What is Search Engine Optimization?

April 27th, 2010 |

When a person searches the internet, they are instantly provided with a list of the top 10 results relating to the keywords they entered. These 10 pages outranked thousands and even millions of other related pages, but why? Many people don’t realize why sites come up in a particular order or how search engines determine which page comes up where for which keywords.

Search Engine Optimization is the art of building, marketing, and maintaining a website in order to rank as highly as possible in search results relating to your site. SEO has many dynamics which can include:

Age of domain
Traffic
Backlinks
Quality of Backlinks
Content
Site Design
Meta
Sitemaps
Keyword Research
Competitive Analysis
and more.

Each search engine has its own set of rules and rank websites based on their unique algorithms. Higher volume keywords are usually more difficult to rank for than site specific terms. Many top companies spend millions per year on internet advertising and SEO to reach and keep these valueable, high traffic spots. It’s highly unlikely for a website to reach these premium positions quickly, without a very large advertising budget. Every website and keyword is different and has to be crafted to fit its target audience in the best possible ways.

It’s estimated that sites which rank in the top five for the given keyword receive up to 75% of search traffic. This means if million searches take place for a keyword, approx 750,000 of those users will click on those top five sites, while the millions of other sites battle for 1/4 of the remaining traffic. It’s easy to see why SEO has become such an important business tool in the last 5 years.

An example of how Search Engine Optimization can help a real world business:

A contractor in Clearwater, Florida has a website and is looking to grow his business. His website ranks well enough to get some search engine traffic and over the years he’s had business generated via his site, but after recently hearing about SEO he decides to purchase a medium sized package. As his site becomes optimized and grows in web presence, his rankings increase, which brings in more traffic. Little did he know beforehand, but his 3 largest competitors have been receiving nearly all the traffic when the locals in Clearwater searched for “quality clearwater contractor”. Within 6 months, our contractor is ranked first page for many local search terms and phrases such as: “clearwater contractor” “local contractor clearwater” and “clearwater florida contractor” and business is good.

SEO will help make your website competitive and get your company seen by more potential customers. Very few business decisions will net the return on investment that quality SEO can bring. Please visit the banners below for specific details regarding each package.