Arlington SEO

What is SEO? July 13, 2009

What is SEO?

One definition might be…

“SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the art and science of altering various on and off-site criteria in order to increase a site’s ranking in the SERPs for relevant search terms.”

Huh???

In plain English, it’s doing things to get your web site to come up at or near the top, when someone goes into Google and searches for the types of things your web site or business has to offer!

What Are The Benefits of SEO?

What good is having a great web site, if no one can find it? If the only people that know about your web site, are people you already know?

Having a nice web site is only half the battle. You still need to get it out there were people will see it.

As you know, search engines are the main way people look for things on the Internet nowadays. And SEO is a great way to get your site out there where tons of new people can find you!

SEO is especially beneficial for businesses, where it can bring-in lots of new customers and business to your company’s web site!

Can I Do It Myself?

Yes, you can! However, you have to realize that your success (or failure) at doing so will depend heavily on both your skill level, and especially, on how competitive the search you are going after is. This is because in order to succeed in SEO, you basically have to “out-gun” everyone else who is trying to come up for that same search!

As a result, for business-related or other highly competitive searches (where you may be going up against SEO professionals with many years experience), your chances of success as a amateur may prove non-existent.

Beginner SEOs may thus find they have better luck starting-out with personal, hobbyist, or other fairly non-competitive searches.

Can I Get Myself Into Trouble?

Unfortunately, the answer to this one is also yes. Much of the SEO advice and information that is out there on the Internet (or in books) is either dangerously out-of-date, or flat-out WRONG! Using out-of-date or bad SEO advice, the best-case scenario is that you waste time doing something that (no longer) provides you with any real benefit; the worse-case scenario is you get your web site banned from Google for search engine spamming – Ouch!

One of the goals of this site is to help educate the “Do-It-Yourselfer” on some of these pitfalls to avoid.

This Sounds Like Too Much Work To Me, Can’t I Just Hire Someone Else to Do It?

Yes, you can! There are SEO companies that specialize in providing such services (the creator of this web site is one of them). However, while pretty much any kind of web site can be optimized, hiring a professional SEO may make more sense for a business than for a personal web site.

Are All SEO Experts the Same?

No. Sadly, many of the people out there that are offering SEO services today don’t know what the heck they are doing! Often, some web designer or other person will read some bad SEO information from an out-of-date book or the Internet, and suddenly think they’re now an “SEO expert”! Or sometimes, it’s just flat-out scam artists looking to make a fast buck! Some will toss around confusing SEO jargon such as “meta tags” or “re-submission service” to make you think that they actually know what they are doing. So how can you tell the difference between a qualified SEO expert and the rest?

One of the main purposes of this site is to dispel some of the common SEO misconceptions and “myths”, as well as to educate people about some of the “warning signs” to watch out for when shopping for a qualified SEO firm, to help you be able to tell the difference for yourself.

In fact, by the time you get done reading all of the articles we will be posting here, you will know more than most of the so-called “experts” out there!

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