What is Search Engine Optimization?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a set of tasks designed to get a web site onto the first page of a search engine's results for one or more desirable keyword phrases.

There are 2 parts to the SEO process...

Content
Back-links

Part One: Content

The first step in the SEO process is the optimization of content on each page of the site. The goal is to have each page indexed by search engines for useful keywords. This involves making sure the things search engines use to classify a web page are all present and correct.

Part Two: Back-links

In part two, you set out to persuade search engines that your site is more useful than its main competitors. This is usually achieved via links back to your site.

The SEO Process:

Another way to look at the SEO process is to think of it like this...

In part one you tell search engines how to index your site correctly In part two you demonstrate that your site is useful
SEO isn't complicated. The plain fact is – anyone can do it. As you're about to find out, you really can get your site to page one of Google.

Time-saving tools:

The SEO process includes several time-consuming activities. Fortunately, there are tools that automate much of this work. What's more, many of them are free.

In this book, I introduce each new tool when it's needed rather than all at once. That way, it's easy to see what a particular tool is used for and where it fits in to the overall SEO process.

I also list the best SEO tools in section three, so you can quickly find a specific tool when you need it.

How does a search engine work?

A search engine gets information about your site by visiting it, and collecting data on the words and phrases it finds there. These visits are performed by millions of computer programs called spiders. Spiders 'crawl' the web (hence the name spider), and send back information about the sites they find.

This information is used to create an enormous index. A search engine's index is similar to the index found at the back of many text books. Each web page gets a brief description, and is associated with one or more keywords in the index.

The challenge for a search engine is to understand what the content of any given web page is about. You and I can tell at a glance. As a search engine lacks the ability to understand the meaning behind words and phrases, it builds its index around keywords.

For example, take a web page named lead-generation.html that has the title 'lead generation', and several occurrences of the keyword phrase 'lead generation' in the page content. The search engine notices the number of times the phrase 'lead generation' shows up on the page, and indexes it accordingly.

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