If I'm successful, this blog will be a place of reference and hopefully a place to find and broaden your knowledge of a truly interesting science called Search Engine Optimization; better known as SEO. I hope that you will find it informative and fun. I also hope to encourage you to think about your own current strategy when placing ads or submitting new content to Google or even Yahoo.
So, let's get started.
What is Search Engine Optimization or SEO? In order for you to better understand what SEO is and what it can do for you let's start off with a question. What is Google or better yet what is a search engine? A search engine like google is an application or set of applications that reside on a cluster of servers. Their primary purpose is to index the content of websites found on the Internet. The search engine uses an application called a "spider" to crawl throughout the Internet cataloging and storing the results all of the information it finds. The information it finds can be text, images, blogs (like this one), news items, forums and other types of web-based content found on the Internet. The results are then automatically stored in large, complex databases which then becomes the makeup of the search queries that users type into the search engine seeking specific results and information. Once a query is entered into a search engine a list of corresponding pages is displayed to the user. The list of results has descriptions based on content that was found on a web page and it also has hyperlinks to the individuals web pages that the search engine found in its indexing exercise.
The relevance of the results that are displayed to the user are based on a few important factors. First, results are only as good as the search term that is being searched. When a user searches for something on the web, the search term used is extremely important. For example, when searching for vacation spots in Hawaii it would be a very good idea to use the word "Hawaii" as the search term and not a word like "Brazil". I know. It is common sense but I am trying to make an important point. It is very important to understand that the result of any given search request is only as good as the search term used.
Another important factor required to better understand the relevance of results produced is what is known as organic searches and paid-per-click searches. Organic searches and their corresponding results are produced by millions of people freely searching the Internet everyday typing in search terms or phrases like "Hawaii vacation spots" on Google and Yahoo. It is important to note that these free organic searches and the results are generated by millions of people everyday typing. Google tracks and stores this information and uses complex algorithms to improve rankings and listing results. The more people type a specific term or phrase the more important or relevant the result.
So, right now you may be wondering how do I get my website listed on the top of a results page. Well, it's a simple as $1,$2,$3.. and so on. What I mean is that those placements are reserved by Google for paid-per-click advertisements for clients. These placements get top billing because clients pay Google for their location and it can get expensive. What..? Did you think Google did it all for free out of the goodness of their heart? lol Well, not to worry. Google is worth billions of $$ in revenue from what they generate in pay-per-clicks and they use some of that revenue to fund development of brilliant online and mobile applications that help businesses of every size and shape deploy methods to track the performance of not only their website but even track the performance of a specific advertisement campaigns.
Well, that wraps up this introduction for now. I'll be back with some of the specifics later on how to begin placing your site out on the Internet and start tracking results.
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