links are without you linking back to them as that diminishes the links PR power. Google gives these authoritative sites a lot of respect and values their "recommendations" signaled by who they choose to organically link to.

If all this sounds a bit complicated, think of it this way:

Google and the major search engines analyze your website the way scholars judge and cite academic papers. The more journals and other reputable scientific papers cite your research and quote you, the more authoritative and "expert" you become.

Search engine optimizers negotiate inbound links on your behalf, concentrating on links from sites related to your market whose reputation thematically relates to the reputation you're trying to build. We also make sure these "deep-link" into your website, meaning that they link to various pages within your website, rather than just to your homepage. This is also a sign that you're highly authoritative in your field or market.

Ultimately, you begin to increase your rankings making you more visible to online searchers. As your rankings increase, you gain more visitors to your website and more sales conversions. SEO is one of the best organic ways to gain visitors without mounting an intensive advertising campaign.