Unified Technology Solutions

Q & A – What is Search Engine Optimization?

Question: What is Search Engine Optimization?

Answer: Search engines (such as Google) are the way most people navigate the internet today; searchers ask Google their question and Google returns what it believes to be the best answer. The main goal of search engine optimization (often referred to as “SEO”) is to have the best answer for the right question. So what does that mean?

Have the Best Answer
You want to have the best information available on the topic the searcher is asking about. The objective of having “the best answer” is to appear prominently in the search results for a particular word or phrase. The higher your website appears in the list of results, the more visitors it will attract. Ideally, you’d like to be at the top of the results list, but this usually isn’t feasible.

Answer the Right Question
This objective is a little less obvious and it’s often overlooked. Showing up at the top of the search results page is useless if your content isn’t relevant to what the searcher is looking for. If you own a music store that sells steel drums, you probably don’t want to attract visitors looking for steel drums of the industrial variety.

Optimizing Your Website
There are three major components that should be part of every SEO plan:

• Create targeted, unique content – answer the right question. Make your website a resource on whatever topic you focus on and keep your visitors coming back for more.
• Obtain inbound links – get your colleagues, vendors, and customers to link to your website from theirs. Search engines see this as a referral and it serves to boost your credibility; you look like you have the best answer.
• Ensure that your website is accessible to search engines – the best answer to the right question is useless if the search engines don’t know about it. Make sure you select a web design firm that is knowledgeable on web standards and search engine friendly design.

Beware “Black Hat” Practices
One last (but very important!) point. Beware of companies that promise to get you a #1 ranking in the search engine results or a certain number of visitors in the first 30 days. SEO is a long-term, ongoing effort. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Companies that make these promises can often deliver, but use underhanded techniques to do so. When the search engines discover the use of these techniques, they will remove you from their listings entirely and it can take months to get your site back into them.