Saturday, December 27, 2008

SEO: Mysterious And Elusive

By Julie Johnson

The term SEO, or search engine optimization, is still an unknown to virtually everyone who doesn't work in that field. Most people have never even heard of the term nor know what it refers to. But the more interesting part is that even within the SEO industry, not everyone agrees on how best to approach the problems SEO sets out to solve.

There are some standard guidelines like high volume of content on the website, giving outbound links and receiving inbound links, properly formatted meta tags, and a well organized site. Most in the industry do agree that these are basic tenets for a successful SEO program, but there is no magic path to getting there. SEO is not divined from a scientific method, but remains almost like a dance, an art form. The SEO provider is constantly working and reworking their formulas while they keep a close eye on the website's movement in the rankings.

Ask 10 SEO companies s to perform a site analysis, and you;ll get 10 different reports. Luckily most of them will have quite a bit of overlap. And luckier still, provided they are bona fide SEOs , most will not have any outright conflicting advice. But still, the finesse and attention to detail that a good SEO agent possesses will be evident in the varied responses you would see in these 10 reports.

This makes the industry exciting for the SEO organizations. It makes performing SEO well a challenge, not just a standard checklist that you can use. No magical software to plug the site into and get all the right answers. Every site is different. Every day at work is different. And not to mention the suspense of not knowing immediately if it is working. An SEO provider gets no grade except improved rankings and traffic for the client, which take time to build and fluctuate daily.

For an individual to perform successful SEO work on their own website is nearly impossible because of all the nuances involved these days. And things change regularly, in fact so rapidly that only an experienced SEO provider with an extensive performance history is likely to be able to keep up with them. The best way to assure success is to check out providers and look at their track record.

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