What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a process of choosing the most appropriate targeted keyword phrases related to your site and ensuring that this ranks your site highly in search engines so that when someone searches for specific phrases it returns your site on tops. It basically involves fine-tuning the content of your site along with the HTML and Meta tags and also involves appropriate link building process. The most popular search engines are Google, Yahoo, MSN Search, AOL and Ask Jeeves. Search engines keep their methods and ranking algorithms secret, to get credit for finding the most valuable search-results and to deter spam pages from clogging those results. A search engine may use hundreds of factors while ranking the listings where the factors themselves and the weight each carries may change continually. Algorithms can differ so widely that a web page that ranks #1 in a particular search engine could rank #200 in another search engine. New sites need not be “submitted” to search engines to be listed. A simple link from a well-established site will get the search engines to visit the new site and begin to spider its contents. It can take a few days to even weeks from the referring of a link from such an established site for all the main search engine spiders to commence visiting and indexing the new site.

 If you are unable to research and choose keywords and work on your own search engine ranking, you may want to hire someone to work with you on these issues.

 Search engine marketing and promotion companies, will look at the plan for your site and make recommendations to increase your search engine ranking and website traffic. If you wish, they will also provide ongoing consultation and reporting to monitor your website and make recommendations for editing and improvements to keep your site traffic flow and your search engine ranking high. Normally your search engine optimization experts work with your web designer to build an integrated plan right away so that all aspects of design are considered at the same time.

 It is the search engines that finally bring your website to the notice of the prospective customers. When a topic is typed for search, nearly instantly, the search engine will sift through the millions of pages it has indexed about and present you with ones that match your topic. The searched matches are also ranked, so that the most relevant ones come first.

 Remember that a prospective customer will probably only look at the first 2-3 listings in the search results. So it does matter where your website appears in the search engine ranking.

 Further, they all use one of the top 6-7 search engines and these search engines attract more visitors to websites than anything else. So finally it all depends on which search engines the customers use and how they rank your site.

 It is the Keyword that play an important role than any expensive online or offline advertising of your website.

 It is found by surveys that a when customers want to find a website for information or to buy a product or service, they find their site in one of the following ways:

• The first option is they find their site through a search engine.
• Secondly they find their site by clicking on a link from another website or page that relates to the topic in which they are interested.
• Occasionally, they find a site by hearing about it from a friend or reading in an article.

 Thus it’s obvious the most popular way to find a site, by search engine, represents more than 90% of online users. In other words, only 10% of the people looking for a website will use methods other than search engines.

 All search engines employ a ranking algorithm and one of the main rules in a ranking algorithm is to check the location and frequency of keywords on a web page. Don’t forget that algorithms also give weight to link population (number of web pages linking to your site). When performed by a qualified, experienced search engine optimization consultant, your site for high search engine rankings really does work, unless you have a lot of money and can afford to pay the expert. With better knowledge of search engines and how they work, you can also do it on your own.

 A search engine is the most effective tool that can bring a prospective customer to your Company website. Millions of web visits are initiated daily through one or the other search engine to locate information or sources of supply. This is considered to be the most effective and targeted channel for you as a website owner to acquire a hot lead. Businesses all the over the world spend a huge sum on designing, building, maintaining and promoting their websites.

 Online advertising and marketing budgets have also soared. Relative to these, the investment required for getting traffic through search engines is much lower. However, as search engines have millions of pages in their coverage, it is important to have a proper approach to using this channel effectively.

 The art and science of understanding how search engines identify pages that are relevant to a query made by a visitor and designing marketing strategies based on this is called search engine optimization. Search engines offer the most cost effective mechanism to acquire “real” and “live” business leads. It is found that in most cases search engine optimization delivers better ROI than other forms such as online advertisements, e-mail marketing and newsletters, affiliate and pay per click advertising, and digital campaigns and promotions.

 Before you begin to develop your own strategy and implementation plan to optimize your website for improved page ranking, you have to reflect on what is the major objective of this initiative. Is it your objective to attract more visitors to your site or convert more persons from being a visitor to a loyal stakeholder in your business? The dot com mania period showed a marked change in evaluating a website’s success in terms of number of eyeballs that it could collect, without taking into perspective what these eyeballs or site visits meant to the organization. That has changed by now, and most companies realize that critical to a business unit’s success is sticky visitors, loyalty and ultimately the impact this has on its bottom line.

 Valuing a website in terms of what advertising it can attract and sustain is no longer the benchmark or performance indicator; what is certainly more important is what the site does to acquire and retain new and existing customers.

 As search engines have several million pages that are available on the world-wide web, it is necessary to use specialized techniques to match your web page with the algorithms and ranking criteria that such engines use, thereby improving the chance of catching the limited attention span of the visitor.

 The first step that advertisers and marketing professionals need to take to apply optimization techniques to a website is to articulate the objective and characterize the visitor, the desired visitor experience and outcome. The optimization plan should evolve out of this.

 The word optimization is by itself suggestive that the plan should balance the initiative and the budget so as to get cost effective results. If the stakes are high, it may sustain higher advertisement and paid listing options. How much would you like to spend on this exercise? If the budget is limited, the expensive options of several advertisements, linking programs, directory listings will have to be forsaken and attention given to getting the best results from limited but focused efforts. The key metrics to this program is to assess the ROI it delivers: marketing dollars vis-à-vis measurable benefits to the organization.

 Search Engines provide you an effective vehicle for promotion of your website. There are no doubt other channels available. ‘Directories’ is often included in the generic term ‘search engines’ although they are distinct in their characteristics and function. Advertisements through banner displays at popular and often visited sites and “portals”, reciprocal links, affiliate links and programs that direct visitors from one site to a targeted site (with a payment associated with such arrangements) and publicity through other media are other well known avenues of promotion. Mass email campaigns, publishing and distributing internet newsletters, ‘permission marketing’ using list servers and internet based marketing promotions including coupons and sweepstakes are other forms of online advertising. The key determinant is what value the initiative offers you in return for the investment. Metrics are somewhat more difficult to establish for search engine optimization compared to other direct forms of advertisement. Some suggested measures for determining ROI are discussed in a later section.

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