What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
To The Knowledgeable and The Experts
What’s great about the search industry is that every professional is willing to help a client, a fellow professional, or the public in general by the services they sell or by the information they share. This is why you’ll get to know the great SEO’s and online marketers through their websites, social media profiles, and their blogs.
To my fellow SEO’s / SEM’s, and Online Marketing professionals, I don’t need to explain to you in detail what Search Engine Optimization is all about. I know for a fact that you’ve read hundreds of definitions and you even coined one for yourself.
But let me just give a brief run down of what our profession is all about…
To The Curious Public
When I do basic training to my junior SEO’s and link builders, I always show them these amazing quotes from a few of the most recognized SEO’s ahead of me (and hoping that in the future, someone will also quote me as well) to give them:
- “Search engine optimization is often about making small modifications to parts of your website. When viewed individually, these changes might seem like incremental improvements, but when combined with other optimizations, they could have a noticeable impact on your site’s user experience and performance in organic search results.” Google SEO Starter Guide
- “I define SEO as the act of generating unpaid traffic from search engines” Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land.
- “SEO is the active practice of optimizing a web site by improving internal and external aspects in order to increase the traffic the site receives from search engines. Firms that practice SEO can vary; some have a highly specialized focus, while others take a more broad and general approach. Optimizing a web site for search engines can require looking at so many unique elements that many practitioners of SEO (SEOs) consider themselves to be in the broad field of website optimization (since so many of those elements intertwine).” SEOMoz.Org.
- “The art and science of publishing information and marketing it in a manner that helps search engines understand your information is relevant to relevant search queries. SEO consists largely of keyword research, SEO copywriting, information architecture, link building, brand building, building mindshare, reputation management, and viral marketing.” Aaron Wall of SEOBook.Com.
- “It is the thought process of lateral thinking and understanding of website creation and marketing combined that matters most. It is a line of thinking that necessitates doing what is optimal: when to balance user experience with ‘bot experience’ to create a site that will harvest any legitimate traffic without detriment to conversions, or without venturing into areas beyond the given risk threshold for the project.” Todd Malicoat of StuntDubl.Com.
- “Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the art and science of continuously improving elements in a website to improve its search engine rankings and website traffic.” Dave Erickson Fuentes of SaktoSEO – Small Business SEO & Conversion Optimization
It will take me approximately 90 minutes or roughly 30-35 slides of presentation to explain to you the basic steps towards an effective organic SEO. So let me just show you the SEO Pyramid from SEOmoz.Org which summarizes the fundamentals in hierarchy of importance. This pyramid serves as a guide of implementation and strategy to most SEO’s including myself.
How To do SEO
to be updated soon…