What is SEO (Search Engine Optimization?

[999]

I need to ask you something about SEO (Search engine optimization) . What is SEO ? . And how it really helps us to increase traffic on our website. Will it be useful to invest on some of the seo techniques for my blog ?

[Latonya X. Miller]

Sure. It will not only be useful, but it is a necessary technique if you want to promote your blog or site for Google Ad-sense and similar programs.

SEO is, as the name suggests, optimization of your site/blog for higher search engine rating. Search engines like Google rate your sites according to the quality of the content in it. If your site provides good quality content, more users will be able to see your site when they search for related content. More users will make more ad-sense.

Search engine optimization is done by many techniques. The best is to provide quality content and non plagiarized content. Common, but important things to keep in mind are grammar, language and spelling mistakes. Originality of your content is the most important factor. If the content on your site is copied/plagiarized, then there is no way you could get in Google search results. Keep in mind, that images copied from other sources will also produce negative results.

So Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a way of making your site/blog display in the top search results when users search for related content.

The most important factor to keep in mind during SEO optimization is that your site should have keywords related to the topic. The term used commonly here is "keyword density". This is the amount of keywords per page that match the terms searched for, by users. However, you do not have to cram up the site with keywords. Use them appropriately and when required. This makes your site presentable to users.

Another important factor for Search Engine Optimization is placement of ads in proper places. If you cram up your site with ads expecting more clicks, this actually lessens the number of clicks you get, as users find it difficult to view your site/blog. Appropriate adds should be placed at appropriate places in your site.

For example, you have written an article on health care. The ads displayed should be about health care. This is a good technique for SEO optimization. Google has, however, automated this process: when you add Google ads to you site/blog, the ads displayed are automatically related to the content on that particular page. However, if you choose programs like Amazon, the best practice is to manually choose the ads to be displayed according to what you have written.

Hope this helps you make your blog successful. Please revert for any clarifications. .

[Ethan Hunt]

Surely people going to write an article about SEO but I will give you a brief definition. SEO is a method in which we optimize the page in according to the search engine so whenever for particular word to be searched in search engine, should come in the first page.
It is of two types
ON PAGE OPTIMIZATION
OFF PAGE OPTIMIZATION.

[Dk Darknight]

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results. In general, the earlier (or higher on the page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search, academic search,news search and industry-specific vertical search engines.

As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work, what people search for, the actual search terms typed into search engines and which search engines are preferred by their targeted audience. Optimizing a website may involve editing its content and HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. Promoting a site to increase the number of backlinks, or inbound links, is another SEO tactic.[original research?]

The acronym "SEOs" 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 services 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 and site content, SEO tactics may be incorporated into website development and design. The term "search engine friendly" may be used to describe website designs, menus, content management systems, images, videos, shopping carts, and other elements that have been optimized for the purpose of search engine exposure.

Another class of techniques, known as black hat SEO, search engine poisoning, or spamdexing, uses methods such as link farms, keyword stuffing and article spinning that degrade both the relevance of search results and the quality of user-experience with search engines. Search engines look for sites that employ these techniques in order to remove them from their indices.

By 1997 search engines recognized that webmasters were making efforts to rank well in their search engines, and that some webmasters were even manipulating their rankings in search results by stuffing pages with excessive or irrelevant keywords. Early search engines, such as Altavista and Infoseek, adjusted their algorithms in an effort to prevent webmasters from manipulating rankings.

Due to the high marketing value of targeted search results, there is potential for an adversarial relationship between search engines and SEO service providers. In 2005, an annual conference, AIRWeb, Adversarial Information Retrieval on the Web,was created to discuss and minimize the damaging effects of aggressive web content providers.

Companies that employ overly aggressive techniques can get their client websites banned from the search results. In 2005, the Wall Street Journal reported on a company, Traffic Power, which allegedly used high-risk techniques and failed to disclose those risks to its clients.Wired magazine reported that the same company sued blogger and SEO Aaron Wall for writing about the ban.Google's Matt Cutts later confirmed that Google did in fact ban Traffic Power and some of its clients.

Some search engines have also reached out to the SEO industry, and are frequent sponsors and guests at SEO conferences, chats, and seminars. In fact, with the advent of paid inclusion, some search engines now have a vested interest in the health of the optimization community. Major search engines provide information and guidelines to help with site optimization. Google has a Sitemaps program[dead link]to help webmasters learn if Google is having any problems indexing their website and also provides data on Google traffic to the website. Google guidelines are a list of suggested practices Google has provided as guidance to webmasters. Yahoo! Site Explorer provides a way for webmasters to submit URLs, determine how many pages are in the Yahoo! index and view link information. Bing Toolbox provides a way from webmasters to submit a sitemap and web feeds, allowing users to determine the crawl rate, and how many pages have been indexed by their search engine.