Search Engine Optimization is the art of helping web pages to rank well in Google and other search engines. Since Google controls a huge percentage of the world’s search volume, any good search engine optimizer will focus on Google, while making sure that the site is capable of also doing well on Yahoo!, MSN, and other search engines that have market share.

Why Sites Need Search Engine Optimization

When a site is set up to be search engine friendly, it will have more favorable locations in Google and other search engines. This will lead to more exposure and ultimately more traffic. There are thousands upon thousands of quality sites online that aren’t doing as well as they could with Google and without question this will take away from their bottom line. Less traffic will always mean less profit.

Search Engine Optimization Basics

To be frank, optimizing a site for search engines is anything but basic. There are literally hundreds of factors that Google and other search engines will consider when they calculate their rankings. In order to give you an idea of what some of these concepts are, here’s a short list of contributing factors:

• Site navigation
• Proper use of text and keywords within the site
• Online popularity of the site as calculated by the site’s link profile
• Site structure and URLs
• Site titles and headings
• Page to page link structure of site
• Proper site mapping