What is SEO?
In this video we discuss what Search Engine Optimization is and some of the factors that affect search engine ranking.
Transcript
What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
When you type something into Google, Bing or some other search engine, to begin a search, you are looking for something.
We will talk about Google because Google is the 800 pound gorilla of the search engine field, they handle over 80% of the searches.
Google wants to provide the best possible result to that search so that you like the result and will use them again. They make money when people like you use their product, and especially when you click on the ads (the top and bottom listing that are labeled as an Ad). They present sites in order of their special program or algorithm based on how relevant they think the site is to the search you conducted. They base this on a variety of information, such as:
- Contents of your site
- Who links to your site
- How long people stay on your site
- The number of clicks going through to your site
- and a whole bunch of other factors.
What does that mean to you the website owner?
Looking at it from the website owners perspective, SEO is the process of getting the search engines to rank your site higher on the list by giving them the things that their algorithm sees as important.
We do this by making changes to your site such as:
- Creating keyword focused pages
- Creating keyword specific content
- Obtaining links to your site from sites that Google sees as authoritative
- Restructuring pages on the website for SEO
- Optimizing website code for SEO
- Optimizing existing content for SEO
- Listing of the site across main search engines, social networks and directories
- Creating and distributing relevant content to link back to the site
- Mobile optimizing
- And many more things.
SEO works to make your site rank higher based on what Google is looking for in an authoritative site for your specific topic or keywords.