Words of the Week: Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of employing techniques to improve non-paid ("organic" or "natural") rankings in the results returned from various Internet search engines, such as Google, Yahoo and Bing (MSN). The higher your website or blog ranks in the search engines for specific keywords, the more likely you are to get traffic from those who use search engines to find what they're looking for.

There are 3 schools of thought when it comes to classifying the types of techniques used to improve your natural search rankings through SEO:

1. White hat
2. Black hat
3. Gray hat

White hat SEO techniques are supposed to use only those methods that search engines recommend for improving your rankings. Such methods revolve around making it easier for search engine "spiders" - robots that check out your pages to see what they're about - to identify what each page in your site is about. These methods can include putting text that's relevant to the page within the Title tag that appears at the top of an Internet browser, including relevant text in headings on the page and in the content of the page (without overdoing it), and placing text within other tags within the code of the page to help spiders understand what the page is about.

Black hat SEO techniques can use a variety of methods that are not approved by the search engines, such as paying for incoming links, hiding text on the page, creating different versions of the page for search spiders and humans. Search engines want to provide the most relevant results to users, so they are constantly on the look out for black hat SEO techniques and if they confirm you are using them, your site could either be penalized in the rankings (such as applying a -50 penalty, which would drop your rankings back 50 points automatically) or completely removed from the search engine's index. If your site is penalized or banned, traffic coming from the search engines will drop off dramatically.

Gray hat SEO techniques fall somewhere in between white and black hat, or use a combination of white hat and black hat techniques.

There are some who believe that ALL search engine optimization is black hat, since all SEO, to them, is an attempt to "manipulate" the search results. It's probably closer to the truth to say that nearly all SEO is "gray hat" - by accident, by ignorance of the search engines' guidelines, or by design.

Organic SEO vs. Paid Search Ads
Unlike paid search results (the ads you see within the search results pages), organic SEO may require an up-front investment, ongoing efforts, or, ideally a combination of the two. With paid search advertising (PPC), your traffic disappears immediately once you stop paying for your ads. On the other hand, the efforts you or your Internet marketing services firm put into organic SEO will continue bringing you traffic from the search engines - at least to some extent - well after you've stop putting time and money into your SEO campaign. Ideally though, you should keep paying attention to organic SEO for your website, even if you scale back your efforts after the initial campaign. This is because your competitors will be doing what they can to overtake you in the search rankings, so you should not just sit back and do nothing and still expect strong traffic from the search engines.

Related:

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - Defined
• DIY Search Engine Optimization Tutorial
• Organic Search Engine Optimization (SEO)