http://www.seo.biz/seo_engine_optimization.htm
http://www.seo.biz/seo_engine_optimization.htm
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a set of methods aimed at improving the ranking of a website in search engine listings. The term also refers to an industry of consultants that carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients' sites.
Using search engines, visitors can find sites in a variety of ways: via paid-for advertisements in the search engine results pages (SERPs), via third parties who are listed in the search engines, or via "organic" listings, i.e. the results the search engines present users. SEO is primarily concerned with improving the visibility of a site in the organic search results. High rankings in the organic search results can provide targeted traffic for a site. Obtaining that traffic by other means can potentially be expensive. For particularly competitive terms, the cost per click can run several dollars, or more, when pay per click advertising or banner advertising are used. For even moderately competitive terms the cost can range from a few cents to several tens of dollars per visitor. Given those costs, it often makes sense for site owners to optimize their sites for organic search.
Not all sites have identical goals in mind when they optimize for search engines. Some sites are seeking any and all traffic, and may be optimized to rank highly for common search phrase.
This can be a poor marketing strategy for a business because it can generate a large volume of low-quality inquiries that cost money to handle, yet result in little business. The "shotgun approach" to search optimization can possibly work well for a site that has broad interest, such as a periodical, a directory, or site that displays advertising with a CPM revenue model.
Other sites target a specific population, with particular needs or interests. Many businesses try to optimize their sites for large numbers of highly specific keywords that indicate a prospective customer who is ready to buy their product. Focusing on desired traffic can generate more high-quality sales leads, and fewer time-wasting inquiries.
So-called "ethical" methods of SEO involve following the search engines' guidelines as to what is and what isn't acceptable. Their advice generally is to create content for the user, not the search engines; to make that content easily accessible to their spiders; and to not try to game their system. Often webmasters make critical mistakes when designing or setting up their web sites, and "poison" them so that they will not rank well. Ethical SEO attempts to discover and correct mistakes, such as machine-unreadable menus, broken links, temporary redirects, or a generally poor navigation structure that places pages too many clicks from the home page.
Because search engines are text-centric, many of the same methods that are useful for web accessibility are also advantageous for SEO. Methods are available for optimizing graphical content, even Flash animation (by placing a paragraph or division within, and at the end of the enclosing OBJECT tag), so that search engines can interpret the information.
Some methods considered ethical by the search engines:
- Using a robots.txt file to grant permissions to spiders to access, or avoid, specific files and directories in the site.
- Using a short and relevant page title to name each page.
- Using a reasonably sized description meta tag without excessive use of keywords, exclamation marks or off topic comments.
- Keeping the page accessible via links from other pages on the site and, preferably, from a sitemap.
- Developing links via natural methods: Google doesn't elaborate on this
somewhat vague guideline, but buying a link from an off-topic page purely
because it has a high PageRank is probably not considered acceptable.
Dropping an email to a fellow webmaster telling