What Is Search Engine Optimization?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a generic term covering a variety of tactics done with the goal of increasing website ranking on search engines for specific keywords or phrases. SEO affects ranking in the "organic" or "natural" search results areas on search engine results pages (SERP's). SEO is important because you cannot "just pay search engines to be at the top". Search engines are generally fair, objective and subsequently provide opportunity for a business to rise to the top at any time - regardless of their size. SEO services are the only proven way to create and improve search engine ranking.

SEO Is Not Bad unless you use it to trick search engines, such as making a page seem like it is about one subject when in fact it is about something totally different. SEO is essentially using the practices that search engines prefer and require in order to understand a website or website page's subject matter, and to "dress up" the website or page to obtain high visibility ranking. SEO is to search engines, what advertising is to consumers. It does what is required to gain visibility and persuade a person to take action. Contrary to the belief of many, Google fully approves of ethical, white-hat SEO. The following video is by Matt Cutts, who is a prinicipal engineer at Google.

Each search engines utilize a proprietary process called algorithms to evaluate the value of a website or web page relevant to the users search term. Algorithms vary between search engines, criteria is not public information, and algorithms are often revised. Due to the complexities and uncertanties involved in SEO services, a SEO company must rely on established SEO principles, keen observation skills, thousands of hours of experience, and ongoing study to remain qualified to manage successful SEO services. Google provides videos on SEO best practices which help to explain certain aspects in detail.

What is Black Hat SEO? Black hat SEO describes the unethical, cheating SEO tactics that violate practice standards set by search engines. Black hat SEO tactics can very quickly achieve great ranking results, however this is akin to saying that robbing a bank can make you rich very quickly. The ill-gotten gains will just as quickly be taken away,and penalties will follow. Black hat practices include doorway pages, cloaking, invisible text, keyword stuffing and stealing content from other websites. Black hat SEO is something that should never be done. First, it simply is not the right thing to do, and second, it can cause your website to be completely banned from search engine results.

What is White Hat SEO? White hat SEO tactics are the ethical and legitimate ways to achieve ranking success. With white hat SEO your site meets acceptable web standards, does not involve tricking search engines, and serves the best interests of the internet user. White hat SEO includes sound practices such as development of original and informative content, utilization of tags and title attributes, intra-site page linking, coding that meets W3C validation standards, off-page link building, and more. SEO companies that use only white hat SEO tactics generally have no problem in discussing how they achieve SEO results. We provide only white-hat SEO services.

How Do You Do SEO? It depends. For example, the competitive intensity of your industry, the quality of your website, and your budget will determine what should or can be done. A quality SEO Company will develop a customized strategy for every SEO client using a checklist of basic white-hat techniques. From there, it is critical to identify short term and long term goals, find immediate opportunites for success and develop a strategic SEO process.

A true SEO process requires a significant amount of time to complete competitor research, use specialized software for keyword or key phrase research, and to then develop, refine, and prioritize the words or phrases to be targeted as part of the SEO process. An effective SEO process is deliberate, targeted and specific. Your SEO company should be able and willing to show you the terms that they have identified and are pursuing - otherwise they are backfilling reports with whatever rankings they have found to "prove success".

Is SEO The Same Thing As Pay Per Click (PPC)? No. Pay-per-Click (PPC) are paid listings on search engines which are usually found in a narrow column on the right hand side of results pages. We offer PPC management services, however SEO will always provide a far better ROI.