Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization

Search engines are an indispensable part of the Internet. According to online s statistics Google logs 2 billion searches a day, which implies that many people rely on search engines for  information. Websites that are displayed on the first page of search results—and thus have high search rankings—receive significantly more visits than those that rank low for the same sets of  keywords. More visits, in turn, may translate into a higher number of customers for the former. Organic search traffic therefore contributes significantly to online marketing success and  business growth. Companies have strong incentives to improve their rankings, thus giving rise to  the term SEO, search engine optimization.

There are two types of search results—organic and paid search.

Organic results are gathered by search engines web crawlers and ranked according to relevance to the search terms. A website that contains fresh, authoritative, and keyword-relevant content may rank high for  specific keywords at no cost. In contrast, paid results are listings that require a fee for the search  engine to display their links for particular keywords. Paid search can become an ongoing expense, and a company loses traffic as soon as it stops paying. Organic search not only is free  but also helps a company accumulate its online visibility.

Since search engines record ranking history, a company can always improve its website ranking by building on previous content. Also, most people click on organic search results instead of paid advertisements, giving a business even more incentives to focus on organic search. How to rank high on search engines, however, is rather complicated and constantly changing. Many factors contribute to the quality of a company website as perceived by a search engine.

Different search engines such as Google and Bing may rank the same website differently because they prioritize those factors differently, not mentioning they update their algorithms constantly. Most factors that contribute to high search rankings, however, can be controlled and grouped into three categories: keywords, on-page SEO, and off-page SEO.

A good SEO campaign has three components:

• Keyword Strategy – Determine the keywords to target for your SEO work. Keywords are chosen based on a combination of the likely reward for winning and the amount of work required in winning the keyword.
• On-page Optimization  – Modify your web site's pages to make them more attractive to the search engines. On-page optimization includes a collection of techniques such as: creating keyword rich content, interlinking pages, creating a logical internal structure, providing site maps for the search engines, and tagging content with machine-readable meta-tags.
• Off-page Optimization  – Enhance the quantity and quality of your web site's connection to the rest of the Internet to signal to the search engines that your site is trusted and relevant in your targeted topics. Off-page optimization is primarily concerned with link building — persuading web masters of  other websites to link to your website.

In an SEO campaign, the keyword strategy work is performed first to identify the targeted keywords. On-page optimization and off-page optimization work begins only after a keyword strategy is completed.