| There are a lot of things in the computer world that | | | | It simply has to be that way or the bad guys of the |
| people tend to find mysterious and they see as | | | | world would use the knowledge to artificially inflate |
| touching upon black magic. Search Engine Optimization | | | | their own rankings. |
| (SEO) is one of those things that ranks way up there | | | | There are some fundamental truths in SEO and it is |
| on the mystery and black magic scale. Today, the | | | | fair to say that search engines today consider the |
| term has expanded to Search Engine Marketing which | | | | following when ranking a given web page: |
| includes paid advertising and other online marketing | | | | - The content of the page - what it's about, what |
| activities but for our purposes we'll stick with SEO. | | | | words are used prominently. |
| SEO is the practice of promoting a web site by | | | | - What words are used in the title of the page? |
| increasing its position in search results on the major | | | | - What words are used in the URL of the page? |
| search engines. Those search engines comprise of | | | | - What words are highlighted on the page? |
| Google mainly but also include Yahoo!, Bing, and a | | | | - What internal links (links from other pages on the |
| few others. The idea is to make the site appear | | | | same site) point to it? |
| higher in the list of search results than similar sites. | | | | - How many external links point to it and more |
| This is referred to as "organic" SEO meaning that the | | | | importantly, whether those pages are relevant to the |
| rank came as a result of plain old search results | | | | page's subject matter? |
| rather than having to pay for placement on the | | | | - The text used to form the internal and external |
| search engine. | | | | links. |
| There's a lot of value in getting it right as far as SEO | | | | - Even the age of the domain name plays a role in its |
| goes. First of all it's free and second of all, web | | | | ranking! There is a lot more involved of course and |
| searches are becoming the primary means of finding | | | | that list could have gone on for a while. Factors such |
| information. Primary among the search engines is | | | | as keywords, the use of images and Flash |
| Google and according to some market research, | | | | animations, and the design of the site itself also play |
| Google commanded an incredible 81.22% of the global | | | | a role in a page's ranking. |
| market share in June 2009. Google's success is | | | | Good SEO checklists can be found on the web but |
| punctuated by the fact that the word "Google" has | | | | probably the most important thing to think about |
| found its way into the dictionary. | | | | doesn't involve search engines at all. That's the quality |
| The primary goal of the search engines is to bring | | | | of the content. |
| relevant search results to their users. When a user | | | | Ultimately a search engine's goal is to return relevant |
| types in a search phrase, a search engine is | | | | information to its visitors. As such, search engines |
| successful when it delivers the information the user is | | | | have become very sophisticated at figuring out |
| searching for. If a search engine is unable to deliver | | | | whether or not content is relevant to the search |
| relevant information it simply won't be long on the | | | | term and indeed, whether a human would find it |
| digital scene. | | | | interesting. |
| Performing this feat is the result of a mix of highly | | | | SEO is a fascinating subject and the search engines |
| sophisticated programming, incredibly powerful | | | | are incredibly complex examples of computer |
| servers, and perhaps some eye of newt and toe of | | | | programming. They are so good in fact that the best |
| frog thrown in for good measure. | | | | advice one could give someone looking to increase |
| Seriously, however, the full mechanics of how search | | | | their placement is - write your content for people |
| engines rank web pages are kept highly confidential. | | | | and not the search engines. You'll be rewarded for it. |