Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the quantity and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines (i.e. Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc…) via “organic” search results for targeted keywords specifically related to your business. Usually, the sooner a site is presented within the “top” search results (listings on left when doing a search) or the higher (on the page) it “ranks”, the more searchers will visit your site.  In essence, SEO defines how search algorithms work and what people search for. 

The term “search engine friendly” is used to describe web site designs, menus, content management systems, URLs, and shopping carts that are easy to navigate and have been optimized for SEO.

As a marketing strategy for increasing a web site’s relevance (thus increasing ranking and in turn site traffic), SEO efforts may involve:

• A web site’s coding, presentation, and structure, as well as resolving problems, which could prevent search engine indexing programs from fully “spidering” your site.
• Efforts may include adding unique content to a web site thus ensuring that content is easily indexed by search engine robots, and making the site more appealing to users.
• Another class of techniques, known as “Black Hat” SEO or spamdexing, use methods such as “link farms” (pay for large quantities of outbound links; many times irrelevant) and “keyword stuffing” (overusing key words within content) that tend to harm search engine user experience. Search engines look for sites that employ these techniques and may remove them from their indices.

In today’s market, you will find many consultants who specialize in search engine optimization, and are paid to carry out optimization initiatives on behalf of their clients and/or by employees who perform SEO services in-house.  Because effective SEO may require changes to the HTML source code of a site, SEO tactics may be incorporated into web site development and design.    

As a Marketing Strategy

Because Americans read left to right and top to bottom, we look for relevant results placed near the top left of results presented and work our way across and down. Placement at or near the top of the rankings therefore increases the number of searchers who will visit our web site. However, more search engine referrals does not guarantee more sales.

SEO is not necessarily an appropriate strategy for every website, and other Internet marketing strategies can be much more effective, depending on the site’s business goals.  A successful Internet marketing campaign may drive organic search traffic to web pages, it may also involve the use of paid advertising on search engines (PPC), and should include building high quality web pages that engage and persuade their audience (otherwise bounce rates will be very high - in turn money and efforts are wasted).  Technical issues that may keep search engines from crawling and indexing web sites should also be addressed, as well as setting up analytics programs to enable web site managers to measure their successes, and improving a site’s conversion rate (keeping and converting visitors into qualified prospects / customers).

In turn, SEO may generate an ROI; however, search engines are not paid for organic search traffic, their algorithms consistently change, and there are no guarantees of continued referrals. Due to this lack of guarantees and certainty, a business that relies heavily on search engine traffic can suffer major losses if the search engines stop sending visitors.  It is considered wise business practice for website operators to liberate themselves from dependence on search engine traffic.  A top ranked SEO blog Seomoz.org has reported, “Search marketers, in a twist of irony, receive a very small share of their traffic from search engines.” Instead, their main sources of traffic are links from other websites.