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Search engine optimization (SEO) is a hot topic at the moment. Millions of words have been written on the subject, and every day new SEO consultancies spring up. The purpose of SEO is to achieve the highest possible ranking for a website on search engines, in order to gain maximum visibility.

If you're reading this article you are an internet user. As an internet user you probably use search engines, such as Google or Yahoo, or perhaps MSN Search or Ask. When you search for something, say a supplier of door handles (because you need a new one), you probably type in the word 'door handle supplier'. It will bring back a list of websites revelant to the three words that you typed in, and it will tell you there were thousands, if not millions, of results.

So how did the search engine determine the order in which to display the sites that it found? It's an important question because you, as the user, don't want to wade through pages of sites which discuss the subject but are not retailers. The retailers are equally keen for you to be presented with their site, so that you will browse their wares and perhaps become a customer. They don't want their site to be listed on page 122, because you'll never find it.

You, the user, will soon stop using a search engine that returns unhelpful results. The supplier can be more proactive, ensuring that their site is designed to maximize its ranking by the search engine.

That is what search engine optimization is all about. It's all to do with structuring a website so that it gets the most attention that it can from a search engine. One of the most significant elements is the use of keywords - those words or phrases that users will input when looking for a site. The frequency and positioning of keywords, in the website address, titles and text, all make a difference to SEO.

Determining the keywords for a site is itself important. A supplier of door handles might prefer to use the phrase 'door furniture' because it sounds better. But if people looking for handles more regularly search for 'handle' than 'furniture', then handle is a more important keyword and should be used more often on the site.

Google, although not the only such engine, is the biggest player and the one that website builders want to notice them.Google wisely make a point of not revealing exactly how their searches are ranked. Site builders will try all the tricks and shortcuts they can think of to achieve higher rankings. These include hiding keywords on a page by giving text the same color as the page background. But Google have got wise to this trick and a page structured this way will be penalised in the rankings, rather than promoted.

Another key element in SEO is links. The more links there are to a site, the better it's ranking, because this is a measure of its popularity. That's the theory, but it can be taken advantage of by creating link farms or link exchanges, where links are replicated over and over across multiple pages. Again, the search engine builders have got wise to this and sites promoted in this way will find that their attempts backfire.

A recent innovation is the use of online marketing articles - short piece of prose full of keywords and site links, which attempt to build interest in a site. There is an entire industry of copywriters creating these articles.

The most effective approach to SEO is to build a good site full of content that real people will want to visit. It takes time, but it's the best way because when you click on that link to the top door handle supplier you want to be taken to a webpage that delivers real value, and not one that's got to the top simply through good SEO tactics.

Learn more about this author, Andrew Michaels.
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