SEO is simply the art or suite of techniques used to improve the "visibility" of a website to search engines. That's to say it's aim is to improve the page rank of the site and thus increase the likelihood of being "clicked on" by prospective viewers (and ultimately customers).
How so? Well if you search for a term or phrase in any search engine (and whilst they are all different in their approach let's assume for now that the differences don't matter so much) you'll be presented with what the engine believes are the closest matches to your request. That may be a zero result if you worded the search poorly or are looking for something totally obscure. Or it may be zillions. For a popular product or service it will be at least thousands of pages. Most people will just look at the first few suggestions, but some will dig deeper.
Very, very few will keep going on page after page. It depends on success, too. If the first link is a great one then problem solved and our searcher stops. However the searcher may wish to get another opinion or look around some more to be sure, so a percentage will dig a bit more. But if you are on page 1,222,599 you may as well not be there at all.
So if you want to actually be successful and be noticed then you need to understand the search engines and how they find and rank query matches. Implementing your understanding by modifying your web pages is the art and practice of SEO. The alternative is to have great content and ensure that your web pages address your market - and effectively forget about SEO completely. Many large corporations do exactly that - they don't get into the murky waters in the first place. Of course they are so big and well known that search engines simply can't ignore them, either...
But not all of us are big and well known. Hence SEO matters. But you can also pay your way up the page rankings by SEM - search engine marketing. Whilst it seems sensible enough - it's just capitalism at work, putting a price on everything it can - it is also arguably a distortion of the market (search for Adam Smith if you want to research the theory). You may have seen highlighted, colour-coded results appear at the very top of your search results - these are paid results. However many people will not recognise or understand the difference between paid and unpaid results, and thus the search engines create a distortion.
SEM is an arguable practice but it's one we have in some sense accepted. It's an open practice, but one that many may not understand (in which case it is effectively hidden, isn't it?). Now to be corrupt by one definition simply means that you make a gain of some sort from allowing a distortion to take place, usually (but not always) in a hidden manner. It's like paid queue-jumping. If we could simply pay to be head of the queue (and in many cases you can!) then the argument goes that a bribe has been offered and accepted. But we are choosy about what we call a bribe and what constitutes corruption, based on things like public good, significance and openness to scrutiny. I am not judging the practice here, but let's just say there are opposing views on the legitimacy of paying to get to the head of any queue!
Less controversially you can also drive traffic directly by paying some search engines for advertisements in your favour that will appear on popular pages, including search results. Again the distinction may not be clear but it's arguably clearer than simply paying to be at the head of the search results.
Confused? Well it doesn't get any less confusing when SEO is broken into "white hat" (ie generally acceptable SEO practice) and "black hat" (ie unacceptable, at least to search engines if not most ethical people). You can argue that since search engines themselves are not saints and are prepared to sell their souls for SEM that therefore blackhat is also legitimate. But that ignores the many blackhat practices that simply wouldn't pass an ethics test. If it looks like cheating, it probably is cheating. That doesn't mean that every so-called blackhat practice is wrong, but many clearly are dubious or downright duplicitous.
But we are not always clear on what "wrong" is, or whether it is legal. Sometimes we define a technique or tool as blackhat based solely on the views (and actions) of the search engines themselves. If they believe it's cheating, then as far as most people are concerned it's game over: search engines simply own the game. However if it is clearly illegal in your state, province, nation or other jurisdiction, then it is definitely blackhat.
I'm sure there's more to be said on this subject, so please search widely... and wisely.
Search engine optimization - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
How so? Well if you search for a term or phrase in any search engine (and whilst they are all different in their approach let's assume for now that the differences don't matter so much) you'll be presented with what the engine believes are the closest matches to your request. That may be a zero result if you worded the search poorly or are looking for something totally obscure. Or it may be zillions. For a popular product or service it will be at least thousands of pages. Most people will just look at the first few suggestions, but some will dig deeper.
Very, very few will keep going on page after page. It depends on success, too. If the first link is a great one then problem solved and our searcher stops. However the searcher may wish to get another opinion or look around some more to be sure, so a percentage will dig a bit more. But if you are on page 1,222,599 you may as well not be there at all.
So if you want to actually be successful and be noticed then you need to understand the search engines and how they find and rank query matches. Implementing your understanding by modifying your web pages is the art and practice of SEO. The alternative is to have great content and ensure that your web pages address your market - and effectively forget about SEO completely. Many large corporations do exactly that - they don't get into the murky waters in the first place. Of course they are so big and well known that search engines simply can't ignore them, either...
But not all of us are big and well known. Hence SEO matters. But you can also pay your way up the page rankings by SEM - search engine marketing. Whilst it seems sensible enough - it's just capitalism at work, putting a price on everything it can - it is also arguably a distortion of the market (search for Adam Smith if you want to research the theory). You may have seen highlighted, colour-coded results appear at the very top of your search results - these are paid results. However many people will not recognise or understand the difference between paid and unpaid results, and thus the search engines create a distortion.
SEM is an arguable practice but it's one we have in some sense accepted. It's an open practice, but one that many may not understand (in which case it is effectively hidden, isn't it?). Now to be corrupt by one definition simply means that you make a gain of some sort from allowing a distortion to take place, usually (but not always) in a hidden manner. It's like paid queue-jumping. If we could simply pay to be head of the queue (and in many cases you can!) then the argument goes that a bribe has been offered and accepted. But we are choosy about what we call a bribe and what constitutes corruption, based on things like public good, significance and openness to scrutiny. I am not judging the practice here, but let's just say there are opposing views on the legitimacy of paying to get to the head of any queue!
Less controversially you can also drive traffic directly by paying some search engines for advertisements in your favour that will appear on popular pages, including search results. Again the distinction may not be clear but it's arguably clearer than simply paying to be at the head of the search results.
Confused? Well it doesn't get any less confusing when SEO is broken into "white hat" (ie generally acceptable SEO practice) and "black hat" (ie unacceptable, at least to search engines if not most ethical people). You can argue that since search engines themselves are not saints and are prepared to sell their souls for SEM that therefore blackhat is also legitimate. But that ignores the many blackhat practices that simply wouldn't pass an ethics test. If it looks like cheating, it probably is cheating. That doesn't mean that every so-called blackhat practice is wrong, but many clearly are dubious or downright duplicitous.
But we are not always clear on what "wrong" is, or whether it is legal. Sometimes we define a technique or tool as blackhat based solely on the views (and actions) of the search engines themselves. If they believe it's cheating, then as far as most people are concerned it's game over: search engines simply own the game. However if it is clearly illegal in your state, province, nation or other jurisdiction, then it is definitely blackhat.
I'm sure there's more to be said on this subject, so please search widely... and wisely.
Search engine optimization - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site or a web page (such as a blog) from search engines via "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results as opposed to other forms of search engine marketing ("SEM") which may deal with paid inclusion. The theory is that the earlier (or higher) a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search and industry-specific vertical search engines. This gives a web site web presence.Further research: How to make money online
As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website primarily involves editing its content and HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines.
