Search Engine Optimization

It has been estimated that more than 80% of the traffic to any website comes from search engines. If your site is to really benefit, it is not enough if it is included in the search engine results.

Search Engine Optimization

It has been estimated that more than 80% of the traffic to any website comes from search engines. If your site is to really benefit, it is not enough if it is included in the search engine results. It should come at the top of the list somewhere in the first pages or at least the first few pages. Beyond that it is of practically no use. The effort of every web master is therefore to have his or her site obtain top ranking in search engine results.

To achieve this end, Search Engine Optimization is used. Search engine optimization can be done by engaging professionals such as AVR Limited and by using specialized tools that perform this function.

Search engines display the results on their searches according to certain complex criteria that take into account a number of factors, including meta tag keywords, website content, inbound links, and a number of undisclosed factors. Complex algorithms are used to list out the most relevant results first using these parameters as input.

In the earlier days of their history, search engines depended mostly on META tag keywords that were given by the web masters themselves. However, it was possible to increase rankings under this method by submitting popular keywords that had no relevance to the content. This resulted in search engines returning results that were not relevant to the search. As survival of search engines became a matter of concern and depended on their efficiency, search engines were forced to evolve new criteria that would overcome these problems.

Google, which made its appearance in the late 1990s used complex algorithms to improve the quality of its search. Along with this, its simple format appealed to Internet users, and Google soon became the Number One search engine – a position that it retains till date.

By this time, it had become clear to search engines that relying only on the keywords submitted by the web master was fraught with many weaknesses that included the scope for web masters to manipulate the results by including irrelevant keywords. The search engines reacted by including other factors such as inbound links. Soon it was possible to manipulate these as well through means that came to be known as link spamming. These involved buying and selling or exchanging links and the creation of several sites for the purpose of providing such links. Although it is possible to employ these methods to improve rankings, if found, they can result in the sites that use such methods being banned from individual search engines.

To avoid such manipulations, the recent trend among search engines is to include a number of undisclosed parameters to execute the search, and rank the results. Each search engine has its own criteria for displaying its results. The objective of the webmaster is to bring in traffic that is good in quantity and quality. The inbound traffic to a site should be relevant as well as high. At the same time the site needs to gain high rankings and good visibility on major search engines. This means that the site needs to be designed keeping in mind the requirements of search engines. This objective is met by search engine optimization.

Search Engine results can be improved by good practices that include good website design, and quality of content. The results can also be improved by unethical methods that search engines do not approve of. Consequently, there are two broad types of search engine optimization – white hat and black hat. If your focus is on the customer, and you try to provide relevant and good content to the customer, and use search engines to highlight this relevance, you are benefiting everyone concerned – the end user, the search engine and you. That is the approach of white hat SEO. Black hat SEO, on the other hand relies on deceptive methods to falsify the presentation, and achieve artificially high rankings that benefit no one in the final analysis.

All of the above imply just one thing. Improve the quality of your website and try to get rankings on the basis of the real value of your website. Your objective of getting quality traffic into your site will be better served by such an approach. For this purpose, you may have to engage professional help to take care of Search Engine Optimization. Good professionals will look into a number of factors including your website design, content, menus, shopping carts and so on, and suggest changes in these. Professionals also study the algorithms used by search engines and devise ways to highlight your site’s strengths in the light of the requirements, rather than use a manipulative approach.

Finally, although Search engine results are important to any site owner, real results may depend on other factors. Good search engine results do not by themselves guarantee good commercial performance. So you should look at Search Engine Optimization as just one of the means, although an important one, to improve your performance.