What Is SEO?

Search engine optimization is an oft used term these days.  With the importance of web presence being highlighted in almost every industry, even some of the most technologically challenged people are jumping into the web bandwagon.  And, it is virtually impossible to even dabble in online activities without encountering search engine optimization, or SEO, even on the surface.

So what is search engine optimization all about, really?  The name itself gives a hint as to the concepts behind the activity.  I suppose it is but logical to begin with the first two words – search engine.  Search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, and the like are the portals to information.  They are usually where people go to in order to find other web sites which may provide them the information that they need.  Search engines work by accepting search terms, which they use to identify web sites that may contain the information that the person is looking for.  Search engines will then publish the results of the query.  Quite obviously, how the search engines look for these web sites using the search terms is very important.  More so, with the volume of information that is found on the web today, it is highly vital that a web site come out at the top of the results.

This is where the third word in the term search engine optimization comes into play: the whole activity is geared towards optimizing web pages so that they perform better when it comes to search engines (that includes all the ones I mentioned above, plus all the rest out there).

The whole idea is very simple – the aim of SEO is for a web site to come out as high as possible in the search results of a search engine based on the key words that users might enter to look for the information that the web site offers.  When you go into the details, that is when things get a bit tricky. 

SEO, as simple as the premise might be, has become quite a mystery to some.  As a result, “myths” have come into existence, and they abound!  Let’s not waste our time on myths, however, and go straight to the hard facts about SEO.

The idea is that search engines rank web sites.  That’s how they come up with the long list of web sites when one searches for something.  Now how exactly do they rank web sites?  This is the gray area – no one knows the exact algorithm that search engines use.  However, the general consensus is that search engines base their rankings on incoming links.

Basically, a web site gets incoming links if another web site points to it.  Let’s say that you have web site A.  If web sites B, C, and D have a link to web site A, then web site A has three incoming links.  It is easy to see that the quantity of links has something to do with the web site’s popularity.  The more the better, right?

Think again.  More than the quantity of links, search engines also look at the quality of incoming links.  That is, web sites that point to your own site should also have integrity of their own.  You know just how easy it is these days to create one web site after the other.  Just because a site exists does not mean it provides legitimate and trustworthy information.  As such, search engines also look at the quality of the incoming links.

So how do you get quality incoming links?  There are many ways to do this, but the tried and tested way is to provide high quality content in your own web site and promoting it so that you can attract other web sites to link to it.  Of course, this does not mean that you will only have to sit and wait while this happens.  You also need to get the word out and promote your web site so that other people will know that you exist.

In addition to incoming links, however, you also have to make sure that the web pages in your own web site are linked to each other.  This is because of the fact that search engines index web pages individually.  Just because your home page has a lot of high quality incoming links does not mean that other web pages in the web site are getting the benefits as well.  As such, you have to point to those web pages individually, and they have to point to each other as well.  This is where the importance of the Site Map comes in.

You get the picture of SEO?  Again, the bottom line is that you tweak your web site so as to make it more appealing to search engines, and hopefully, get your site up on the top of search results.