Introduction – What Is SEO
What is Search Engine Optimization?
Search engine optimization or SEO is a set of practices and techniques designed to increase traffic received from search engines. The principle lies in the keywords. Whenever anyone uses search engines, a set of words or phrases are put into the search bar called keywords. Search engines produce results that are identified to be suitable to the keywords entered. Factors that determine suitability of a page or a website are known as search engine algorithms. While searching, users usually never get past a second page - this is where SEO comes into play.
SEO is a practice devised to increase visibility of a website in search engine results for selected keywords. Whenever you enter keywords into the search bar - it is the task of a SEO professional to make sure your website appears featured in top results for those particular keywords.
Why is SEO Important?
Users are not likely to look past a second page when searching, therefore whoever shows up on the first page will get the most visitors.
Another very important aspect to consider is the fact that users are taking the initiative to look for the website, rather then being bluntly sold to, as in traditional marketing - most people who land on your website through search engines have intended to do so and are interested in your offer.
Search engines drive highly targeted visitors to your website who are interested in your offer. Search Engine Optimization places your site among top results, allowing search engines to drive highly targeted traffic to your website.
History of SEO – Introduction.
SEO History.
Search engine optimization dates as far back as first search engines, however real practices started to surface in late 1996 and 1997 when coders started to back engineer the algorithms search engines employed… By the end of ’97 professionals cracked the algorithm of Excite and were able to produce number one pages at will.
Today search engine optimization holds it’s early principles, though SEO professionals fundamentally understand the algorithms utilized by Google, it is nearly impossible to get number one page listing for popular phrases in a short period of time, without falling under suspicion and getting banned. Yahoo, Live and Google claim to use more then 200 unique identifiers when assigning page rank and this information is a closely guarded secret.
For many years term “search engine optimization” was hunted by search engines due to the fact that on page criteria was to easy to manipulate. More recently however the field has split into White Hat SEO and Black Hat SEO.
White Hat SEO
Techniques which are approved by the search and do not involve manipulation of the algorithms. White Hat SEO takes longer time to produce good visibility for the website, however it is the only strategy that works in the long run.
Black Hat SEO
Techniques that are banned by search engines or involve manipulation of the algorithms, such as link farms, cloaking, keyword stuffing, doorway pages. Major Search Engines closely watch and adjust their algorithms in order to discharge unethical techniques. If a website is found to be using blackhat, it will be banned from search engine indexes.
