Search engine optimization

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In web search engine terminology, Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine's unpaid results.

Description

The results of search engine optimization are also referred to as "natural," "organic," or "earned" results.

In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users.

Targets

SEO may target different kinds of search, including:

  • Image search
  • Local search3
  • Video search
  • Academic search
  • News search
  • Industry-specific vertical search engines

Internet marketing strategy

As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work, what people search for, the actual search terms or keywords typed into search engines and which search engines are preferred by their targeted audience.

Editing techniques

Optimizing a website may involve editing its content, HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines.

Increase inbound links

Promoting a site to increase the number of backlinks, or inbound links, is another SEO tactic.

SEO services

The plural of the abbreviation SEO can also refer to "search engine optimizers," those who provide SEO services.

Getting indexed

The leading search engines, such as Google, Bing and Yahoo!, use crawlers to find pages for their algorithmic search results. Pages that are linked from other search engine indexed pages do not need to be submitted because they are found automatically.

Two major directories, the Yahoo Directory and DMOZ, both require manual submission and human editorial review.

Google offers Google Search Console, for which an XML Sitemap feed can be created and submitted for free to ensure that all pages are found, especially pages that are not discoverable by automatically following links in addition to their URL submission console.

Search engine crawlers may look at a number of different factors when crawling a site. Not every page is indexed by the search engines. Distance of pages from the root directory of a site may also be a factor in whether or not pages get crawled.

Increasing prominence

A variety of methods can increase the prominence of a webpage within the search results.

  • Cross linking between pages of the same website to provide more links to important pages may improve its visibility.
  • Writing content that includes frequently searched keyword phrase, so as to be relevant to a wide variety of search queries will tend to increase traffic.
  • Updating content so as to keep search engines crawling back frequently can give additional weight to a site.
  • Adding relevant keywords to a web page's meta data, including the title tag and meta description, will tend to improve the relevancy of a site's search listings, thus increasing traffic.
  • URL normalization of web pages accessible via multiple urls, using the canonical link element or via 301 redirects can help make sure links to different versions of the url all count towards the page's link popularity score.

See also

External Links

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