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What is SEO? How does it work and why is it important a website be search engine friendly? What are SEO best practices and which ones are most important?

Search Engine Optimization may seem too daunting to approach but the practice of SEO is simpler than it first appears. Even though it's the mix of SEO tactics that will bring success, each SEO technique can be broken down, understood and even implemented in isolation of the others. Some are low-hanging fruit "quick-fixes" while others require more time, attention and consideration.

The goal of this two-part primer is to give the SEO newcomer a no-nonsense, jargon-light grounding in the basics of search engine optimization. In the first half we'll discuss what SEO is, how it works, why it's important and get you started thinking about keywords. In the second half, we'll dive into specific best practices.

So what, exactly, is SEO anyway?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It refers to the process and set of best practice techniques used to improve the quality and quantity of traffic to a web site from search engines like Google, Yahoo or Bing. In the simplest terms, the goal of SEO is to make your website or web page appear as high up in search results for particular keywords as possible. The higher up a website appears in search ranking, the more traffic it will receive. Getting your website to be on the first page of results (or - better yet - at the very top of the first page) for your most valuable keywords is the search optimizer's dream.

Why so much fuss about SEO? Is it really that important?

Yes! Search engines like Google have become the gateway to the Internet and are the average user's first stop when they're looking for information, a product or a service. There are billions of web pages out there and without search engines to index and organize all that content, finding anything online would be literally impossible.

More and more people are tuning out mainstream media and turning to the Internet as their source for information. Web-enabled mobile smart phones make the Internet pocket-sized and immediately accessible. It's never been more important to know your website's most valuable keywords and to place highly in results: no mobile-browser wants to suffer through the tedium of pages and pages of search results and if your site isn't on the first page, chances are mobile users will never see it.

Search engines are used everywhere and by everyone; an ongoing and well-implemented SEO strategy can result in broad reach to local, national and global audiences at a fraction of the cost of traditional media and marketing campaigns.

Wow, that is important! How much time will all this search engine optimizing take?

It all depends on how big your website is and where you are in the process.

If you've just started putting your site together, then congratulations! You've picked the perfect time to learn about SEO. Search optimization is an ongoing process: as content is created, SEO should be a regular consideration. If content copywriters and editors understand the principles behind how search engines work, how people search and what keywords people are likely to use when, much of the ongoing SEO can take place during and as part of the copywriting process. Anyone that writes for the web should have a solid grounding in SEO.

If your website has already been built and your content is out there, then it's time to do an SEO review and see how your site is currently performing. Some questions to ask when looking through the metrics:

• How much traffic are you currently getting from search sites?
• What keywords and search strings are pulling in the most search traffic?
• Are those keywords the right keywords? The wrong ones? Are there any that should be there that aren't?
• Which specific pages are getting the most search traffic from which keywords?
• Do you have a mix of general and specific keywords?

The review and research process can take some time to work through and if broad changes are needed for a large site, time to implement goes up as well. Each page may only take a few minutes but 'a few minutes' add up quickly when you have to update hundreds of pages. If optimizing the site entirely is too daunting, try working through one section or subsection at a time.

I've heard about "white hat" and "black hat" SEO tactics. What are they?

SEO techniques are divided into two broad categories. Strategies that are considered "white hat" are recommended by search engines and a fundamental part of good website content development and design that work with search indexes while "black hat" tactics are ones that exploit loopholes and back doors in search algorithm to "cheat" the system.

Search engines are primarily concerned with relevancy and they want to provide users with search results that are as relevant and on-topic as possible. Good SEO techniques are about exposing relevancy and making your content as easy as possible for users to find.

As a general rule, white hat SEO can be summed up as creating useful and unique content for users instead of for search engines and then making that content accessible to indexes and aligned with the way users are likely to search for that information. Black hat tactics, on the other hand, typically involve some sort of deception. Sites that use popular or trending keywords that don't reflect the actual content of the website in hidden or off-screen ways are using black hat tactics, as are sites that send human visitors to one page and search spiders to another.

Black hat tactics may work as traffic-grabs in the immediate short term, but all the major search engines work constantly to eliminate sites using black hat tactics from their indexes, so using them runs the very real risk of having your entire site being blacklisted and left out of the search results altogether.

How do I pick the right keywords?

Knowing the right keywords to use is the essential piece of an SEO strategy: even the most optimized site won't succeed if you're using the wrong keywords and bringing in the wrong visitors.

Keyword research can be a complicated task; sometimes the things people enter into Google's search bar aren't as obvious as they first appear and may be contrary to your organization's accepted standards and styles. Is that item in your living room a "couch" or a "sofa?" Are you talking about "fundraising" or "making a donation?" Are you talking to "immigrants" or "new Canadians?"

Picking keywords can be particularly difficult in an industry that has its own language and jargon, depending on the site's target audience. If you're looking to pull in industry-insiders who are familiar with the specialized terminology, then it's likely a better strategy to target jargon-based keywords. But if your website's goal is to reach out and educate unfamiliar users, it may be best to target words and phrases outside industry standards. The already SEO savvy searcher might use a keyword phrase like "white hat SEO" while the fresh-faced 'newbie' is more likely to start their search with a phrase like "search optimization best practices."

Using the right mix of general and specific keywords is another SEO challenge. Some users are looking for general information or websites while others are looking for very specific information - and those two types of searchers will use different keywords. Someone looking for general information on SEO will probably type, "search engine optimization" while a user with a more specific thirst may type "search optimize a URL." It's important to remember that search engines spider your entire site, not just the homepage and always prefer to point users to specific (the most relevant) rather than general information. Each page of your site should have a mix of general site-wide relevant keywords and specific keywords tailored to that particular page's content.

Help! Keywords I don't want are appearing on my analytics! How can SEO help me fix this?

Irrelevant or negative keywords - even ones that bring in lots of traffic - aren't worth anything to you. In fact, they're probably doing more harm than good. Irrelevant keywords that don't jive with your content result in high bounce rates, while keywords with negative connotations may be affecting and even damaging your brand.

If you find these kinds of keywords appearing in your metrics, it's best to optimize them out as quickly as possible. Somewhere on your site these words exist - maybe in a URL or title, maybe in a header, or maybe in a link - and the best way to deal with them is to simply remove them. Pick different words - better, more relevant words and you'll start to see less of the traffic you don't want and more that you do.

Continue reading our Beginner's Overview of SEO Best Practices Part Two.

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