SEO

Seo, is an abbreviation for Search Engine Optimization, as you can see it is just the first letter from each of the words in the term Search Engine Optimization.

So now that we have cleared that up, just what is SEO?

Well, basically it is simply a term used to describe the way a web master, presents his or her web page/s to be found and listed by the different Search Engines, such as Google, Yahoo or MSN for example.

Why would they do that?

Well when a person puts a web site on the internet they are usually hoping that other people will visit their web site. The main way that people get visitors are via the Search Engines. There are other ways to attract visitors such as posting articles as well as releasing press releases, but these are usually short term solutions to getting traffic, as soon as the article or press release is of no interest, then of course no one will visit your web site. In this paragraph l introduced a new term "traffic", which is the terminology used for visitors on the internet by web site owners.

Let's look at traffic from the Search Engines.

I will only be looking at traffic from the Search Engines, as that is what I know about the most. But before we start, it is vital that we know what the function of a Search engine is. The main reason that this is vital, in case you are wondering, is that if we do not understand what a Search engines function is, then we have no logical basis to work from.

1. A Search Engine is like a complex data base, which Searches the internet and catalogues it's results into different Categories(called Keyword/s), based on the different Search terms used by the people looking for things.

2. To deliver the most relevant results to the searcher, based on what the Search Engine has Cataloged, for the term which the Searcher or Surfer has typed into the Search Field.

Basically that is all a search engines function is. Notice, I did say basically.

We now have a Basic Basis to work from.

SEO is all about making your web page/s relevant to the Search Engine/s as well as useful to the Searcher or Web Surfer, depending on the terminology you use. From here on I will refer to both the Web Surfer and Searcher as the End User. This term is simply referring to the person Using the Search Engine to find something, hence the term End User.

Ok, is time for an example;

A person (Donna, who will be our End User in this example) has a Dog which is as lovable as can be, but it lacks any form of proper training. So after coming home from work and finding that her beloved dog has dug up yet another plant in the back yard, as well as totally killing yet another pair of fluffy slippers from the bedroom. This is the fifth pair of slippers that Fido has done this to in 3 months, it also about the twentieth plant that he has dug up and killed. To be fair to Fido we will not mention his other mister meaners. After tidying up the mess and telling Fido that he is a bad dog for the umpteenth time, Donna decides that she must seek help in training Fido before it is too late, as her approach is not working.

Donna decides to have a look on the internet to see if she can find any information to help her train Fido. After her computer has fired up and she opens her Browser she types in Dog Training, in the Search Box, and is immediately presented with a list of web pages to look at that are considered to be relevant to her query by the Search Engine. After looking at several of the web sites she decides to change her request, and so types, free dog training advice, into the search box. Once again Donna looks through the results seeking the information she feels will solve her problem. We will leave Donna here.

Ok in the above example we have an End User (being Donna in this case), looking for information or a product that will solve a problem she is facing. The term she types into the Search Box, Dog Training, the first time and free dog training advice, the second time. These terms are referred to as Search Terms, by the Search Engine/s. They are also called Keyword/s by both the Search Engine/s as well as the Web Master/s ( those building the Web Sites, this term carries, be it their first or 400th web site that they have made)

Sorry if it is a bit confusing up till now, but needed to get some different terms in there to give you a good idea of how this all works. If you can get hold of this properly from the beginning, it will make your SEO efforts a lot more rewarding. At least in time and effort compared to  the effectiveness of your efforts. Ok let's bring it together.

You want to build a Web Site that is about Dog Training (replace Dog Training, with whatever your site will be about), so of course you are interested in attracting End Users, who are interested in Dog Training. It makes sense so far but will it be worth your time and effort? I will show you how to have a look at these factors as well as getting a rough idea at how hard it will be here. So "Dog Training" is our "Keyword" term and is what we will focus on.

But for now, lets assume that it is worth our time and effort to Optimise for. so, how do we do it?

First off we need to know that there are two distinct areas when it comes to SEO

1. On page Optimization

2. Off Page Optimization

On Page Optimization

First we want to place the term we are Optimizing for in the "Page Title", mine for this page is "SEO".

Next we want to have our "Keyword" term as one of the first things on the page, this will usually be a Heading. You will also want to use the keyword term, in your body text as well. Although it is important, that your keyword term is used often in your body text to get your site placed highly in the Search Results displayed by the various Search Engines for you keyword term.

It is probably just as important if not more so that it makes sense, to the End User who visits your web page, or they will surely leave just as quickly as they arrived. Before we go on l keep using the term Web Page rather than Web Site, let me clear that up a bit, Web Pages are what are listed and displayed by Search Engines, not web sites. Once a visitor lands on your page they can access other pages on your site via your navigation, but if they arrived from a Search Engine, they got there because that web page that was counted relevant by the Search Engine for the Search Term or Keyword the End User typed into the Search Box, which is the only reason your web page will be displayed in the Search results.         

