The acronym SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. To go into more detail, Search Engine Optimization is the practice of utilizing search engine results and rankings to propagate an individual’s product or concept by increasing one’s online visibility, thus maximizing one’s potential to be reached by prospective customers or viewers.
Often, it is easier for SEOs to leave their description of their work to a vague proclamation like that above, but just as often we are discussing our practices with clients who genuinely want to understand what it is SEOs offer. As the intent of this particular post is to simply brush the surface, and stay largely general, lets get the basics out of the way.
Here is an example of SEO at work:
Chet, the morning shift manager at the Toothbrush Emporium is interested in impressing his boss with an increase of online toothbrush sales, as the new website is failing to attract customers, but Chet is inept in the ways of online marketing.
Chet talks to a couple of his buddies, one of whom was the web developer who helped Chet talk his boss into launching a website in the first place. Chet’s friend, (lets call him Biff) relates to Chet that although the Toothbrush Emporium is now represented online, the website in question is only very basic. As specified by Chet’s boss, the website was largely designed around having an eye catching front page as opposed to being generally easy to navigate.
Biff had been happy to provide artfully deigned banners and custom fonts for ToothBrushEmporium.com, as the design work gave him extra billable hours. This being said, due to the expenditure of funds and efforts towards aesthetics, many important elements of the website were left undefined, no keywords were selected, and no real effort was made to insure that descriptions were well written and the content of the website was easy to follow.
Biff relates to Chet that many the clients of his web design business had additionally employed Search Engine Optimizers to help boost their web visibility. It was these individual’s trade to make sure that when the major search engines “crawled” their customer’s sites, important information was made accessible to the search engine. (Having easy to access content was one of the criteria to which the search engines rated websites when determining rankings.)
Chet reads a little on his own, downloads a few tools to check things such as back-links, (the links that are linked back to ToothBrushEmporium.com) and keyword efficiency. When Chet is satisfied that he has a general idea of what these and other related terms mean, he contacts an SEO consultant who runs a bevy of reports for ToothBrushEmporium.com.
Upon completion of the reports, Chet’s SEO consultant goes over the results and suggests to Chet that rather then trying to rank in the search engines for the word toothbrush, a more cost efficient keyword would be organic toothpaste, which is a less competitive ranking term, but one which sees more return on investment or ROI.
Chet and his boss Joe go over the sales of their website over the next few months and realize that they have taken in the number 2 spot on Google for the search Organic Toothpaste!
Not only has the website achieved the number 2 ranking, but their SEO (lets call him Frank) explains to them that as their relevance in the search engines has increased, so has their catalog of back-links to other products. (Many happy customers had taken to linking to ToothBrushEmporium.com after enjoying the organic toothpaste.) All the talk on the website of satisfied customer’s blogs has opened up further business, and the website has moved up in the ranks for “travel tooth care kits” and they are even showing in results for “Toothbrush” (albeit at rank 10.)
This explanation has of course been simplified for the sake of easier reading, but it contains the premise of what Search Engine Optimizers do. In posts to come we will further explore what SEO is, and will delve into the specific tactics that are often employed.
Alex Bruner
Sr. Account Manager
Shade Tree Marketing
Tags: basics
Chet, Biff, and Frank eh? LOL (btw I turned comments on)
Yeah you don’t recognize the names? Chet, Biff, Frank and Joe are all names of the characters in The Hardy Boys