SEO - Search Engine Optimization

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is, like so much of the Web, a very new science. Unlike a normal science that involves a working hypothesis, applied principals, and empirical data, though, SEO is more like meteorology, in that diligence, intelligence, and application of the scientific method can ultimately be trumped by forces beyond the control of mere mortals (assuming, in this case, that said mortals are not employed by Google, Yahoo, or MSN).

Unlike the weather, though, you can exercise some control over where you rank in the search engines. Not by "gaming" or "tricking" the engines*--a fool's errand for sure, just like trying to manipulate the weather--but instead with a little homework, a lot of persistence (you know--that old "1% inspiration and 99% perspiration" thing that we learned in grade school), and by following a fundamental principle of good business that hasn't changed in the history of free enterprise: Give your customer what they want, and do it a little bit better than your competition.

Good search engine optimization is primarily about creating Web pages that your customers are going to want to visit early and often, and at the same time creating pages that those faceless, unseen forces at the search engines--the "spiders" or "bots" who run around the Internet looking around every corner and under every rug, slurping up every bit of data they find and bringing it all back to "the office", as it were, to get sorted out and filed in their index--deem relevant. Relevance is the end-all and be-all of search engine placement, and everything relevant comes down to good content.

So really, to quote David Lee Roth, "it's not rocket surgery" so much, but plenty of good old-fashioned elbow grease and a demonstrable ability to use your noodle here and there. You want a site that people are going to want to visit again and again. In other words, not much different from the secrets of success of any "brick-and-mortar" business.

Ultimately, though, search engines are really providing free advertising. Very coveted free advertising. Anywhere on that first page of results for any of the popular search terms that define your business is like money in your pocket. But you're busy running your business, making sure those orders go out and that your phone gets answered on the second ring. You probably don't have a lot of time for SEO. That's where I can help...

*As in any other field, SEO has more than its share of frauds, cheats, and tricksters, or "black hats" as they're known in SEO parlance. On the Internet commerce food chain, these people are on a par with those anonymous souls who send you emails asking you to buy "Vi A gg RrrUh" or to help them get their fortune out of Nigeria. The good folks at the search engines are nothing short of obsessive in their war with the black hats.