SEO Defined

Whether you already own a website or you’re just thinking about it, you’ve probably heard people mention the importance of SEO. Maybe you’ve also read some articles that refer to SEO and its role in the online world. But, unless you have some experience with website building, search engines and search engine optimization, you might not really know what SEO is, what it does and what it involves.
So, for those of you who aren’t familiar with SEO, here is a plain-language definition along with some helpful basic information.

First of all, the term” SEO” isn’t really a word, even though people use it that way. Its three letters stand for “search engine optimization.” But that’s not really a definition of SEO – it just tells you what the term signifies. In order to define SEO, we need to define “search engine optimization.”

Search engine optimization (or SEO) is the process of making a website, web page or blog more visible in a search engine’s organic (“natural” or unpaid) search results pages. Internet users typically search for websites that deal with a particular topic by entering an appropriate keyword or keyword phrase into a search engine. The pages that the search engine displays in response to a keyword search are called “search engine results pages” (“SERPs” for short). Each SERP displays links to websites and pages that contain and are relevant to the search term. The closer to the top a website is displayed on a SERP, the more likely Internet users will click on its link and visit the site.

When we say SEO involves making a website more visible in the SERPs, what we really mean is that SEO strives to bring the site’s link closer to the top of the list of sites displayed on the SERPs. The higher a site’s position in the SERPs, the better – and being displayed at the top of page one of a search term’s SERPs is the best position of all.

When it comes down to it, SEO is a form of Internet marketing, intended to drive visitors to your website. Among other things, SEO involves understanding how the search engines work, what your target audience wants, and the terms they typically type into the search engines.

Several steps may be required to optimize a website for the search engines. In addition to identifying your target audience’s needs and the terms they search for, you’ll probably need to edit your website’s coding and content to make them more relevant to those search terms. SEO involves much more than that, but that should get you started!