Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a form of web promotion, and is the process of optimizing your web site so that it appears at the top of the various search engines and directories when a potential customer types in a search query relative to your business.
Just about anyone who uses the internet uses a search engine like Google or Yahoo to locate websites. Using a search engine is like looking through the Yellow Pages for a certain type of business.
For example, a potential customer is looking to purchase new wooden shutters for her home. She visits a search engine and types and in the box on the screen, types in a search phrase, using the keyword phrase, wooden shutters. When the Search button is clicked, a list of websites targeted by the keyword phrase wooden shutters appear. The order in which they appear is based on their ranking by the search engine.
The higher the ranking of a web site, the closer it is to the top of the search engine results page, increasing visibility. The more visible it is, the more targeted traffic it receives.
How are website rankings determined?
There is no guaranteed method for determining a web site’s rankings on a search engine. A web site’s placement on a search engine results page is determined by that search engine’s algorithms, or formulas. These formulas are a complex set of weighted criteria. Each search engine has its own algorithm for formulating a web site’s rank on a search, and each algorithm is a trade secret.
The purpose of search engine optimization is to tailor a web site and follow up with a site submission plan so that it contains the criteria that the search engine algorithms are seeking in order to give a site a good ranking.
Search engine optimization strategies improve a website's visibility using organic listings, meaning the utilization of unpaid listings, rather than incurring the additional cost of paying for advertised listings. The most successful websites accentuate promotion through search engine optimization methods such as keyword savvy content, strategic tags, search engine placement and link relevance.
By focusing on targeted traffic through search engine optimization, a business can increase its website’s visibility towards the type of visitors that have a specific need or interest that can be met.
Follow the steps below, and you have the possibility to create a site optimized for the search engines. They ordered in such a way where each step acts as a foundation for the following step.
Step 1 Keyword Research & Analysis
SEO begins with a website’s marketing goals to see what type of traffic or market segment the business is looking to attract. Who are the potential customers, and what keywords are they going to use in their search queries to locate your website?
Step 2 Website Navigation
Building on the results of your keyword research, how are you going to organize your website. A good strategy is to focus each page on its own keyword phrase.
Step 3 Website Ranking & Content
What sort of information are you going to share with your target audience? The content of your website is crucial when it comes to optimization. This not only goes for search engines, but also for your target audience. The more relevant information you provide on each topic that correlates to a keyword phrase, the better your chances of achieving a top ranked site.
Step 4 Tags & Optimized Websites
There are several types of tags used in search engine optimization; title tags, meta-tags and alt tags to name a few. These tags contain brief descriptions of the content of your website, and are relevant to your keyword research results.
Step 5 Web Design & SEO Ranking
The search engine robots have trouble interpreting certain types of programming, such as javascripts, pages dynamically generated from a database, flash files, and frames, to name a few – anything that is not straight text. If the robot can’t read the information, it hinders the optimization of your site. However, there are work-arounds for these issues.
Step 6 Search Engine Submission
It is important to submit your site to the major search engines and multiple directories out on the internet, especially ones geared toward your region and / or special interest of your web site. Learn more about these search engines, the difference between robots and spiders versus directories and how they operate.
Step 7 Link Building
One of the factors that determines your site’s rank is the number and types of sites linking to you. Most of the time these links reflect positively upon your ranking, but sometimes, the wrong kind of link can count against your optimization strategy.
Paid vs. Organic (unpaid) Listings
Paid listings offer a different type of web promotion strategy than Search Engine Optimization. They can be seen on the top and to the right of a search engine results page. Sometimes the section will have a heading that says Sponsored Links or Sponsor Results. 
The websites that you see listed are there because their owners bid on the search query that you typed in. The highest bidder gets the top position.
Are Paid Listings worth the expense?
Obtaining targeted traffic through paid listings, such as pay per click or banner advertising can be very expensive. The cost per click can run several cents for less competitive terms on up to several dollars for the more competitive key words. In many industries, site owners have mixed views as to whether the costs are worth the return on investment. However, if you are looking for quick results, paid promotion is effective over the short term.
In 2004, the search engine marketing firm iProspect published a Search Engine User Attitudes Survey. There were a number of key findings around who used the search engines and how they used them. There were a number of key findings on this issue of paid versus unpaid listings. A general synopsis regarding this issue is that:
60.5% of those surveyed chose organic search engine results to be more relevant to a sample query given in the survey.
There are a number of key topics that take a more in-depth look at this 60.5% statistic regarding demographics, the types of search engines used and how they are used regarding paid versus organic listings. Please view the study for further information.
