Search Engine Optimization Explained in 3 minutes (with video)

Looking for a quick, very basic tutorial of what Search Engine Optimization actually is?

The folks at SearchEngineLand.com along with Common Craft have put together a fine little presentation about "What is SEO". If SEO has piqued your interest for you business (and it really should) but you don't quite understand it just yet, take 3 minutes of your day and watch the video below. It is well worth the effort.

The video compares search engines (Like Google & Bing) to librarians of the internet. And when someone is looking for information (remember we live in the Information Age), the search engines, like a librarian, are tasked with finding the best page (or book) for the users query. The Search Engines are tasked with reading all of the pages on the internet and indexing them. I assume like a Librarian is tasked with having knowledge of all of the books and how to find them in their library. Of course since the search engines are machines, they can do this much more effectively and efficiently than any human. Ultimately, this is Search Engine Optimization.

The Search Engines then use their own highly secret algorithm to rank these pages and show results. In general both Bing and Google use the following factors to assist in their algorithm and ranking results:

1. Words Matter
2. Titles Matter
3. Inbound Links Matter
4. Words in the Links Matter
5. Online Reputations Matter

It probably took you just as long to read this as to watch the actual SEO video, but do take the extra time as the visuals make for a very easy to understand explanation of "What is SEO?".