Glossary of Web Design Terms

SEO (or Search Engine Optimization)

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of making your site easily understood by the search engines so that they can properly list your site and return it, preferably high in the search results, when a search is performed on terms relevant to your site.

Why Does This Matter to Me?

Search engines can generate a great deal of traffic to your site, and this traffic represents customers or potential clients. The majority of these visitors will be new visitors to your site. Over 60% of internet users claim that they start looking for things with a search engine like Google, AOL Search, or Microsoft Bing, and these internet users will tend to only visit the sites they find through their searches.

For your site to be found, the search engines need to see your site as relevant to the term being searched on. By optimizing your site through proper markup and design, and by thinking through the content, your site has a better chance of showing up in the top of the listings when relevant searches are performed.

The keys to long-term success in the search engines are good, valid, accessible, semantically correct markup on your site, and valid, interesting, relevant, keyword rich, accessible content on your pages.