The basics of SEO

If you’ve heard the terms SEO (search engine optimization) and SEM (search engine marketing) before, you’ve probably spent a fair amount of time on the internet. Although you have heard or read these words, you may not understand their importance in the world of online marketing. The purpose of search engine optimization is to achieve the best possible ranking for a website in search engines (such as Google, Yahoo!, Bing, and others), for maximum visibility. The “best possible ranking” would be at the top of the page, or the highest result, because those results are the ones with the most visibility and therefore the most frequently clicked.

If you are reading these words, you are undoubtedly an Internet user. As a user of the Internet, you are most likely familiar with using search engines to find information on topics that interest you or that you want to learn more about. When you do a search for replacement windows, for example, you’ll probably type those words, “replacement windows.” The results page will be loaded with millions upon thousands (or millions) of articles and websites containing the words you were searching for.

Obviously you’re not going to read much beyond the first page or two of the results, that’s too slow and a bit ridiculous. However, it will check results that loaded on the first page, starting from top to bottom. This is how our natural reading technique works: top to bottom, left to right. So how does Google, Yahoo or Bing know which results to show on those few top links?

Retailers selling replacement windows (or whatever you’re looking for) want to appear at the top of these results pages so you have the opportunity to browse your business page and become a customer. It doesn’t do any good for a business to get buried on page 149 of search results, because no potential customer will find it there. Search engine users feel the same way. If they were looking for information on a specific product, the first results they want to see should be relevant, informative, and helpful, not an obscure article that barely mentions the words they entered into the search box.

In a nutshell, that’s what SEO does. Structure a website so that it can get the most attention from a search engine. The way this is done is by embedding words and phrases that are meaningful to the search engine and the person doing the search, called keywords, in the body of the text or in the titles. The use of these keywords – frequency, positioning, etc. – is important and can make a difference in search engine rankings.

Determining keywords can be difficult. It’s about knowing what Internet search engines are going to type in the search box. Some may type “replacement windows,” while others may search for “new windows” or “energy-efficient glass.” Using all of these keywords and phrases on a website can get you to the top of the results page, drive traffic, and produce more customers, and that’s the real measure of the value of SEO.