Introduction to SEO
Whenever you enter a search query on any one search engine (Google, Bing, Yahoo) you get a list of results that contain that query / keyword. Users tend to visit those websites that are on page 1-2 as they perceive those sites to be more relevant on their search. If you have ever wondered why these websites rank better than the others then you must know that it’s because of a powerful web marketing practice called Search Engine Optimization. SEO is a practice that helps search engines find and rank your site higher than the millions of other sites in response to that keyword query.
How search engines work
For starter, SEO search engines are not humans overlooking the publics search queries. While this might be obvious, the differences on how humans and search engines view web pages aren’t the same. Unlike humans, search engines are text / content driven.
Although technology progresses rapidly, search engines are not intelligent creatures that can feel the beauty of a cool design or enjoy the sounds and movement in movies. Instead, search engines crawl (called spiders) the world-wide-web, looking at site items (mainly text) to get an idea of what your website is about. Search engines perform several activities in order to deliver search results –crawling, indexing, processing, calculating relevancy, and retrieving.
Spiders trail links from page to page and index everything they find on their way. Having in mind, there are over 20-million web pages, it is impossible for a spider to visit your website daily just to see if a new page has appeared or if an existing page has been modified. Sometimes crawlers may not end up visiting your site for a month or two.
Why SEO:
Ultimately, SEO is a process (not a destination) requiring ongoing monitoring and adjustment to accommodate regular Google algorithm changes and the competitiveness level of competing websites for the targeted keywords. This strategy is based on how well your site is put together, how Google, Bing, & Yahoo relates to your site and what other websites competing for same keywords are doing.
The Advantages of having an SEO program are:
- Provides free traffic
- Provides highly targeted traffic
- Web site working 24×7
- Local and national search results
- Increase your search engine footprint at all times