Wednesday, October 14, 2009

What Is SEO?

By Ricky Lim

Any query of a popular word in a search engine would result in a huge number of results. In this competitive situation, Search Engine Optimization or SEO enables a firm to come within the top search results for a search relating to a particular word. Finding a place within the top results on related and important searches increases the number of web users who are drawn to your website and therefore you do more business. That is why SEO has become so significant.

There are two kinds of SEO - white hat and black hat. Black hat means use of techniques, which are usually not approved of, for making a site figure in top results. In contrast, white hat SEO follows all the principles prescribed by the search engines and concentrates on the techniques which are largely accepted.

To connect a particular web page to a particular keyword, the search engines earlier utilised the Meta data of the page that has been included in the code of that page. However, nowadays a significant number of search engines make use of highly sophisticated algorithms, involving the use of more than 200 distinct factors to decide on the results.

SEO consultants continuously try to guess the importance of different factors that play a part in the search algorithms and stay abreast with the changes that search engines make. This information helps them fine-tune the SEO strategies for their clients so that they stay competitive for important keywords. A few years back, when the search engines depended upon Meta data and the text on the page, this process required taking care of the Meta tags and ensuring a reasonable frequency with which a keyword appeared on the page.

Although these factors are still quite significant, search engines now give a lot more weight to the popularity of a web page. The number of links pointing to a web page indicates the popularity of that web page. This method is democratic in essence, where every link is similar to a vote for the particular web page. Therefore, SEO these days requires substantial work outside the site such as distributing free content in exchange of links to the website and establishing a presence on blogs and other interactive mediums online.

The crucial aspect of SEO to be always remembered is that it is not a one time activity. SEO strategies are always trying to adapt to the changes happening in the field of online search. That is the reason why it is so critical to hire a seasoned SEO consultant to assist you.

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