What is SEO or Search Engine Optimization?
"It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it." - William Somerset Maugham
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is a process of designing or modifying a website so that it ranks high in un-paid, organic listings of search engines. It refers to various strategies and tactics undertaken to make your web page appear higher in a list of search engine results. The higher your website appears in search engine results, the more traffic should flow to your page. Thus, SEO can be a very significant part of your website success.
Search engines (like google, yahoo, msn) have their own secret algorithms that determine which website ranks higher in search results for a perticalur keyword. You cannot pay google to be placed high in their search engine so the only way to get first page rankings in google search is to optimize your website. Google’s exact algorithm is very complex and not known to anyone but there are certain factors that have been tested over time that prove to work effectively across all or most search engines. SEO takes these factors into consideration while improving internal and external aspects of a website during development/design or redesign/optimization.
Some of these factors include rectifying the website structure and content, properly tagging HTML elemnts, focusing content on core keywords, etc. When optimizing your website for search engines keep in mind that your users must also understand your website once they arrive so while developing and designing everyone should keep usability and accessibility in mind. Also, SEO should not be an afterthought, if websites are not designed to be search engine friendly, the redesign process can be very difficult.