This is an important point, as you may have 30 different web pages on your web site, about 30 different things, and have all of the pages in the Search Engines top Search Results for each page's Keyword/s provided each page is counted as the most relevant for that particular term, you could have every page at number 1 in the search engines results for each web page's keyword/s. It is possible, but not easy to do. So you are best off optimizing for your main keyword/s, and if it is interesting and relevant enough, your visitor will usually visit your other web pages.

The above are what the visitor sees, but what about the Search Engine? The search engines use a program usually referred to as a Spider, Robot or a Bot. This is not as important to know, as it is to know what information they are looking for. But it is handy to know what different terms are given to the same program, which will make learning this a little bit easier. I am going to refer to this program as a Spider from here on. The spider's job is to go out and retrieve data about all of the web pages on the internet. So what does it look at?

Well a Spider sees the same things the human visitor does which we looked at above, but it also looks at other factors as well. One of these factors is the Meta Tags, which l will not go into here, except to say that you do want your keyword/s in the keyword meta tag. Apart from that it will look at Your Title Tags, word density and the relevance between your Keywords and your Body Text, the Body Text are the words which you are able to read on a web page.

Off Page Optimization

Links from other Web Pages

As it is impossible to say exactly what a particular Search Engine counts as the most important factors when looking at a web page, we are able to guess at some of them buy analyzing the results we are getting. ( If anyone tells you that they know exactly what a Search Engine uses to determine the results they display, that person is lying to you, as it is a multi billion dollar industry and each of the Search Engines closely guard this secret so that no-one can manipulate the results, apart from that the Search Engines are continually changing these factors on a regular basis, trying to improve the results they offer to the End User)

So having said that, I will simply share what I was doing to get results which you can see here. Let me make it very clear, I did not think these up on my own, I simply read them like you are now and tried to apply them to my web pages. Also the results you just saw were after only a few months and no previous experience with web sites.

Ok lets get some links to our web site.

The important thing to know about links to your website, is that they say something about your Web Page. To two different groups,

1. Being the potential visitor, this should be an accurate description about what they can find on the web page once they arrive there.

2. They tell the Spider about where the link is taking them and what that web page is about.

Eg: Only  Blue Glass Frogs we have a great collection of blue glass frogs, which make great ornaments.

Blue Glass Frogs this is the Hypertext part of the link, this is the part that the Spider will pay the most attention to, and it passes on reputation to the destination web page, as being about Blue Glass Frogs.

we have a great collection of blue glass frogs, which make great ornaments. This is the Description part of the link and is also looked  at by the Spider, but it is more of a description for the potential visitor to your web page, some say to place your keyword in this part also as I did in the example, and do in my real linking campaign. But is Not a Good idea to do keyword stuffing, as it does not attract visitors and will not improve your Search Engine Placement. Here is an example;

Blue Glass Frogs Blue Glass Frogs, Blue Frogs, Blue Glass, Glass Frogs

It does not look very inviting and is a waste of time, would be better off getting 3 more inbound links and use the different terms 1 in each link like this;

Glass Frogs we have a great collection of blue glass frogs, which make great ornaments.

Blue Glass we have a great collection of blue glass frogs, which make great ornaments.

Blue Frogs we have a great collection of blue frogs, which make great ornaments.

Colors are simply for emphasis and have No bearing on the results achieved.

Last Point

As the different Search Engines place the most relevant Web Pages at the Top of their Search Results. It is a Great Idea to get a link from these web Pages if and when possible. The reason is that if the Web Page that Google counts the most important for the term Blue Glass Frogs has a link pointing to your web page and the link looks like this;

Blue Glass Frogs we have a great collection of blue glass frogs, which make great ornaments.

This will pass more importance to your web page than if a web page about groceries did the same thing as Google has allready counted the web page that is pointing to your web page as the most important web site (Authorative), on the Internet for that term, which is why it is the first Result they give the End User, as it is counted the most Relevant Web Page by Google for that particular term.

Is like a School Teacher saying you are a good student compared to the local green grocer saying the same thing. Because a School Teacher is considered an Authority in the area of learning their opinion in that area counts for more than that of the Green Grocer. But just as in real life if the Green Grocer were to say that you are a Good student to someone it would carry some weight, depending on what the hearer of the comment thought of the Green Grocer's judgement.

It is the same on the internet, an authority on a particular subject will pass more emphasis to you than a web page that is not an authority on that subject, but the second still passes reputation to you, though not as much. The reputation, or what they are saying about you to the Search Engine, is in the hypertext part of the link.

To find an Authority Web Page, is a simple matter of typing the term that interests you into any particular Search Engine. The first result is counted the most important for that term by that particular Search Engine as the second is counted the Second most important and so on..

So in short, get as many inbound links as possible from different web pages that are counted as Authorities for the terms that you want to rank for, saying about you, what you want to be known for, and before long you will be up there listed with them amongst the top Search Results. As all of the Search Engines use a different criteria for working out the results it is a good idea to do this with all of the main Search Engines.