Search Engine optimization or SEO is the method of setting up your website so that it ranks well for particular keywords within the organic search results of major search engines, including Google, Yahoo, MSN and Bing. Contrasting with paid search marketing, which requires you to pay for every click sent to your website from a search engine, traffic sent to your site from a search engine’s organic results is free.
In the early good days of SEO the process of gaining top ranking for keywords was much easier than it is today. In those days search engine algorithms were easy to crack. All you had to do was to include the keyword you desired to rank for in the title tag of your web page and that keyword throughout the content of your page, and chances were you would rank within the top ten results of your favorite search engine. Over the years search-engine algorithms have become increasingly complex.
In 1996 or so search engines became a very popular tool for all sorts of information. Long before Google and Yahoo became popular, search engines like AltaVista and InfoSeek were pioneers at providing search results to users within a fraction of a second. As the World Wide Web grew at a remarkable pace, the popularity of AltaVista and InfoSeek started to wane. Other search engines came and went but no company has had more of an impact on search engine marketing than Google.
