Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization is a marketing technique that is use to modify a web site’s content and code so it will appear on ranking results under certain keywords. Search engine optimization targets individual pages for certain keyword to drive traffic from search engines to that page. A web site can get ranked highly for a keyword if it is a relevant source for that term. If the web site has the keyword in areas of the page that Google and other search engines look for, then it will be rank fairly well. The price of search engine optimization is usually based on the keyword. If the keyword has a lot of competition, or if a lot of other web sites are optimized for that keyword, it can cost quite a bit of money to get ranked above them. A web site that makes competition strong will be that they have a lot of links to their site as well as good keyword relevancy.

What are Search Engines?

A search engine is an online search database that searches web sits in its directory only to display them in order of relevance to a keyword or phrase. Search engine such as Google make up more than 80% of today’s internet traffic. Web surfers use search engines to find web sites that fit a targeted item, service or information. Searches on a single keyword or phrase can range from 1 or 2 a month to over a million. This is why search engines have been targeted as the most profitable source to market for on the internet. This is also why search engine optimization has become such a valuble marketing tool.

How SEO Benefits You

Being ranked on the first page of Google and other search engines can be a strong benefit. When someone enters a web site through a keyword, they are entering a page that is targeted to what they are looking for. Therefore, the client is a targeted visitor for that company’s service or product, and there is a higher probability that they will purchase from that site. SEO allows your web site to be ranked 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If a company was doing a pay per click campaign, their web site would be pulled from the rankings when their budget ran out. When a site is ranked organically, they are a relevant source for their keywords, so Google and other search engines will not pull the web site from the listings.

Blackhat Tactics

There are many techniques and skills used in search engine optimization. Like everything in life there are right ways and wrong ways of doing SEO. The wrong way is usually call Black Hat SEO. The overall purpose of Black Hat SEO is optimizing a web site to trick or spam Google into thinking a web site is relevant for a certain keyword or phrase. Some ways of optimizing a site using Black Hat SEO is:

KEYWORD STUFFING:

Has to do with placing a list of keywords on a page. If your web site is trying to increase its relevancy by simply adding the keywords you want to rank for in a list, then you are spamming your page with keywords. Google will look at your web site and think you are trying to trick them, and they will not rank you for any of those keywords. Keyword stuffing can also be by having a list of keywords scroll across a page, believing that Google will only see the visible keywords, and not the list in the code of the web site that is hidden.

INVISIBLE TEXT:

This is a technique where a web site has content full of keywords but the keywords are the same color as the background, making them seem invisible to the user. This is an attempt to increase keywords relevancy by hiding the keywords from the human eye, but Google does see it and will not rank a web site.

DOORWAY PAGES:

This is a page that displays for less than a second before it redirects the visitor to the real web site. The doorway page holds a list of keywords on them so Google will think the domain is relevant for a keyword.

Virtually all Black Hat Tactics will cause a web site to not be ranked for their targeted keywords but in some instances, a web site may be banned from Google and other search engines for over 5 years. Google is the leader and they play hardball if provoked.

How Google Fits

Google is the standard when it comes to search engine optimization. Virtually everyone wants to be ranked #1 on Google for their services or products. Google makes up almost 50% of search engine traffic. They have the most sophisticated search algorithm that their spiders follow delivering the highest relevant search results on the web. If a SEO firm is good at promoting web sites, they can get not only your web site up in Google but also their own. It’s pretty simple, Google is the standard, and that is why SEO Compatible Design™ optimizes and designs under that standard.