Search Engine Optimization is the practice of making specific changes to aspects of your website which may increase the likelihood that search engines will show your website higher in their organic search results when users perform relevant search queries.

How search engine optimization works: most of us take search engines for granted.We assume it as a given that Google should know exactly what’s on our site, whenever we post it, and be able to show our website in their search results. After all, it’s Google right? But the reality is that the process of getting to the search results pages involves a rather complex and sophisticated process, the basics of which we will try to explain as simply as possible. In case you’re thinking about starting up a search engine company, here’s the basic steps you’ll have to go through.

• Step 1: identify and catalog as many websites and respective pages as possible
• Step 2: determine an algorithm/formula to evaluate the distinguishing elements of a specific web page (address)
• Step 3: determine an algorithm/formula to match a keyword search query to the most appropriate page, based on step 2
• Step 4: repeat and reiterate all previous steps, taking into account changing websites and pages.

To achieve step 1, search engines rely on crawlers, automated programs whose sole purpose is to ID and catalog aspects of a page. Search engine optimization involves making changes to your website, based on assumptions around how search engines have tackled steps 2 and 3, some of these assumptions we may safely call facts, others which are anything but.

As a very simple starting point, we know that the text content of your website plays a crucial role in how search engines evaluate your website. If you have 50 pages of relevant text content on your site about a camping equipment, your page in theory should be more relevant for this topic compared to another site which only has one page of content which is simply an image of a tent. Thus, we always remind clients that having more content on your page is never a bad thing.

But search engine optimization offers specific tips and best practices to make your content more visible to the search engine and assist them to match your page to specific search queries. The key components involved with search engine optimization are: 

Of the two active marketing strategies we recommend, search marketing is by far the more long-term strategy but one if done right can bring the most traffic at no cost, because the idea is to improve search results in the organic (free) listings. Moonlight Marketing works with select partners to assist with consultation, execution and management of SEO projects.

Need to improve your website's organic rankings?  Contact us!

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Search Engine Marketing | Social Media Strategy | Social Media Process