Search Engine Optimization & Search Engine Marketing

Search Engines - The Basics

One of the most talked about, yet least understood aspect of marketing your web site is the search engine. In very general terms search engines "spider" (search) the web and gather information on the sites that they find. This information is then added to the search engine's database. When a user enters a search word or phrase, the search engine retrieves the appropriate listings from its database and displays the results in order of relevancy (most relevant first). Although many search engines have much of the same information in their databases, the search results for a particular word or phrase will often differ, sometimes significantly. This is because different search engines use different algorithms to determine which sites in their database are the most relevant to the users request.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

The goal of search engine optimization is to get your site ranked well in the top search engines for the appropriate keywords for your business. Search engine optimization can be broken down into 3 basic steps. 1) Identify the appropriate keywords for your business. 2) Revise your website as necessary to use the keywords appropriately throughout the site. 3) Obtain links to your site from other related, quality websites. Obviously that is a very high level look at search engine optimization. When we work with a customer to optimize their site for search engines we spend a lot of time education the customer about how search engines work, how to select appropriate keywords and what changes should be made to the site and why. Currently many of our customers enjoy top rankings in most of the major search engines for their chosen keywords.