What is Search Engine Optimization?

Search Engine Optimization is a process that uses the most targeted keyword phrases related to your site to ensure high ranks in search engines it is your site that shows up on the top. Basically, the HTML and the Meta tags of your website must contain enough density of a specific word. Though most popular search sites (Google, Yahoo!, MSN Live, Ask, etc.) keep their methods/ranking algorithms secret they use generally similar methods, though the secret does significantly deter people who try and rig the system (thus returning irrelevant results for searches).

A search engine uses hundreds of factors while ranking websites where the factors themselves and the weight each carries continually change. Algorithms of web crawlers differ so greatly that a webpage that ranks #1 in a particular search engine could rank #300 in another search engine. New sites do not need to be "submitted" to search engines to be listed (though it is advised). A simple link from a well established site will get the search engines to visit the new site and begin to spider its contents- a effective method for only well-established businesses who have connections with other websites.

After all, who would link to some start-up site that might reduce the perceived quality of the linking website? It can, however, take a few days (even weeks) from the referring of a link from a well-known and crawled site for all the main search engine spiders to commence visiting and indexing the new (linked) site. There has sprouted an industry around finding the right keywords with which to populate one’s site for the many who cannot determine the correct words themselves. Search engine placement can make or break business.