SEO is just one tool in a whole arsenal of tools that you can use to market or popularize your website. That said, it is one of the more important tools in the arsenal that needs a lot of consideration.
Whether you actually have the time to search-engine-optimize your website or if you want to concentrate more on your core strengths that made you create your website, knowing SEO is important because it will better allow you to understand how page ranking works or at least be able to better negotiate for what you actually need from an SEO specialist.
To begin with SEO or search engine optimization are the many different things that you do within or out of your website, so as to make the website noticed by search engine spiders for the purpose of being ranked highly through calculations made using search engine algorithms. The search engines often publish what they consider as good practice and bad practice for good ranking in their search engines.
The main search engines are Google, Bing and Yahoo. Google however enjoys the largest market share of searches online by a large margin.
Types of search engine results
When you go online and make a search for anything, whether you are looking for a dictionary word or for a car to buy, you will get two kinds of results through a search engine. You will get what are called organic or natural results and you will at the same time get paid for results. The distinction between the two is usually not so obvious unless you know what you are looking for.
1. Organic or natural results
With these results, you employ methods that will call attention to search engine spiders, which will in turn feed the results to an algorithm that the search engine uses to rank websites in order of priority.
Simply, when you make a search in a search engine the results that you get are determined through a mathematical calculation to determine where you will most likely get the answer to your question or search.
If the chances that your website will give the searcher, the results they are looking for will determine whether your website will be ranked on the first, second, third or fourth page and so on. Needless to say users usually only look at the first or the second page before moving on to use a different keyword search. So your target is to get your website to page 1 when specific search words are used.
Search engine optimization therefore gears towards making your website appear on page one of a relevant search engine result.
2. Paid for search results
The other alternative for getting highly ranked in a search engine result is to pay to be on page one. Different search engines have different ways of determining who gets the priority to rank on page one of a search engine result, but generally, the idea is that different website owners bid to have their website ranked on page one based on a particular keyword.
This method is designed to give the website owner a guarantee that an audience will be directed to the website if a particular keyword is used on the search engine. This model is called the PPC, pay per click model or pay per click advertising. It simply means that the website owner pays for every click made on the links.
Paid search results usually appear at the top and at the right side of every page and are tagged with the word ‘Ad’.
How to highly rank your website through organic search engine optimization
Search engine optimization, as you may have gathered is both a science and an art. This is true because you have to do specific things in order to improve your mathematical chances of being ranked higher on a web search through the search engine algorithm, but at the same time the personal style or techniques that you use to connect with your audience also matters.
Fortunately, the mathematical part is not as mysterious as it sounds because the search engines often publish a set of rules, or considerations that website creators should implement to help them improve their probability of ranking higher. Obviously, the search engines do not disclose the algorithm in full, because this is highly proprietary, intellectual property.
It is also important to note that search engines constantly change or fine tune the algorithm. Kurt Uhlir`s piece on seo for enterprisesis an excellent guide that will ensure that you use the right strategies to build brand awareness and drive more people to your site effectively.
Keywords and Keyword phrases
The most basic denominator used to understand how search engines work is the use of keywords and keyword phrases. This involves understanding the words or phrases used in search engines to look for specific answers. Choosing a keyword is often a balance of:
- The number of times a specific word or phrase is used on a search engine or its popularity
- The number of other websites trying to rank for the use of a specific keyword
To most people, search engine optimization sounds too complicated, too much work, too time consuming and may therefore seem easier to hand over to someone else to do or simply pay for website ranking to search engines. Whereas these reasons may be applicable to you for one reason or the other, hopefully, this guide will help you better understand what SEO is all about and how you can better make use of it.
Contributed by http://www.rankingbyseo.com/
