SEO: What is It All About?

By Bruno Auger On October 14, 2008 Posted under search engine optimization

If you have visited the internet you might have come across search engines when you are looking for websites. Search Engines, like Yahoo or Google, helps you find a particular web page by using keywords. These search engines will search the whole web for the most relevant site that will correspond to the keyword you have inputted. Usually they will put the websites in the order of its relevance. This is called the search engine relevance page (SERP). SEO or search engine optimization helps website to increase its potential relevance and ranking in the SERP.

The term search engine optimization was coined in 1997. Back then search engine algorithm was based purely on webmaster-provided keyword meta tag. These keyword meta tag was deemed unreliable because it is inconsistent with the keywords found on the website. This results to inaccurate searches and irrelevant SERP’s. Also the page rankings are often manipulated by webmasters. Then in 1998 Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Stanford University developed Google. This search engine relied on mathematically calculated algorithms that produce relevant and accurate search page results.

If you have a webpage it will be difficult for you to get noticed in the internet. There might be hundreds or even thousands of websites out there that has a similar content as your site. If your website is just newly created it might not even come out of the SERP. The first thing you could do is register it with Google or Yahoo. But even if you have a very good content your website might still not come on top of the list.

Most search engine would not divulge the process their algorithm does to rank pages. But they openly present the criteria for having a top spot in SERP’s. This is where search engine optimization (SEO) comes in. It usually finds way, basing on the search engine criteria, to put your website on top of the page ranking. SEO is a collection of techniques employed by a webmaster to improve the ranking of his or her website on the SERP position.

Ideally if you have good content your web page will rise in the page ranking. Your site could ideally rise to the no.1 rank but it might take months or years. Or worse case it might not hit the top rankings at all. So SEO tricks could catapult your site ranking higher. But if the content is not good it could only do it temporarily.

Usually for some webmasters the ranking in the page search is not that significant especially if it’s a personal project. But to anyone who uses the Web to make money, ranking is crucial. It could be that the webmasters make money by selling products on the site or through hosting online ads; it all boils down to the number of visits it has. Fundamentally the more people that visits the site the more exposure it gets thus the more money it makes. Big companies often hire SEO consultants to make sure that their site will be rank on top. In the long run, investment in SEO techniques will be good in the long run.
 

Bruno

Tags: SERP, SEO, meta tags, keywords