Search Engine Optimization

● What is SEO?

It's Simpler Than You Think!

Search engine optimization (SEO) is "the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of the traffic that you earn through the organic results in search engines," according to Rand Fishkin.

Search Engine Optimization is the process of improving the visibility of a website on organic ("natural" or un-paid) search engine result pages (SERPs), by incorporating search engine friendly elements into a website. A successful search engine optimization campaign will have, as part of the improvements, carefully select, relevant, keywords which the on-page optimization will be designed to

make prominent for search engine algorithms. Search engine optimization is broken down into two basic areas: on-page, and off-page optimization. On-page optimization refers to website elements which comprise a web page, such as HTML code, textual content, and images. Off-page optimization refers, predominantly, to backlinks (links pointing to the site which is being optimized, from other relevant websites).

To understand what SEO really means, let's break that sentence down and look at the parts:

1. Quality of traffic. You can attract all the visitors in the world, but if they're coming to your site because Google tells them you're a resource for Apple computers when really you're a farmer selling apples, that is not quality traffic. Instead you want to attract visitors who are genuinely interested in products that you offer.

2. Quantity of traffic. Once you have the right people clicking through from those search engine results pages (SERPs), more traffic is better.

3. Organic results. Ads make up a significant portion of many SERPs. Organic traffic is any traffic that you don't have to pay for.

● History of SEO:

As new of a term it might seem to most people, the history of SEO is quite extensive. Search Engine Optimization has been an ongoing practice in the internet world, with roots stemming back to the early 90’s. Although the SEO styles of 2012 are exponentially different from those of

the early internet, the evolution of search engine optimization can be easily tracked.

● 1995 – Yahoo Launches its Web Directory

● 1998 – Google Launches, DMOZ launches this same year

● 2000 – Yahoo Drops Altavista, Uses Google’s Algorithm instead

● 2001 – PageRank is revealed to users through the toolbar

● 2005 – NoFollow Tag Introduced

● 2009 – Google Introduces Caffeine Algorithm, a major shift in SEO.

● 2009 – Bing and Yahoo Merge

● 2011 – Panda Algorithm Update. A major step in the history of SEO

● April 24th 2012 – Penguin Algorithm Update

● September 27th 2012 – EMD Update (Exact Match Domain)

● October 4th 2012 – 65 Pack Rollout

EARLY YEARS:

The internet was not a singular invention. It was not created at one point in time by one person. The internet we know today came from a collaboration of many efforts and ideas by the computer innovators of the past few decades. However, the history of SEO has its start in the early 1990’s, where search engines began their early stages of development to help organize the sites listed on the internet. In 1995, optimization was born in the young stages of Yahoo.

Internet users needed a way to sort out the abundance of sites registered on the rapidly expanding web. Alphabetical optimizations were formed, and formatted in the “yellow page” style like phone books. The next year, 1996, comprehension for things like keyword density and seasoning began to take hold. As the year progressed, determined individuals began to understand database algorithms, and the methods used in basic search engines.

Around 1997, Yahoo became the paramount submission site, and anyone who wanted to be recognized on the internet quickly learned that submitting their site to Yahoo was the only option. This year, SEO exploded in the public internet society, although what was used to get results then are insanely alien to the main tactics of today’s site ranking process. From late 1998 to early 1999, submission spamming became the general method of site rank. However, new algorithms brought new

tactics, as SEO’s started to utilize multi-language platforms, word lists, and other innovative strategies. As the new millennium came, vast changes flooded the horizon of the SEO world.

Google:

Between the years of 2000 and 2001, the internet experienced a massive shift. Google’s PageRank system and new ranking algorithms cut out most of the spam tactics that were extremely successful in the prior submission sites. Contrary to popular belief, Google was not actually the first search engine. Infoseek, Lycos, and Yahoo were all used long before Google launched. Even so, Google changed the game as they came on to the scene. They revolutionized the way SEO’s approached site ranking. As the company expanded, their ideas for how sites should organized and ranked exploded beyond all previous thoughts. Their new algorithms overthrew previous site ranking strategies, causing search engine optimization to take a step in a new direction.

