What is SEO?

To me SEO represents a finely tuned engine with all its moving parts (your website matched with the proper search query) working in perfect synchronization to keep your website ranking near the top of search engine results, making your online presents shine brightly on the roadside of the Information Super Highway.

When all is not right, SEO wise, and website and search queries, not working together as well as they should be. Your online business becomes harder for internet travelers (web surfers) to find your online business location. When that happens you might say your site is in need of a tune up. That is where Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, comes in handy. SEO can polish off the road signs that point exactly to your internet exit and online place of business, sending customers directly to your website.

If you want your web-store to be seen by internet travelers SEO can help. Nine or ten years ago SEO didn’t exist (at least to me anyway) so my first hearing about SEO was a little like the town blacksmith, who worked with horses and carriages, hearing about a horseless carriage (in this case SEO) for the first time and thinking to himself, now how is that going to work? So why is an SEO tune up necessary? Search engines uses something called and algorithm that is kind of a formula for how the search engine operates. I imagine a group of people sit down and decide how they want their search engine to perform and another group (maybe even the same group) comes up with a plan that give birth to the search engine staple, the algorithm.

How can a search engine algorithm change the life of a webmaster you ask? Let’s say that after much hard work, and years of operation you rank number one in your search category that was built on a solid platform of keywords. Then one day you wake up and receive a notice from your search engine, online, or in a trade publication, that the search engine algorithm has just been changed. Taking a closer look at the data you may have received concerning the new algorithm roll-out you learn that with the new algorithm---keywords or out!

Just like that, your collection of cleverly place keywords, become almost contraband. The new search engine algorithm is more interested in “content” that is valuable to your audience category. If you maintained a website strong on both these points (Keywords and Content) you probably would not see much of a drop in your ranking, but even a small drop is enough to alarm me. If your site was all about the keyword, at the expense of good or useful content, then you might say that your key, or combination, to the searchengine ranking lock no longer matches the lock and that is most likely why your current search engine ranking have gone so lower.  This is where SEO can rescue you, and over time restore your site close to, or even back at, your previous search engine ranking level. First you need to learn the new combination (the new rules) then apply them; getting away from any possible keyword over use, improving your site content to the suggested level, and before you know it you’re cruising along at new algorithm levels; once more enjoying the same amount of web traffic to your website has before, like a boss!

All I can say is enjoy that feeling while it lasts. Since Google is the largest search engine, where we live, and Google is the search engine most SEO tries to stay in tune with; needless to say when Google makes an algorithm change (and they do from time to time) in many cases some SEO adjustment will be necessary. An SEO friendly website helps you stay on the good side of the search engine and your website ranking well. Just keep in mind SEO friendly has in the past meant everything from the amount of links connected to your site to fancy keyword collections and currently resides at valuable and useful content to your customer---the in-vogue trend today.

When it comes to SEO be prepared for change---Matt Cutts, who may or may not still be at Google, was the Google agent usually associated with algorithm changes at Google, over time I have found him to be a good source of SEO information about things a webmaster needs to lookout for. Some of Matt’s presentations allow you to put a question directly to him. Most of the SEO changes I have had to make because of algorithm creep have been minor; but if you plan to have a website understanding Search Engine Optimization will go a long way toward helping your website stay visible in the search engines and high in search ranking.