Wikipedia.org, the free encyclopedia, defines Search Engine Optimization (SEO) as:
Search engine optimization (SEO) as a subset of search engine marketing seeks to improve the number and quality of visitors to a web site from "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results. The quality of visitor traffic can be measured by how often a visitor using a specific keyword leads to a desired conversion action, such as making a purchase or requesting further information. In effect, SEO is marketing by appealing first to machine algorithms to increase search engine relevance and secondly to human visitors. The term SEO can also refer to "search engine optimizers", an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients.
Search engine optimization is available as a stand-alone service or as a part of a larger marketing campaign. Because SEO often requires making changes to the source code of a site, it is often most effective when incorporated into the initial development and design of a site, leading to the use of the term "Search Engine Friendly" to describe designs, menus, Content management systems and shopping carts that can be optimized easily and effectively.
A range of strategies and techniques are employed in SEO, including changes to a site's code (referred to as "on page factors") and getting links from other sites (referred to as "off page factors"). These techniques include two broad categories: techniques that search engines recommend as part of good design, and those techniques that search engines do not approve of and attempt to minimize the effect of, referred to as spamdexing. Some industry commentators classify these methods, and the practitioners who utilize them, as either "white hat SEO" or "black hat SEO". Other SEOs reject the black and white hat dichotomy as an over-simplification.
"White hat" methods
An SEO tactic, technique or method is considered "White hat" if it conforms to the search engines' guidelines and/or involves no deception. As the search engine guidelines are not written as a series of rules or commandments, this is an important distinction to note. White Hat SEO is not just about following guidelines, but is about ensuring that the content a search engine indexes and subsequently ranks is the same content a user will see.
White Hat advice is generally summed up as creating content for users, not for search engines, and then make that content easily accessible to their spiders, rather than game the system. In many ways, white hat SEO is very similar to web development that promotes accessibility, although the two are not identical.
"Black hat" methods
"Black hat" SEO are methods to try to improve rankings that are disapproved of by the search engines and/or involve deception. This can range from text that is "hidden", either as text colored similar to the background or in an invisible or left of visible div, or by redirecting users from a page that is built for search engines to one that is more human friendly. As a general rule, a method that sends a user to a page that was different from the page the search engine ranked is Black hat. One well known example is Cloaking, the practice of serving one version of a page to search engine spiders/bots and another version to human visitors.
Search engines can and do penalize sites they discover using black hat methods, either by reducing their rankings or eliminating their listings from their databases altogether. Such penalties can be applied either automatically by the search engines' algorithms, or by a manual review of a site.
Meta Tag Basics
There are a few basic "rules" for good Meta tag data.
- The Title, Description and Keyword tags are the basic tags to begin an SEO foundation.
- For best SEO, you want every public page to have its own Title
and Description tags, using the highly relevant keywords for the page.
The value of every page having its own custom Keyword tag is debatable,
however, if your pages are very different with a lot of unique keywords
that won't apply to other site pages, then it would be a good bet to
give each unique page its own Keyword tag, too.
- You want to be sure that you do not over-use the same
keywords. The total use of keywords is considered by the search
engines, counting all three tags together. So be careful to not repeat
a keyword more than three or four times. More than that can be
considered keyword spamming by some search engines, and can be
penalized.
- The "big three" have descending importance. For instance, use
your strongest, most important keywords in the Title tag, then get what
you can into the Description tag, as these receive the most use. This
also applies within each tag. Use the most important words at the
beginning of the tag.
- Best way to start building your tags? Figure out the best keywords for your site page. List search terms you would like new visitors to use to find your Web page, check the search popularity of the words/terms, and look at your competitor's sites and see what their tags say, and how they rank in the search engines. This will all help you build a short list of highly relevant keywords and search phrases. Once you have the list, prioritize the words/phrases by importance, whether it is your importance or by search popularity is up to you. Use the very best ones in your Title tag and work your way down the priority list.
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