Moving away from directory submissions and other older tactics, Google’s computer programmers introduced new bots that crawled the internet. These bots began scanning sites and looking for certain aspects like keyword density and relevant backlinks.

Prior to this, sites that wanted to rank for a certain word would just post hidden pages. Text with a word repeated a thousand times, could usually become high ranked instantly. However, this simple strategy would not fly

with Google. Their bots, known as “crawlers” became programmed to scan sites and pick up on duplicate content both on the site or on other sites. As Google became smarter and smarter, SEO’s did as well.

As time passed, Google started to rely heavily on the amount of backlinks each site had. If Site A had 100 more links than Site B, Site A would receive the higher ranking. SEO’s caught on to this, and came out with innovative tactics to gain thousands of simple links easily. However, just as before, Google’s webspam team adapted to the new SEO methods of internet users.

● Why is SEO important?

With Over 3 billion websites on Google alone, making sure the visitors find your site is a tough challenge. Competition is fierce for the top listings, yet without regular visitors your site might as well not exist. Search Engine Optimization is a proven methodology to increase domain authority with on and off site optimization techniques, which work in unison with content marketing and social media strategies to increase website visibility on search engine result pages.

Search engine optimization is a technique of optimizing a website to make it rank better in search engines. People use search engine when they need something and correct SEO efforts can bring people to your website and if they find exactly what they want this will lead to increased profitability for your business. As internet is the fastest growing sales channel, SEO is a cost-effective marketing strategy which can yield growth in business with minimal risk. It increases the visibility of your website and helps in bringing huge traffic towards your business.

The search engines rank websites based on a number of different kinds of criteria. When a person types certain words, known as “keywords” or “keyword phrases” into a search engine the search engine has to decide what results to return.

Search engine optimization is essential because:

● The majority of search engines users are more likely to choose one of the top 5 suggestions in the results page so to take advantage of this and gain visitors to your web site or customers to your online store you need to rank as higher as possible.

● SEO is not only about search engines but good SEO practices improve the user experience and usability of a web site.

● User’s trust search engines and having a presence in the top positions for the keywords the user is searching increases the web site’s trust.

● SEO is also good for the social promotion of your web site. People who find your website by searching Google or Yahoo are more likely to promote it on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or other social media channels.

● SEO is also important for the smooth running of a big web site. Web sites with more than one author can benefit from SEO in a direct and indirect way. Their direct benefit is increase in search engine traffic and their indirect benefit is having a common framework (checklists) to use before publishing content on the site.

● SEO can put you ahead of the competition. If two web sites are selling the same thing, the search engine optimized web site is more likely to have more customers and make more sales.

Benefits of Search Engine Optimization:

There are many benefits of search engine optimization for customers. Here are some of the benefits that are considered to be among the top 10 for customers:

● High return on investment - SEO offers a higher return on investment than any comparable form of marketing.

● Long term positioning - Once in place, a properly designed and optimized site will maintain a position in the rankings longer term, while other options for online marketing can lead to outlay that is ongoing and unpredictable.

● Targeted traffic - SEO can increase the number of visitors who are actively searching for the products or services that the business offers.

● Promotion that doesn’t sleep - SEO works for an organization 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days every year.

● Increased brand visibility - SEO can provide a high international profile for a brand, for a comparatively low outlay.

● Higher sales - SEO can mean increased sales of products or services.

● Cost effective- SEO is among the most cost-effective ways of marketing.

● Increased accessibility - Observing sensible optimization procedures makes a site more accessible to all users.

● Navigable by the search engines - Properly optimized, all links should function correctly and all pages should be accessible to the engines, making websites easier for the engines to index and correctly categorize.

● Usability - Observing basic optimization guidelines should mean that visitors have a better user experience.

● Search Engine Optimization also offers customers the chance to better track their audience and trends related to this. With proper search engine optimization it is possible to understand the most commonly used keywords and phrases that the target audience utilizes, to better connect with that audience.