Firstly what does Search Engine Optimization actually mean? It is the process of improving the quality and volume of web traffic to a website by employing a series of proven SEO techniques that help a website achieve a higher ranking with the major search engines when certain keywords and phrases are put in the search field (Brick Marketing, 2014).
To start optimizing a website this starts with identifying the right key words for the right key webpages. This is important because these keywords define the whole website and they are potentially what someone will be looking for in order to find that particular product/search result on the website. Next, after the keywords and key phrases are identified, it is important to place them throughout the content of every page of the site, including the headings. Heading structure is important in the use of search engines (Webpage Mistakes, 2014). It is important to use the most important keywords for the domain name so it will be easier for the search engine to locate the site.
Search engines work by using certain types of algorithms for running their search. An example of one is the crawler based search engine. This gathers information from web pages once they are uploaded to the World
Wide Web.
When the content of the certain web site has been changed, “spider” will automatically go to that page and will update the information it has about it. The information that was updated is one of the impacts that define the position of that website on the search results list (Search Engine Optimization, 2010).
A second example of an algorithm is a human based directory. This works by having a web developer, for example, create a short listing for the website and submit it to the directory. These manually edited descriptions will form the search base. This means that changes made to individual web pages will have no effect on how these pages get listed in the search results (Search Engine, 2004).
A meta search engine submits your query to several other search engines and returns a summary of the results (Techterms, 2014). An example of a search engine that uses this method is Dogpile, Mamma, and Metacrawler (Search engine, 2004). As a result of this method, the searches that you receive back are a collective result of multiple searches.
Overall to get an effective strategy going on it is essential that you know
- how the search engines work
- what to include into the website’s content
-what are the tools to use
- always keeping up to date with new technologies and innovations
(Search Engine Optimization, 2010)
References
A comparison of search engine for finding resources (2004) "Search Engine" [Online] <http://www.yuanlei.com/studies/articles/is567-searchengine/page2.htm> [Accessed March 6th 2014]
Brick Marketing (2014) "Define search engine optimization" [Online] <http://www.brickmarketing.com/define-search-engine-optimization.htm> [Accessed March 5th 2014]
Search Engine Optimization (2010) "Search Engine" [Online] <http://yuriybuhacom.ipage.com/eportfolio2010/docs/ela_seo.cmp220.pdf> [Accessed March 3rd 2014]
Search Engine Optimization (2014) "Search Engine Optimization" [Online] <http://www.brickmarketing.com/define-search-engine-optimization.htm> [Accessed March 7th 2014]
Techterms (2014) "Meta Search Engine" [Online] <http://www.techterms.com/definition/metasearchengine> [Accessed March 5th 2014]
Web Page Mistakes (2014) "Heading Structure" [Online] <http://www.webpagemistakes.ca/heading-structure-heading-tag/> [Accessed March 5th 2014]
