Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine's "natural" or un-paid ("organic") search results. In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users.
As an Internet Marketing Strategy, SEO considers:
1) How search engines work,
2) What people search for,
3) The actual search terms or keywords typed into search engines, and
4) Which search engines are preferred by their targeted audience.
- Search Engine Optimization of a website involves:
1) Editing its content, HTML and associated coding to increase its relevance to specific keywords,
2) Removing barriers to the indexing activities of search engines, for instance by editing the website HTML and associated coding,
3) Promoting a site to increase the number of back-links, or inbound links.
- White Hat versus Black Hat SEO Techniques
Industry commentators have classified the SEO methods, and the practitioners who employ them, as either white hat SEO, or black hat SEO and therefore SEO techniques can be classified into two broad categories:
1) White Hat SEO Techniques that search engines recommend as part of good design. White hats tend to produce results that last a long time.
2) Black Hat SEO Techniques that search engines do not approve. Black hats anticipate that their sites may eventually be banned either temporarily or permanently once the search engines discover what they are doing. The search engines attempt to minimize the effect of these techniques, among them spamdexing.
An SEO technique is considered White Hat if it conforms to the search engines' guidelines and involves no deception. As the search engine guide-lines are not written as a series of rules or commandments, this is an important distinction to note. White Hat SEO is not just about following guidelines, but is about ensuring that the content a search engine indexes and subsequently ranks is the same content a user will see. White Hat advice is generally summed up as creating content for users, not for search engines, and then making that content easily accessible to the spiders, rather than attempting to trick the algorithm from its intended purpose. White Hat SEO is in many ways similar to web development that promotes accessibility, although the two are not identical.
Black Hat SEO attempts to improve rankings in ways that are disapproved of by the search engines, or involve deception. One Black Hat technique uses text that is hidden, either as text colored similar to the background, in an invisible div, or positioned off screen. Another method gives a different page depending on whether the page is being requested by a human visitor or a search engine, a technique known as cloaking.
Search Engines may penalize sites they discover using Black Hat methods, either by reducing their rankings or eliminating their listings from their databases altogether. Such penalties can be applied either automatically by the search engines' algorithms, or by a manual site review.
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- Comments
SEO is not an appropriate strategy for every website, and other Internet marketing strategies can be more effective like paid advertising through PPC campaigns, depending on the site operator's goals. A successful Internet marketing campaign may also depend upon building high quality web pages to engage and persuade, setting up analytics programs to enable site owners to measure results, and improving a site's conversion rate.
SEO may generate an adequate return on investment. However, search engines are not paid for organic search traffic, their algorithms change, and there are no guarantees of continued referrals. Due to this lack of guarantees and certainty, a business that relies heavily on search engine traffic can suffer major losses if the search engines stop sending visitors. Search engines can change their algorithms, impacting a website's placement, possibly resulting in a serious loss of traffic. According to Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, in 2010, Google made over 500 algorithm changes – almost 1.5 per day. It is considered wise business practice for website operators to liberate themselves from dependence on search engine traffic.