Search Engine Optimization ( SEO)

Whenever we got a search engine and enter a search string – places of tourist interest in France, good hotels in Los Angeles – a series of results get thrown up. As a surfer, I would tend to click on the first result that appears on my screen. Then the second, the third and so on.

SEO is about improving the volume/quality of traffic to a website by methods - paid or unpaid. The raison d’etre for SEO is on the basis that the earlier or higher a site appears on the search list, the more visitors it will attract.

SEO considers how search engines work and what a visitor would look for. Websites are accordingly optimized. Optimization is achieved by modifying the content on the website, HTML and the website coding to increase its relevance to keywords.

Commonly used methods of SEO are –

Indexing

The better know search engines like google, yahoo etc use ‘crawlers’ to get search results. Crawlers are computer programs that search the world wide web in an orderly manner. Crawling is considered a very effective means of providing up-to-date data.

Cross-linking

Linking is a process where two websites are linked with each other. There could be different types of links –

Reciprocal linking is a link between two websites to ensure mutual traffic.

Relevant linking is a form of reciprocal linking, in which a site the sites that are linked have compatible content.

Three way linking is a special form of reciprocal linking where three websites are linked together.

By giving more links to a website increases PageRank used by search engines. The higher the page rank of a website, the higher it appears when in the list of your search results.

URL normalization

URL normalization standardizes URLs in a consistent manner. Search Engines employ URL normalization to find out if a link has been visited.

Back-links

Back-links are links to a website of a web page. Search Engines use number of back-links to a website of web-page as a key factor to determine a website’s search engine ranking.

SEO is not necessarily appropriate for every website. Marketing strategies need to be worked out based on site owner’s objectives. SEO may generate ROI. Results from an unpaid SEO initiative may go through peaks and troughs because ways in which search engines work ( algorithms) can change.