Search Engines provide a platform for internet browsers to search the internet and find what they're looking for. Their success rests on returning to a user relevant websites for every keyword or keyword phrase that they enter.

They allow us to sort through millions and millions of websites at a click of the search button. If the results they return to our query aren't relevant than they will fail in their task and another search engine will assume its market share. Today, the most successful search engine is Google, followed by Yahoo and then MSN.

How Do The Search Engines Determine Relevance

Every keyword entered into a search engine like Google produces a list of web pages which that search engine is saying are relevant to that keyword. For example, if you search for Elvis Presley on Google, Google returns 16 million related websites. These sites are listed in order of relevance from 1 - 16,000,000. This order of relevance is determined by the algorithim used by that particular search engine, in this case Google. Their algorithim is a mathematical equation which gives different weight to a variety of factors.

Search engines continually develop their aglorithim so that they can provide results that webmasters like you and me can't influence. However, search engine optimization is the process of influening these results.

What Does SEO Mean

In a nutshell, search engine optimization is the process optimizing your your website so as to convince the search engines that you are more relevant to a particular keyword phrase like Elvis Presley than the other sites that are saying they too are relevant to Elvis Presley.

You force them to acknowledge your relevance is by taking advantage of the factors that their algorithim gives weight to. These factors can be broken down into Onpage and Offpage optimization factors. Optimizing your website in this sense means much more than the contained html pages that make up your website and include the linking structure of other websites and increasingly user behaviour.

As the search engines continue to develop their algorithim seo also continues to develop - optimizing new factors as they are valued by the search engines.

How Has SEO Changed

This development can be seen by looking at how seo has changed over the past ten years. Over the past decade, the search engines have invested heavily in their algorithim technology. In the early days, what is now called Onpage optimization, could alone get you top page rankings for even competitive keywords. This would include using things like Title Tags, Meta Tags, Keyword Density and Placement. Then came links as a form of validation and reciprocal linking between websites boomed. Links are still the mainstay of the search engine algorithims but they have become much more cleverer and selective and the value of a link has been refined so that different links carry different weights.

Why Would I Want To Optimize My Website

So now we know what we'd be doing why take the time to understand this and optimize your own website? Getting people to your website involves marketing. People cannot find you if you don't tell them how to. Search engine optimization is one aspect of a successsful marketing campaign. Paying for advertising in the search engines or on other websites is another but the big advantage of seo is that it's free. Mention targeted - type in traffic. Automated, once the groundwork has been done and you've built your supporting infrastructure all you have to only moniitor and adapt (changes in algorithim). Now you know why, the next thing to know is what.

Go to Step 2 - Your Search Engine Optimization Strategy

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