Search engine optimization (SEO) is a set of methods aimed at improving the ranking of a website in search engine listings, and could be considered a subset of search engine marketing. The term SEO also refers to “search engine optimizers,” an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients’ sites. Some commentators, and even some SEOs, break down methods used by practitioners into categories such as “white hat SEO” (methods generally approved by search engines, such as building content and improving site quality), or “black hat SEO” (tricks such as cloaking and spamdexing). White hatters say that black hat methods are an attempt to manipulate search rankings unfairly. Black hatters counter that all SEO is an attempt to manipulate rankings, and that the particular methods one uses to rank well are irrelevant.

Search engines display different kinds of listings in the search engine results pages (SERPs), including: pay per click advertisements, paid inclusion listings, and organic search results. SEO is primarily concerned with advancing the goals of a website by improving the number and position of its organic search results for a wide variety of relevant keywords.

Early search engines

Webmasters and content providers began optimizing sites for search engines in the mid-1990s, as the first search engines were cataloging the early Web. Initially, all a webmaster needed to do was submit a site to the various engines which would run spiders, programs to “crawl” the site, and store the collected data. The default search-bracket was to scan an entire webpage for so-called related search words, so a page with many different words matched more searches, and a webpage containing a dictionary-type listing would match almost all searches, limited only by unique names. The search engines then sorted the information by topic, and served results based on pages they had crawled.

Organic search engines

Google was started by two PhD students at Stanford University, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, and brought a new concept to evaluating web pages. This concept, called PageRank, has been important to the Google algorithm from the start. PageRank relies heavily on incoming links and uses the logic that each link to a page is a vote for that page’s value. The more incoming links a page had the more “worthy” it is. The value of each incoming link itself varies directly based on the PageRank of the page it comes from and inversely on the number of outgoing links on that page.

The relationship between SEO and the search engines

The first mentions of Search Engine Optimization don’t appear on Usenet until 1997, a few years after the launch of the first Internet search engines. The operators of search engines recognized quickly that some people from the webmaster community were making efforts to rank well in their search engines, and even manipulating the page rankings in search results. In some early search engines, such as Infoseek, ranking first was as easy as grabbing the source code of the top-ranked page, placing it on your website, and submitting a URL to instantly index and rank that page.

Due to the high value and targeting of search results, there is potential for an adversarial relationship between search engines and SEOs. In 2005, an annual conference named AirWeb was created to discuss bridging the gap and minimizing the sometimes damaging effects of aggressive web content providers.

Integrating your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) with Social Marketing is easier than you might think because Social Marketing is an essential facet of SEO and one that is becoming increasingly relevant as social networking sites continue to become more popular. If Social Marketing is a term that sounds complicated and intimidating, it can be greatly simplified and more easily understood if you consider that it is merely the oldest form of marketing around that has been given a new name.

Simply put, Social Marketing is word-of-mouth-advertising accelerated and made much more accessible by technology through the use of blogs, forums, inbound and outbound links, and social networking sites such as MySpace, Digg, Flickr, Facebook, and others. All these methods create communities of people with common interests and give them the opportunity to ask questions, share ideas, offer criticism, and get feedback from their peers and your company.

Here are some ideas that you can employ to integrate SEO with Social Marketing strategies so your company gains the maximum benefit from these very dynamic marketing strategies:



Craft a Strategy – Set your SEO and Social Marketing integration up for success by crafting a marketing strategy and consulting with an experienced Internet marketing firm. Businesses such as Brick Marketing can explain the nuances of these approaches and provide invaluable insight on how they work together to help your company get results.

 

Create a Community – Consider setting up forums on your site where your target audience can ask questions and get answers from your company and other members of the forum. A large portion of your audience makes purchasing decisions after conducting online research, and this will give them one place to find the answers they seek.

 

Start a Business Blog – Start a blog on your site with relevant, well-written posts providing topical information about your goods and services as well as links to related blogs and websites. This gives your readers the information they’re looking for and provides great opportunities for quality inbound links as well.

 

Keep your Content Fresh! – Keep your online community growing and engaged with fresh, dynamic content that always gives your readers something new to read and discuss. Also remember that the major search engines will index the content of your site more often if you update it regularly.

 

Use Targeted Keywords and Phrases in your Titles and Content – Use the optimized keywords and phrases that you targeted in your initial strategy in the titles and content of your blog and forum posts. You don’t have to overdo it, just let them occur naturally.

 

Provide Links to Popular Social Networking Sites – Search popular social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, Digg, and others for fresh, relevant content to link to. Remember that these links don’t always have to be all about business. You can balance the serious links with lighter, funny content as well.

 

Subscribe to RSS Feeds – With your own research and recommendations from your Internet marketing consultant, find relevant RSS feeds to feature on your site which provide fresh content and give your viewers another reason to check your site often.



 

The most important part of integrating SEO with Social Marketing is getting started and developing a plan but once these strategies are in place, you’ll be amazed by the new volume of traffic to your site.