An Overview of SEO
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is a relatively new term introduced in the internet dictionary that deals with increasing the visibility of your site within various search engines and other paid listings. SEO is not a form of advertisement by any means it is rather the process of making sure that the right traffic comes to your website. For example, if your website deals with criminal law, you will not benefit from traffic that is searching for travel related information. Obviously neither you nor your viewer will benefit from the visit. However, by using the tricks and techniques of SEO, you can very easily ensure that the people who visit your site do so and stay on it thus aiding your online business. This is the whole idea of SEO in a nutshell.
The term gained popularity in the mid 1990s as the internet started to expand beyond the intranet. Back then the search engines employed very simple primitive algorithms to search the web for a particular keyword. All that was required then was to have a high keyword density and to also register in as many search pages as possible. Furthermore, because of the lack of regulation and checks, many websites and webmasters used dirty tactics such as keyword stuffing, where the keywords are in a high density but the article does not make any sense at all, to come on the first page of search engines. Later on with the introduction of search engines such as Altavista, Google and Yahoo, which utilized real time algorithms, the SEO processes became more transparent and clean. Today, websites that try to promote their content or products through keyword stuffing are penalized by getting scraped from the search engine index altogether.
So how does a search engine rank pages? The answer is not so simple. Yes, keyword density is important but so is the images used the links that you have with other sites and the previous performance of the websites. All these factors along with keyword density decide your website’s final rank. Furthermore, different search engines utilize different mechanisms to rank pages. Therefore, SEO requires you to optimize your website in such a manner that it shows up in all search engines in the top 1%. Because of the complexity in taking your web page to the top of the first search page, it is idealistic to set a target that is achievable easily such as breaking into the top 40 or 30 pages.
Images are easy to keep the attraction of people and with the right tag lines it can very easily show up in image searches or text searches as well. Similarly, SEO requires you to have tie ups with other websites as well. The more links of yours the better the rank you shall have. These links can be to other websites, blogs, article pages or even social media sites such as FaceBook, YouTube and others. There is no sure shot method of doing SEO the right way, it is about having the knowledge and then experimenting until you find the right way.
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