What is SEO?
13th October 2009
by Ricky Lim
Any query of a popular word in a search engine would result in a large number of results. In such a scenario, how a website gets itself among the topmost results of a search for a specific keyword is known as Search Engine Optimization or SEO. Finding a place within the topmost results on related and important searches increases the number of web users who are drawn to your website and hence you get more business. That is the reason why SEO has become so significant.
There are two types of SEO – white hat and black hat. Black hat means use of methods, which are often not approved of, for making a site appear in top results. However, white hat SEO only applies those techniques which are largely accepted and do not violate the principles of the search engines.
The search engines previously matched a webpage with the search for a particular word by using Meta data, which is normally embedded in the code of a webpage. However, major search engines now make use of complex algorithms to display the results that are filtered on the basis of over 200 distinct factors.
SEO professionals have to be aware of all the latest developments made by search engines and find out the relative weight of each of the factors in a search algorithm. This information aids them in updating the SEO strategies for their clients to enable them to appear in top results of popular keywords. When the search results were exclusively reliant on Meta data and the content of the web page, this task entailed optimizing the Meta tags of the web pages and making sure that the keyword density of each page was just appropriate.
Although these aspects are still quite significant, search engines now give a lot more weight to the popularity of a web page. The popularity of a particular web page is determined by how many other pages link to it. It is more like a democratic process as every link to the web page can be treated as a vote. Due to this, SEO these days needs strategic work outside the site such as distributing free content in exchange of links to the website and creating presence on blogs and other interactive mediums online.
You must always remember that SEO is a continuous and dynamic process. SEO techniques are always trying to adapt to the changes happening in the field of online search. That is the reason why it is so important to engage an experienced SEO consultant to assist you.
Learn more about the available SEO services
and SEO Trainings from SEO Magic Webs Singapore.