What is SEO? If you ask this question to ten people, you may get 10 different answers. Search engine optimization is a very broad term that actually involves many topics, so to define it clearly in one sentence is next to impossible.

Let’s start by seeing what others who are more in the know say about SEO:

The term used to describe the marketing technique of preparing a website to enhance its chances of being ranked in the top results of a search engine once a relevant search is undertaken. A number of factors are important when optimising a website, including the content and structure of the website’s copy and page layout, the HTML meta-tags and the submission process. –Web Search Workshop

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a set of methodologies aimed at improving the visibility of a website in search engine listings. The term also refers to an industry of consultants that carry out optimization projects on behalf of client sites. –Wikipedia

Try using Google’s define search for tens of other definitions.

For the context of this post series, SEO is not about finding holes in search engines and become number one for the keyword as long as the exploits remain open. Far from that, it is about understanding what elements search engines look for on-page and off-page to determine the relevance of the page to a search term. And then, of course, to comply to the guidelines.

SEO covers topic such as proper web design that focuses on on-page optimization, the structure of content, to choosing the right host, to getting web “spiders” or “crawlers” find the site, and having them rank your page as high as possible in the search engine result pages.

By understanding what elements that matter and making sure we have an optimal representation of pages and their relationships, we can hopefully increase page rankings.

Last but not all, SEO is not about getting search spiders to like your pages, but end up with non-sense content and/or layout that no human visitors can consume. After all, the end-goal is to have visitors raise their hand to want more information from you, or better still, to actually buy your product or service.

So, it is about balancing both. You will see that indeed it is possible to satisfy the search crawlers and at the same time make the pages compelling to human visitors.

It is easy to get offended with such a myriad of information and topics around SEO. I guess that happens to all of us when trying to learn totally new stuff. But, I promise, as you progress, you will notice patterns that will just seem natural. In fact, complying with modern search engines is closer to writing naturally than ever!

The effort should be worth it. Best of all, you can do it for a very low budget or even free, if you have all the time and are not afraid to work and re-work on your existing sites.

Good luck.