I decided to start with this subject because the majority of my friends don't know what it is and constantly asking me about this subject.
What is SEO?
Well, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. I think you should read the definition in google words:
Why Optimize for search?
The web contains more than 10 billion web sites with data about almost anything. If someone want to find something in this enormous web , he usually go to one of the big search engine's web sites: Google, yahoo, Live, Ask and AOL are the largest (Google share is 50%-70% of all web queries). There are some other search engines out there that I really like. To name a few: snap, hakia and exalead. I really like cuil as well. The typical searcher will not be provided with the most relevant content for his query, however, he will be content with what he've found. Most searchers will not refine their query (or use another search engine) in a search for better results. People want the answers fast and willing to compromise on quality.You also have to know that a very large portion of the web is used for selling stuff, for building a web brand or a public image. As people all over the world embrace the web and spend more in online shopping, more and more e-commerce websites emerge (probably inspired by Amazon which is the biggest store in the world)
With the growing number of people that start an e-commerce web site or using the web to sell a service, the competition on achieving better results on the search engines gets harder. Ranking better translates almost immediately to more revenue: If you rank higher on the search results that means more traffic. More traffic (visitors) usually means more revenue for the website.
One way to to be shown on the first page of the search engines is to simply pay for it. Most of the search engines have an advertising system (Ad words etc’) in which web sites that do not rank well in the organic search results can buy an ad for a specific keywords/query. After you set your ad it will appear (almost) immediately in the SERP next to the organic results. Actually, you pay the search engine for any click that your ad was clicked through.
The other way, is to optimize your website for the organic listing of the SERP (Search engine Result Page) for the queries you select. Identifying the queries you want to rank well for is the basic thing a professional SEO should do.
Free tip: Building a useful content for users is probably the most important thing you can do in order to rank well in any SERP. If you want to gain more real knowledge about optimizing your web site for search engines I have three initial advises to make:
- Don’t be a fool to search for SEO tips and tricks, the “tips” and “tricks” you will find online will worth the effort you made in finding them.
- Read the search engines’ official blogs.
- Always experiment and evaluate your results and then - test again.
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