What is Search Engine Optimization?
Major search engines such as Google® and Yahoo® use an automated program called a spider or robot to crawl through web pages, analyzing the information contained in them. These spiders sift through the contents of a web page using formulas known as algorithms to determine where or if that page should be indexed within organic search results for a particular keyword or phrase. Search engine optimization is a process used to design a web page in a manner that search engines will find and index that page in the highest possible position relative to other comparative pages. In short, it's making a web site and all it's related contents “search engine friendly”.
Search Engine Placement
Search engine placement is like commercial real estate. The most desirable business property is in the section of the city that has the most traffic passing through. On the internet, this will always be the first page of search results for any given keyword or key phrase. These coveted top ten positions are forever changing with web sites jostling for position. Web sites that can secure themselves a placement within these top ten results have the very best chance of attracting visitors that can be converted to customers. A web site that never achieves this top ranking, or falls from first-page placement is greatly at risk of becoming forever lost in the huge expanse that is the world wide web.
SEO Cheats
From the early beginnings of search engines, the designers of web sites “webmasters”, and the designers/engineers of search engines have played a sort of tug-of-war with each other. Web site designers continually search for ways to give their web site the best possible search engine placement, and search engine designers try to keep the search results as relative as possible. Most webmasters follow the rules, but some look for dishonest gain. These SEO cheaters take advantage of weaknesses in the search engine's algorithms. Keyword cramming "spamming" and hiding text by making it the same color as the surrounding background were among the most widely used SEO cheats used to achieve higher rankings. Search engine designers/engineers continually tweak the formulas used to retrieve organic search results to shore up these weaknesses. Search engines also impose penalties on those they catch trying to cheat the system.
A Balance Between Aesthetics and Content
So what is the number one secret to designing a web site so it will receive high placement in organic search engine results? In a word, Content
Web site design involves creating a balance between aesthetics (what humans see) and content (what robots see). While we see the images, the layout, the colors, and the overall design of a web page, a robot, or “spider” sees text. Most flash items, images, background and text colors, and special page effects do not count as content as far as the robots are concerned. There are SEO techniques that allow a robot to “see” some of these page elements. (ie... image alt tags)
While some web sites are inherently content-rich, others are not. Blog pages and news pages for example are primarily text, while e-commerce product pages often contain very little text. Content should be abundant, but it must be unique. Duplicate content will often be detrimental to search engine placement. It is wise to avoid the practice of cut-and-paste when adding product descriptions and the like to web pages.
A web site and it's related pages should be designed so search engine placement will be high, but it must also hold the human visitor's attention once they arrive. While it's not always easy to accomplish this delicate balance, the payoff is well worth the effort.