Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an ongoing process better understood by understanding how the search engines themselves operate.

The major search engines (Google, MSN, and Yahoo) operate through the use of automated robots commonly known as crawlers, bots, or spiders. These robots have the job of visiting and crawling your entire web site, creating a content “snap-shot” for the engine. The engine will then index the site into its database and, using certain identifiers, will retrieve the URL when a query is conducted based upon the individual engine’s mathematical algorithm.

Optimization of your web site for the search engines begins with having a thorough understanding of the criteria each search engine uses when ranking your indexed web site. This is done in by “reverse engineering” their algorithms and assigning the various identifying characteristics to a site to create a hierarchy of relevancy for certain keywords and/or keyword phrases.

Head Tags, Alt Tags, the number of Hyperlinks coming in and out of the site, Body Text, Title Tags, Meta Tags, the number of pages in a site, site URL(s), as well as keyword density are just a few of the variables in almost all search engine’s ranking equation.