Search Engine Optimisation - a brief overview
Over the next few weeks I plan to post a series of articles relating to developing with SEO in mind, and more specifically, tricks and techniques every .Net developer should be aware of when developing a site that requires a strong presence in the search engines. This post is a brief overview of SEO.
Search engine optimization or SEO is a technique used in internet marketing. It involves designing and optimizing a website in a manner that makes it more search engine friendly and more visible online. This is to mean, the website is more easily found by search engines and becomes more relevant to search engine result pages when someone keys in a search word or phrase that corresponds to the content on that site.
The technique uses two methods to achieve this, on-page techniques and off-page techniques. The on-page technique involves developing a search engine compliant website. This entails using content optimization, including a site map, meta tags, website codes and so on. This ensures that all the requirements search engines need in order to distinguish the site are in place.
The second method of achieving search engine optimization is through off-page techniques. This primarily involves link building. This increases traffic or the number of visitors to the site by using other websites. This is an important aspect of search engine optimization as it leverages on the success of other sites to drive traffic to that particular site.
SEO is an important aspect of internet marketing due to the heavy usage of search engines. Most internet users today depend, sometimes exclusively, on search engines to find content on the internet. This said it is obvious to see why any website that would like to see significant visitors to its pages would need to utilize this technique. SEO has therefore become a niche marketing sector and is frequently carried out by SEO professionals that are able to develop an all inclusive SEO campaign for a website.