How does SEO work?
SEO works, at the most basic level, by creating your website, web content, web posts and anything else on the web in a way that makes them appear important to search engines.
At a more technical level, search engines work by employing servers, programs and algorithms to index and catalog the web. These search engines, in the process of indexing, use the various elements found on and pointing to your site to judge their subject of focus, importance and rank. And to make these judgements, search engines use the following:
- Keywords – In other words the use and frequency of certain words on the page.
- Site / Page Structure – In other words how the site is built and the inclusion of certain key elements.
- Inbound Links – In other words, how many external sites think this site is important.
- Directory Registration – Are you included in the major internet directories?
From these elements the search engines create a robust picture, a roadmap of sorts, of the web organized by topic. With the topics represented by keywords and phrases. The ultimate goal of all search engines is to help their customers find the best information available on the web for a given topic.
To give a quick example, lets examine the process starting at the topic level and work backwards.
Let's take the topic of entrepreneurship. Typing the word entrepreneur into Google nets you Entrepreneur Magazine as your first and second result. So why is this and how this this relate to SEO?
First, Entrepreneur Magazine owns the URL www.entrepreneur.com . A keyword related URL is a key site structure element... more on this to come. Further, upon examination, many of the site structure elements are designed to indicate to search engines, when they index the site, that the sites topic is related to the keyword entrepreneur. This includes repetition of the word entrepreneur several times in numerous key elements of the site structure – anchor text, image tags, links, etc.
Entrepreneur.com also uses the keyword entrepreneur several times within the content on their site. Further, they use keywords semantically associated with the term entrepreneur including small business, franchise, business, etc. And through semantically linked terms (don't worry – more on this later as well) search engines can also infer what you site is about. Search engines are smart and are able to recognize small business and entrepreneur as related words. Thus small business as a keyword on the page further strengthens the sites position for the keyword entrepreneur.
Last, Entrepreneur Magazine has a whopping 860,000 inbound links.
These elements, keywords, site structure and inbound links all communicate to search engines what entrepreneur.com is about and why the search engine should display entrepreneur.com when users search the term entrepreneur.
So, by carefull constructing the site, entrepreneur.com owns the top spot for the keyword entrepreneur. This is how SEO works – constructing a site so search engines recognize its importance for a given search phrase.
Now that I know how SEO works, what can be optimized?
What can be optimized? Basically, anything on the web that gives you control over one of the three basic elements (keywords, page structure and links). Or in other words, virtually anything found on the web.
That being said, before you go an optimize your flickr photos, linkedin pages and anything else you can think of, ask yourself “is it really worth it?”. Remember, SEO is an intense time investment. Therefore, make sure it will help you achieve you end goal, whether brand building, website traffic, leads or sales.
From my experience, there are only a limited subset of things worth optimizing. Most of these relate to different channels of internet marketing. Ultimately you only want to optimize content that will benefit you – whether it is a marketing piece found on the internet (forum post, article) or your own site.
Here are a few examples:
- Your website
- Landing pages
- Articles (both on and off your site)
- Forum posts or social media used to promote your business
- Profile pages about your business
- Any inbound links (using anchor text)
- Online press releases
Now that is not to say that media such as video and audio cannot play an important role in your SEO strategy, they can. However, currently, given the way search engines work, it is very difficult to optimize the content itself unless you are given control over some of the elements of the page on which it resides.
What you should keep in mind before you undertake any SEO projects
- One : SEO takes time. You will not see big results overnight. Results will start to trickle in and then build.
- Two : SEO is about focus. A narrow set of highly targeted keywords tailored to your ideal customers. Generic keywords – shoes, cars, etc. are difficult to optimize for given the amount of competition that exists. Generic keywords also lack specificity and are likely to generate a lot of wasted traffic.
- Three : Know your competition. Study those that are successful and own the keywords you want. What have they done in terms of structuring their site, including keywords and building back links?
- Four : Ignore black hat techniques. While these can be tempting, they can, if discovered cause your site to be eliminated from all search results for good... destroying all your hard work. Some of these are listed in the appendix, heed my word of caution.
"SEO" can refer to "search engine optimizers," a term adopted by an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients, and by employees who perform SEO rvices in-house. Search engine optimizers may offer SEO as a stand-alone service or as a part of a broader marketing campaign. Because effective SEO may require changes to the HTML source code of a site, SEO tactics may be incorporated into web site development and design.
Great information presented in such a way that it is easy to understand. This blog is really helpful for beginners. Thanks for posting.
Regards
sibhu
SEO Orange County
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