SEO Explained
What is SEO? If you are not quite sure what SEO means, then this page will help you come to a basic understanding of what SEO is and how it effects the internet world. SEO stands for “search engine optimization”, and is the process of getting traffic from the “unpaid” or “natural” listings on search engines, such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo. When a person searches for a term, also known as a “keyword”, the search engines display results for what it believes are relevant web pages, local listings, and videos. These listings are known as “organic” search results and are not paid advertisements. The position which your website is listed in the search engine results for a specific “keyword” is known as your “rank”.
Paid Advertisements
Other forms of search engine marketing or “SEM” target paid listings. While paid advertisements, such as those purchase through Google Adwords, can be part of an effective internet marketting strategy, studies have shown that the majority of people choose to click the “organic” or “unpaid” listings rather than paid advertisements.
Ranking in Search Engines
Studies show that when people perform searches online, over 90% click a result on page 1 and an average of over 45% click on the 1st organic listing of the first result page.1 In general, the results which are higher on the page, and the more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engines.
How does the Search Engine Decide Who Ranks and Who Doesn’t?
Each Search engine has a proprietary algorithm which decides where each site is listed in the results, based on may factors including:
- Relevance of Content
- On-Site Optimization
- Social Media Presence
- Backlinks
- Authority and Trust
Keyword Research
In any SEO campaign it is critical to not only target keywords that are relevant to your business and website, but to also target keywords that people search for most frequently and are not too competitive.
Summary
While understanding what SEO is at the most basic level is rather easy to conceptualize, having an advanced knowledge of the detailed intricacies of SEO and being able to implement an effective and comprehensive solution is a form of art. TESSA has the knowledge and experience to provide the most complete SEO / internet marketing solutions that yield real world results.
What is SEO References:
AgentSEO (2010, December). Click Distribution & Percentages by SERP Rank Retrieved from http://www.agent-seo.com/seo/click-distribution-percentages-by-serp-rank/
