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SEO what does it mean to You?

Written by: Keith Stephenson

Article Overview: In this fast changing world we seem to be obsessed with acronyms and in world of web design and web marketing SEO is without doubt the most important one. This article introduces the basics of SEO and is the beginning of a journey of plain English information. Any active web site owner will be aware of the term SEO, but with many web masters, web designers and web developers not conversant in the best practices for effective SEO and some totally oblivious to even basic SEO design practices it’s not surprising the web business owner is frustrated and feeling very much in the dark. With my series of articles I hope to turn on the light for the business owner so as to empower them to make the decisions required to both comprehend the essential basics of SEO and to implement a positive approach to change.

Free Download - Successful Keyword Research PART 1 By Keith Stephenson

SEO what does it mean to You?

SEO ~ what does it mean to you?

It seems we are living in a world full of 3 letter acronyms, and when it comes to web site effectiveness then SEO is certainly one of the most important ones.

What is SEO and what does it mean to you? For those of you who don’t know, SEO is the abbreviation for Search Engine Optimisation. A phrase that didn’t even exist in the vocabulary a decade ago, now ‘SEO’ has gained over 140 million references on Google in less than 10 years.

According to wilkipedia.org their definition of SEO is:
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results.
http://en.wilkipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization

The Key words in this statement are ‘natural’ and ‘algorithmic’ – What that means is that the growth in your customer traffic to your site should be acquired by natural searches [organic] and working within the ethical algorithmic framework as determined by the Search Engines.

What is an ethical algorithmic framework?
All search engines, such as Google, have their own unique algorithm which is not published but is a secret in-house formula which is constantly updated and improved to meet the needs of searchers and to prevent smart web masters getting the better of them. I first created a web site way back in January 1996 within a year of the World Wide Web coming to the UK. Few knew what a web site was let alone what to do with it, or how terms like SEO were going to become synonymous with web site marketing and how crucial SEO would become.

SEO ~ is it important to you?
If you have a web site and want customers to see it, then SEO is vitally important to you. As a web owner and businessman I understand the necessity of quality customer traffic that will make a purchase decision on your web site. There is little point in having a fantastic, stylish web site with great products or services if few people ever find it and look at it. It’s like being the best dressed person with nowhere to go. If you can put to good use an effective and ethical SEO strategy then you will see a tangible financial result, important for a return on your investment.

Over the coming articles I hope to dispel some of the myths of SEO Web Marketing and to share some of the experiences and practical knowledge that I have learned over the past decade, which have cost me a great deal of money to acquire.

I hope I can help some of you better understand this subject which is sometimes shrouded in mystery by some web practitioners as the mystical art of SEO potion making. It certainly is not magic but it can be in the form of Black or White styles, which is a topic for another article.

Firstly, I would like to thank Evan Carmichael for their invitation. I hope you will find this information of value of the practical applications of SEO and how it can be used to improve your business profitability and ROI and make your web site really work for you.

SEO ~ Search Engine Optimisation – Lesson 1
There are No Quick Fix SEO Solutions
When you receive those emails claiming to have looked at your web site and that they can catapault your web site to the top 10 of Google’s SERPS (Natural Rankings) within weeks or several months – IGNORE THEM. If it was that easy then we would all do it. Yet, surprisingly, I still talk to business owners who fall for it either through naivety or desperation or both.

Search Engines are smart and certainly smarter than the vast majority of these programmes and methods. Webmasters are constantly trying to get the handle on Google’s algorithm and as fast as they thought they had cracked it Google comes along with another update and moves the goal posts.

In the early days it was possible for the enlightened webmasters to ‘manipulate’ the rankings to a large degree but it was only a matter of time until Google’s technical team strengthened their algorithm to close that particular door to that specific manipulation. So smart have Google’s methods become, it is probably easier to get into the Pentagon than it would be to unravel the mystery of Google’s secret and closely guarded algorithm code.

If you remember one thing from this first article, then let it be to wake up to the reality of not falling for those ‘Quick Fix Promises’. If you want to climb the Google ladder and the other search engines, such as Yahoo and MSN, then you must first accept it’s going to take TIME, EFFORT and a little bit of MONEY.

I intend to explain in further articles just how much time, effort and cost you need to budget for and how to apply some very practical ethical SEO practices to your web sites without breaking the bank.

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Article Tags: algorithmic framework, Google, Google, search engines, SEO, SEO Solutions

About the Author: Keith Stephenson
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My name is Keith Stephenson a 52 yr old Brit working in England with over 11 years web business experience. I created my first web site for my Health Insurance brokerage in January 1996. I created a further 24 product specific web sites for my general insurance business over the decade. Having sold the business in 2005 to concentrate on my silk import business I set up a web design business, I am now pleased to share my experiences and information that I have learnt in this ever changing web industry.

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