Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

This is a topic that I had to research recently for a class I am taking in graduate school. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a technique for increasing the traffic to a web site from search engines. (e.g., Google, Yahoo!) In a nutshell, SEO involves tagging, designing web site content using keywords and metadata (information about data), and designing web site structure for efficient accessibility by search engines algorithms and web crawlers to find information more effectively.

The desired goal of SEO is to attain a higher ranking for a specific web site that results in the site showing up in the first page or initial few pages where most users tend to click on a resulting link before moving onto another search or simply abandoning the result set. This in effect makes the web site appear to be more relevant to the user in the search result listing. The reason why search result set relevance and position is critical is because of the observed behavior where most web users tend to use the first page of a search result listing most of the time. Subsequent pages in the search result listing are used by a much lower percent of web users as the search engines become more efficient due to SEO techniques and continual improvements to search engine algorithms.

Search engine optimization means ensuring that your Web pages or site is accessible to search engines and are designed in ways that help improve the chances they will be found. ("Intro to SEO")

Some decent simple SEO Examples are described here. There are many techniques that make your web site "SEO Friendly". One simple technique is to choose a SEO Friendly Domain name. Let' say you have a web site that contains SEO information. If your site is located at mysite.com, it is not a very good "SEO friendly" domain since it is difficult for a search engine to figure out that your site contains SEO information.

On the other hand, if you named your site search-engine-optimization-info.com it would be considered more "SEO friendly" by its name alone. Using this domain name any search engine can figure out from the domain name alone that your site probably has SEO related content. (e.g., cars.com, salesforce.com)

According to Google, SEO is an abbreviation for "search engine optimizer." Many SEOs and other agencies and consultants provide useful services for website owners, from writing copy to giving advice on site architecture and helping to find relevant directories to which a site can be submitted. What is an SEO? Google's definition. Google does not have any relationships iwth SEO organizations and does not make recommendations. However, they do provide tips on choosing an SEO and information on what will make a search engine drop your site from their search results entirely

Additionally, Google provides a wealth of information about its search results, improving site rankings, and tips that help Google's crawlers find your web information more efficiently and effectively. With Google representing the majority of web search today, approximately 67% as of March 2008 and growing, it is wise to know how to optimize your web sites for Google web crawlers.

I also found some really decent material on SEO techniques here.