Today, we’ll talk about SEO and how does it help in internet marketing.
What is SEO
The term “SEO” is an abbreviation for “Search Engine Optimization”. This is not about optimizing search engines, though. It is about optimizing websites for search engines. But why one must need to optimize a website? To answer this question, we need to understand what a search engine is.
Search engines is one way to find info on the web appeared in the middle of the 90’s. They crawled websites and indexed in their own database marking them as having one or another keyword in its content. Thus, when someone put some query in the search box of that search engine, it quickly searched its database and found which indexed pages corresponded to that query.
So, the more keywords of a query a website has, the higher it was shown in the results of a search. We don’t know who was the first guy realized that he can make some changes to the pages of his website to make it rank higher, but he was truly a diamond!
Do I need SEO?
Well, the answer is a big fat “YES”. It is the first thing that comes to mind, does it? But let’s think a bit more. Does SEO help… well.. umm.. say some oil-extracting company to sell their product? Does it help to promote a small local grocery in the neighborhood of your home owned by an old chinese? Does it help Obama to rule his bureaucrats? Well, I guess you’ve got the idea. SEO is effective mostly for Internet businesses. Do you have one? Then you definitely need SEO. Otherwise, SEO is only one of the possible channels to spread the word out about your product or service. And not necessarily the best one.
SEO resources that are worth visiting
Here is an unordered list of essential SEO websites, blogs and other resources. Every one suggests some interesting info and/or tools that might aid your SEO efforts.
- Google Webmaster Central
A must-have website. Simply register, confirm the ownership of your website and see the extended statistics of crawling, backlinks, keywords and many other info. - Webmaster Essentials
A must-read collection of crucial info about Google. The quotations from it are scattered through the entire tutorial you’re reading now. - Google Analytics
Install it onto your site to get the most comprehensive info on your site visitors. Combined with the server-side logs it becomes an endless source of crucial information needed to focus your future SEO efforts. Easily integrates with AdWords and AdSense accounts so you can track not only the visitors, but also a ROI index. - Matt Cutts blog
Hey! Isn’t he a Google guy?! Yes, he is. Matt Cutts is a tech engineer at Google since 2000 and he has a blog where it answers many popular questions about Google, reveals some inside information, busts some popular myths about Google and creates some for others. Very interesting blog with tons of info to consider, however they said since Matt is affiliated with Google we cannot trust him in full. Well, who knows, who knows… Definitely deserves to be read anyway. - CleverStat SEO Software Tools
They provide SEO and search engine positioning software products. Some of them are free, while others need to be purchased before they unleash their full potential. - SEO Chat Forums
A high-quality SEO forums with plenty of useful and always up to date information including SEO news, SEO tutorials, some SEO tools and many more. Read carefully and don’t hesitate to post your own questions as there is always someone there who is eager to answer. - Google Blog
Not as interesting as Mutt Cutts’ one, but still has some news about Google and its new features. - Webmaster Central Blog
Another Google blog. They feature videos, FAQs, articles and new tool announces. - Wordtracker
A well-known tool to find keywords. Once was nearly ultimate, but since Google has released its own tool, Wordtracker is merely an addition. There were some who argues about if Wordtracker is providing a relevant data or not, but thousands of webmaster use it and are pretty happy with it. - Google Keyword Tool
This one was already mentioned several times in this guide – simply the best tool to find your keywords and learn if they are demanded or not. Unlike Wordtracker, it is free. Though it is worth mentioning that this tool is actually the best not because it couldn’t be better, but because there are no tools that are better. In other words,Google Keyword tool isn’t perfect. - Search Engine Land
A large SEO online magazine with newsletters, forums, blog and a locked member-only part containing some exclusive (I guess) materials. Nothing special actually, but due to enormous amount of info, you can probably find out some gems too. - SEOmoz
Quite a heavy resource with its own set of tools, a blog, a wide selection of articles and many more. However, they want money before they let you read the info (yet there are free articles too), and there is also a bit more advertising on it. - Hobo SEO UK
A UK SEO blog with nice SEO experiments busting or confirming various Google myths. Definitely a must read. - SEOptimise
Another good blog. Many good articles not copying the same old stuff over and over, but written by a man who is really interested in what he does. Very smart and professional resource. A must read.
Reference : Learn SEO
