What Is Search Engine Optimization? Seo Basics Part 2

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the process aimed at improving the rankings of a website in the search engine results pages, or SERPs.

SEO consultants are often called SEOs for short. SEO began in the early 90’s as search engines began cataloging websites on the internet. Webmasters and website owners discovered that by changing certain factors, they could greatly influence the SERPS.

So Why SEO?

Because search engines provide huge amounts of potential traffic that can make your website successful. This results in increased sales, branding, and exposure. If done correctly, search engine optimization WORKS.

Websites that effectively implement an SEO strategy will see huge improvements in their search rankings and an increase in their bottom line.

The term SEO has become somewhat of a buzzword and is slowly changing to encompass many traditional Internet marketing tasks like pay per click ad campaigns, social media marketing, website design techniques and affiliate marketing strategies. This fusion of SEo and internet marketing strategy has given rise to such terms as search engine marketing, search engine advertising and anumber of other similar labels.

Being effective at SEO involves using and understanding many different types of technology. But before we can get into the nuts and bolts of SEO, there are some terms you need to know for all this to make sense.

Let’s begin with six basic definitions you’ll need to know. If you have lots of experience as a webmaster or are a power user, chances are you’ll probably already be familiar with these terms. Otherwise, stay tuned.

The terms you’ll need to know are: IP address, DNS, Registrar, Whois Search, PageRank and Toolbars.

The IP address or Internet Protocol Address is a unique number assigned to each individual website that tells your Internet browser e.g. IE Explorer or Firefox, where the physical files can be found. An example IP address is 216.239.51.100.

Think of all the computers on the internet and all the billions of web pages. An IP address is a mathematical way of locating any web page available on the Internet. It points to a physical location on a computer connected to the Internet. Every computer connected to the web, from a web server to an individual PC has an IP address.

Luckily for us, you don’t have to memorize IP addresses to view websites. This is because of something called a DNS or Domain Name Service.

A DNS translates the numerical IP address above into a set of specific words. These words then become your domain name.

Registrars are the companies that create and host the records for domain names.

A Whois search is an organized collection of information for domain name records. This includes every domain name owner’s address, phone number, email and more.

PageRank is a formula developed by Google to determine a web page’s inbound link rating. It determines the importance of a web page by analyzing the quality and quantity of links pointing a particular webpage. In short, the higher the page rank of the pages that link to you, the higher the rating they pass on.

In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But Google also looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “important.”

If page A links out to page B, then page B is said to have a backlink from page A. A acklink is a term to remember; we will talk more about it in a later section.

Also note that PageRank is a number that is between 0 and 10, where 10 is the highest rating.

Toolbars are collections of buttons or shortcuts that install into an existing program and offer short-cuts to frequently used commands. They are normally found at the very top of your browser window and have many other functions worth taking the time to explore.

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