Search Engine Optimization - SEO - Explained

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via natural ("organic" or "algorithmic")  or unnatural (e.g. "linkspam" or "cloaking") search results. The natural method is called whitehat SEO, the unnatural method is called blackhat SEO.
 
Normally, the more a site is presented in the search result pages (SERPs), and the higher it "ranks," the more searchers/ users will visit that site. SEO can also target various kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.
 

As a marketing strategy for increasing a site's popularity and relevancy, SEO`s consider how search algorithms work and what people search for. SEO efforts involve a site's coding, presentation, and structure, as well as fixing problems that could prevent search engine indexing programs from fully spidering a site. Other, more noticeable efforts include adding unique content to a site, and making sure that the content is easily indexed by search engines and also appeals to human visitors.
 
The acronym "SEO" also refers to "Search Engine Optimizers," a term adopted by an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients, and by employees who perform SEO services in-house. Search engine optimizers usually offer SEO as a stand-alone service or as a part of a broader marketing campaign.Since effective SEO may require changes to the HTML source code of a site, SEO tactics may be incorporated into web site development and design. The term "search engine friendly" may also be used to describe web site designs, menus, content management systems and for a more difficult example, shopping carts.
 

SEO companies that employ overly aggressive techniques can even get their client websites banned from the search results (blackhat SEO). In the year 2005, the Wall Street Journal profiled a company, Traffic Power, that allegedly used high-risk techniques and failed to disclose those risks to its clients. Wired reported the same company sued a blogger for mentioning that they were being banned. Google's Matt Cutts later confirmed that Google did in fact ban Traffic Power and some of its clients as well.
 

Few search engines have also reached out to the SEO industry, and are frequent sponsors and guests at SEO conferences and seminars. In fact, with the advent of paid inclusion, some search engines have a vested interest in the health of the optimization community. Major search engines give information and guidelines to help with site optimization.
 
Google for example has a program called Google Webmaster-Tools to help webmasters learn if Google is having any problems indexing their website and also provides a wide range of data on Google traffic, PageRank, crawling, errors and much more, to the website.
 
Yahoo! is also very active in getting in touch with webmasters. The Yahoo! Site Explorer provides a way for webmasters to submit their URLs, determine how many pages are in the Yahoo! index and view link information easily.
 
The Yahoo! site explorer and Google Webmaster-Tools are under constant development and new features are beeing added regularily.
 
Here you can find the latest news from the Search Engine Industry.
Here you can find the latest Search Engine Optimization News.
Here you can find the latest news on Search Engine Marketing.
Here you can find more Information on Blackhat SEO and Spam Techniques.