Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Overview

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is probably the most misunderstood topic related to Website ownership. Essentially SEO is composed of two simple ideas:

1. On-Page Optimization
Search engines need to be able to read and understand the content and context of your site. The process to improve your site for search engines is often called “on-page optimization”. On-page optimization consists of correcting any technical problems that are preventing search engines from effectively reading your site, fixing any missing or mislabeled HTML tags, and adjusting the text in the site pages to improve keyword density.

2. Link Building
Search engines will determine the ranking of your site in the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPS) based on the content of your site as the search engine understands it, and on the “link popularity” of your site - or how many other sites are linking to your site. The process of increasing the number of links to your website is called “link building”. It is not just the number of links pointing to your site that matters - it is also the quality and context of those links. Google assigns Pagerank - a value from one to ten - to all websites. A website linking to your site with a Pagerank of six will be much more valuable to you than a website with a Pagerank of two. Context is important as well. If your site is about Bend Oregon or Bend Oregon Real Estate, you will do much better getting links from local Bend sites.

Most people understand SEO as being only related to on-page optimization. On-page optimization alone can have some positive effects on your search engine rankings, but in competitive markets you need to actively pursue both factors to get to (and stay at) the top of the search engines.

There are no Shortcuts!
In a competitive market, improving your search engine rankings will require time, diligence, and patience. Anyone that tells you that they can guarantee a certain result in a short amount of time is either trying to scam you, or they will utilize techniques that could get your site banned from the search engines permanently.

Google’s page on SEO services (avoid getting scammed)