Friday, November 23, 2012

What Is SEO ?

The Real Meaning of SEO

Published on by: James H. Hobson

An article to answer the question What Is SEO?
Even after years of active promotion and implementation business owners and managers continue to misunderstand SEO. SEO, the acronym for search engine optimization, refers to the practices used to affect specific search engine rankings for targeted keywords or phrases. Search engine optimization is recognized by Google as a good and legitimate service however certain techniques are objectionable and unacceptable.

As with any professional service, SEO has both good and bad practitioners. Whether SEO is good or bad is determined by the style of implementation and purpose of its use. A total SEO strategy should include on-page and off-page SEO work. Any work should begin with keyword and competitor research to create an effective strategy.

The Various Ways to Define SEO

As an ethical Atlanta SEO company we work with only legitimate businesses, and therefore seek to place their website for relevant terms. Anyone doing search engine optimization should first and foremost consider the search engine! To this point we strongly recommend becoming familiar with, and adhering to, Google Webmaster Guielines.

SEO - The Laymans Definition

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a generic term for the many methods used to get a website ranked on search engine results pages (SERP's) for specific keywords or search phrases.

It is important to understand that SEO is not a commodity which may be purchased in truly tangible measures. To better understand this term as a consumer, you can think of it as if you were buying home remodeling services. There is a lot that can be done, and each job has its own level of finished quality, time required to complete, and value. SEO work can include specialized website coding, optimizing text or images, link building, content marketing, social media marketing and much more. Each of these areas can be further segmented into specific tasks and needs. All of these tasks can be completed and implemented in varying degrees of quality.

SEO - The Technical Definition

SEO from a technical perspective includes implementing and optimizing code and content elements. This work certainly requires technical coding but also marketing concepts, user preferences and search engine algorithms. While forums and articles can give some technical pointers it takes years of practice and constant study in oder to become an SEO expert. Technical considerations include page load time, block level SEO, using unique page titles and descriptions, alt tags, title attributes and new tools such as Google's tag manager.

SEO - The Marketing Definition

From an internet marketing perspective SEO is the Holy Grail for driving higher volumes of relevant traffic to a website. For the marketing person SEO is a method to get a website ranked and also a process to build branding. To a marketing person this includes content marketing, articles, press releases and distributing white-papers. In a marketing perspective SEO is about implementing brand building content that also improves organic ranking.

Optimizing content for websites and articles includes an understanding on block level SEO, authorship, latent semantic indexing (LSI), and payig attention to word counts, non-spam writing tactics and proper link building methods.

Figure Lie and Liars Figure is a saying I use to alert business owners to some common tricks of unethical hustlers. The person or company working on your ranking should give you progress reports. Typically these reports are a list of keywords where your site is ranked with the actual ranking. Here's where the lies and deception often start. You may be excited about your reports that show a steady increase in ranked terms. You think your SEO company is doing a great job right? Maybe not. Have they shown you the amount of real world search traffic for these terms? Are you ranked for a lot of terms where there is no traffic and that won't generate leads? You need to have a good understanding of what your SEO companies strategy, tactics and goals.

How Search Engines View SEO

Search engines look at SEO in both a good perspective and a bad perspecive. The good perspective holds that ethical internet marketing professionals employ coding, links and content that actually assist a search engine in knowing how to classify and on what SERP's to display a website. The bad perspective is that certain SEO practices may be leveraged in order to manipulate SERP's and thereby provide what may be low quality content.


SEO Providers Are Not All Alike

Because consumers do not understand "What is SEO?" or what is required to do quality work, they often rely on price or a slick sales pitch. Because consumers do not understand what they need there are a lot of people who have read forums and blogs enough to speak as though they are knowledgeable. The quality and effectiveness among people offering SEO varies as much as day and night.

There are a LOT of "website designers" and freelancers who pitch SEO simply because they can make some money. A business owner, thnking of SEO as a commodity, can falsely believe they got a great deal because they "got a guy to do our SEO really cheap". Any competitor who hires a legitimate SEO company will slaughter the owner who goes cheap. So, the next question is, "how do you find a good seo company?". Click the following link to learn more about how to hire a good SEO company.