Everyone has heard of SEO or Search Engine Optimization, but surprisingly few people actually fully understand how it works. 10 years ago it was all about “meta tags” and hidden text repeating the same keyword over and over again in white letters on a white background… but now it is far more complicated and delicate. One wrong move can actually hurt your ranking significantly, sometimes indefinitely.
SEO comes down to a few basic principles in it’s simplest form. Search engines want to provide the most relevant AND most popular information to those who are searching, as quickly as possible. To do that, they have ridiculously complicated algorithms that change constantly and are closely guarded secrets… anyone who claims to know the formula is lying. However, the basic principles of SEO remain consistent over time, therefore if you can make your site appear as popular and as relevant as possible for a given keyword search, you can “optimize” your site for peak performance across all major search engines.
That being said, some of the key tools for SEO remain consistent including optimizing keyword density inside page content, using keywords in title tags and urls, tagging images on the page with the same keyword(s), and always staying within the character minimums and maximums set forth by Google. There are also off-site tactics, both white-hat and black-hat that can help improve your site rank. Certain black hat tools will generate fake web traffic that looks shockingly authentic to trick the search engines into thinking your site is more popular than it really is. These tools are extremely dangerous and generally cause more harm than good, but under specific circumstances when used correctly they can be very valuable.
Other tactics like high-quality backlinks from reputable sites and social media integration can also have very positive impacts on search engine optimization over time. The is one area where it really pays to have genuine experience as well as patience.
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