Seo- Watered Down for Executives

SEO- Watered Down for Executives

Researched and Authored by: Michael J. Spindler



The topic of this research project paper is going to cover a marketing technique call SEO (Search Engine Optimization). SEO applies to optimizing a web site to generate organic results when a user searches for a keyword in a search engine. The majority of the websites customers visit has to do with a website having a high placement ranking, usually within the top 20 results for that specific string of keywords that the customer entered. The four major search engines in use today: Google, Yahoo, MSN Live Search, and Ask. Each operates with a specific set of search algorithms designed to produce the most relevant content the user has searched for.

“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.” (SEOmoz, 2008) The internal components include keyword usage, originality of content, along with other modifications that the average person would never see, usually incorporated into the HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) of the page itself. External components include how valued the information is by other sites. If a website has information that is seen as useful or even as an authoritative expert on a subject matter, other sites will place links on their sites leading to site of interest. The popularity of a site is determined by the number of inbound links to that site. Which in turns tells search engines that value and thus ranks the page higher than others, which is why a customer see pages that have more relevance closer to the number one search result.

The business research behind the article and the purpose is simple. A business can have the most exciting and innovative products to bring to the market over the internet. But no customer is going to come shopping if they cannot find the companies website. With millions of websites and garbage sites that flood the web, it would take a customer a great deal of digging to locate this business. But with SEO, a site that has been optimized and continuously modifies to maintain a higher page rank will generate the most traffic and make the most sales. SEO is the modern marketing tool. SEO is both low cost in comparison to advertising, plus customers results with a hit to a businesses web page through organic search results in a feeling of trust that this business site may meet the needs of quickly obtaining the requested data.

The problem with SEO is that this from of marketing is an evolving field. Search engines, primarily Google, are always looking for ways to provide better search result for customers. By changing search algorithms, the “rules” and techniques of SEO to help page rank are constantly changing. The business is that of “cat and mouse.” A change in Goggles’ algorithm can easily knock a page that once ranked number one to a 1000th position.

Search engines are always working towards improving their technology to crawl the web more deeply and return increasingly relevant results to users. However, there is and will always be a limit to how search engines can operate. Whereas the right moves can net you thousands of visitors and attention, the wrong moves can hide or bury your site deep in the search results where visibility is minimal. (SEOmoz, 2008)

The parties involved with conducting research through trial and error is an entire community of Search Engines, webmasters, marketing firms, and any business that has a presence on the internet. The SEO industry itself has become a multi-million dollar service to help customer stay in the top search results. The party that learns the new secrets of how to keep websites in a high ranking will prevail in the marketing world. “Experience has shown that search engine traffic can make (or break) an organization's success. Targeted visitors to a website can provide publicity, revenue, and exposure like no other.” (SEOmoz, 2008)

The article selected for this research paper gathers information from well know related SEO sites as well as statistics that are made available from multiple search engine companies. The material presented, is a watered down version in layman terms to help a beginner better understand the principles and processes that go into SEO.





References - Do Not Strip Article References

SEOmoz (2008). Beginner's Guide - What is SEO?. Retrieved March 30, 2008, from http://www.seomoz.org/article/bg1


Researched and Authored by: Michael J. Spindler

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