Search Engine Optimization is the process of optimizing a web site for major commercial search engines such as: Google, Yahoo, MSN and AskJeeves. The SEO process starts at the initial web site design and should be part of every developmental step proceeding that

The primary source of the web's traffic is major commercial search engines such as: Google holding 37.3%, Yahoo! holding 29.7%, MSN holding 15.8%, AOL holding 9.6% and Ask Jeeves holding 6% which leaves 1.6% from other sources such as: Offline Marketing, Other Misc. Search Engines, Social Media, Directories etc. (The proceeding percentages was provided by: ComScore's Media Metrix). If a web site / operation can not be found by search engines or the content of the web site / operation can not be crawled by search engines and placed in their databases they miss out on a massive amount of highly targeted web traffic. Past experience has shown that search engine traffic can make or break an organization's success. Optimal Search Engine Optimization and Marketing can help provide an organization with publicity, revenue and exposure like no other source on the web today. The ROI (return on interest) for Search Engine Optimization and Marketing is also like no other source on the web today.

Search Engines are continuously working on improving their technology to more deeply crawl a web site and return more relevant results to users. Several years ago Search Engine Optimization was not nearly as competitive as it is today and a SEO Expert was not needed to gain top placement in the major commercial search engines. In the last 3 - 4 years organizations have become more aware of all of the great opportunities that top search engine placement can provide and the demand for SEO / SEM services have increased a significant amount. Because the benefits of top search engine placement is known so well and valued as much as it is today the SEO / SEM industry has become increasingly competitive. There are 3 different types of SEO Services today:

• Black Hat SEO - Consist of Unethical SEO techniques that fall outside the guidelines issued by the major commercial search engines. Some black hat SEO techniques maybe serving different content to search engines then users, trying to trick the search engines algorithms, hacking other web site's forms and placing links back to your site, spamming search engines, etc.
• Gray Hat SEO - The area between legitimate SEO techniques and unethical SEO techniques.
• White Hat SEO - Consist of Ethical SEO techniques that adhere to all the major commercial search engine's guidelines.

Because of black hat SEOer's and their unethical techniques search engines have been forced to develop advanced filters to detect this type of spam. As search engines advance their filters black hat SEOer's find new ways to get around them so search engines are forced to continuously change their algorithm, making it hard to keep up-to-date with all of the search engine's advances. Just staying up-to-date with all of the search engine's advances is almost a full time job in itself. It's easy to accidentally trip one of the many spam filters and send your web site and operation in a downward spiral on all of the major commercial search engines. As a SEO Expert it is my job to keep an organization's web site and / or operation clean and clear from any type of spam, just associating your web site or operation with any type of spam can hurt your search engine placement. Besides the fact that search engine's are continuously advancing their spam filters they are always working on making their search results more relevant. In order to make a web site or operation as relevant as possible for a group of keywords or keyphrases you need to setup the right informational architecture and gain a significant amount of relevant and powerful links back to your web site / operation while making sure your web site / operation has the right context and is in the right format. There's no doubt that SEO / SEM is becoming more and more complex every year and that every organization is in need of a SEO expert to gain top search engine placement.

There are many different factors to good SEO and SEM services, so I will try to keep this list as short as possible.

1. Assess the organization and their products and / or services.
2. Research current and past search engine traffic and competition for the most relevant keywords and / or phrases.
3. Generate a list of 3 - 4 target keyword or phrases.
4. Generate another list of the most relevant keywords / keyphrases for the main 3 - 4 target keyword / keyphrases we got from step #3, this will help us to come up with the right context and informational architecture for the website / operation.
5. Design the sitemap and informational architecture for the web site or operation.
6. Design the web site according to the information we have received from the 5 steps above.
7. Develop a web site / operation that is easy for search engine's to crawl, has clean code, loads fast, is clean of any type of information or structure that maybe perceived by search engines as possible spam and uses all of the information and design from steps 1 - 6.
8. Setup a blog, write press releases and syndicate as much of the website / operation as possible. Once we syndicate the blogs, press release, articles etc. we can start the process of becoming an active member of the online community and receiving the exposure needed to help boost the web site / operations search engine rankings.
9. Start working on "Link Bait" which is free and relevant services, online tools or information as specified in step #8 to help gain exposure and relevant links back to the site.
10. Analyze the competition and their most powerful and relevant links.
11. Acquire as many of the links found in the previous step as possible.
12. Become an active member of the target online community.
13. Work on further link campaigns.