Categorized | SEO Q&A's

How does Search Engine Optimization (SEO) work?

Holly Mig asked:

How do I optimize my web page so that it shows up on Yahoo! and Google search results pages? How does Search Engine Optimization (SEO) work, and what do I need to do to my web page? Thanks!

5 Comments For This Post

  1. John D Says:

    Search engine optimization is a pretty involved process and methods and opinions can sometimes differ. All search engines use different algorithms to rank how websites are displayed and they are usually kept secret, but some of it is known and can be inferred. Older search engines were much easier to exploit (such as Infoseek) as they often only considered a single page so repetition of keywords and placement of terms could bump you to the top. Newer search engines such as Google use other factors often beyond your control to ensure that the top results are more relevant and trustworthy. There are entire sites and books devoted to search engine optimization which provide various tips, but a lot of it just takes time. There’s no single trick to use.

  2. SHADOW777 Says:

    hi
    we have 2 ways to do it
    “White hat” methods
    An SEO tactic, technique or method is considered “White hat” if it conforms to the search engines’ guidelines and/or involves no deception. As the search engine guidelines are not written as a series of rules or commandments, this is an important distinction to note. White Hat SEO is not just about following guidelines, but is about ensuring that the content a search engine indexes and subsequently ranks is the same content a user will see.

    White Hat advice is generally summed up as creating content for users, not for search engines, and then make that content easily accessible to their spiders, rather than game the system. White hat SEO is in many ways similar to web development that promotes accessibility, although the two are not identical

    “Black hat” methods
    “Black hat” SEO are methods to try to improve rankings that are disapproved of by the search engines and/or involve deception. This can range from text that is “hidden”, either as text colored similar to the background or in an invisible or left of visible div, or by redirecting users from a page that is built for search engines to one that is more human friendly. A method that sends a user to a page that was different from the page the search engined ranked is Black hat as a rule. One well known example is Cloaking, the practice of serving one version of a page to search engine spiders/bots and another version to human visitors.

    Search engines may penalize sites they discover using black hat methods, either by reducing their rankings or eliminating their listings from their databases altogether. Such penalties can be applied either automatically by the search engines’ algorithms or by a manual review of a site.

    One infamous example was the February 2006 Google removal of both BMW Germany and Ricoh Germany for use of deceptive practices. Both companies, however, quickly apologized, fixed the offending pages, and were restored to Google’s list. [citation needed]

    you shoud use White hat cause if u use Black hat cause u may be blocked

  3. linkme2mrseo Says:

    Google looks at over 100 factors when ranking a page for a term. Content, terms, links coming in, links going out and so on. Not that easy to describe here. You will have to study and master your own SEO method.

  4. tops6543 Says:

    There are books and books and more books written on this topic because there are so many different ways of going about this.

    I’ve found that there are a few different things, or basics, that you can do that in most cases is enough to at least get you in the search results.

    1. Submit your site –

    2. Focus on the basics –

    After that it’s all up to you. You have to give your site some time there-after to be crawled by the search engines, but then there are a million tedious and time-consuming steps that can be taken to get you towards the top.

    Notice I didn’t say to the top, because the top results can change daily and you’ve got to keep up to stay up!

  5. pleeker Says:

    This forum isn’t really the best place to ask & answer such a detailed question. The answer involves much more than can be described here. That said, the “elevator speech” for how SEO works is this:

    1) There’s no need to submit to crawler-based search engines. They will find your site more quickly once another site links to your site.

    2) Your web site has to be “crawlable” — i.e., search engine spiders must be able to reach your web page and follow your links to reach all the pages you have.

    3) You must have quality, relevant content on your pages. Each page should target a keyword/phrase (or two), and the keyword should appear prominently in the Page Title and on-page text.

    4) You need inbound links (to your site) from other quality web sites in the same industry/niche as yours.

    Crawlability, Content, and Links are the three foundations of SEO. After that, it’s a matter of hard work, marketing, and persistence.

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