Search Engine Optimization is a process that assists search engines in locating the important information on your site easily, in order to rank highly for your most critical keywords and keyword phrases.
Search engines have to keep the algorithms they use for ranking websites a secret to prevent abuse from malicious websites and to produce accurate search results. As SEO specialists learn how the search engines rank web pages, the easier it becomes for them to cheat the search results. Because of this, search engines have to change and update their formulas on a somewhat regular basis so that they can undermine the attempts of SEO specialists. Several search engines have fallen behind the curve and have subsequently been bought out or shut down because they were failing to produce accurate search results while others have kept up with the times and giving their searchers proper results.
With search engine optimization the first things to consider are your main topics or services, a domain name consisting of at least one of your keywords, and keywords for each individual page. Next is creating keyword enriched content that will help search engines distinguish what your sites pages pertain to. Lastly is getting other sites that consist of similar information as your own to link their site to your site. Some search engines look at the amount of keyword specific content on your site, while others–such as Google–look for a combination of everything, especially inbound links.
Some link building approaches (such as reciprocal linking) are not as meaningful to search engines as they once were. The best way to gain search engine validity is by getting links from numerous different sources, such as directories like DMOZ. This is to assist with integrating your information into the search engines so that eventually your website becomes an essential source for information pertaining to your topic.
It may take three to six months for your search engine optimization to begin to take effect, especially if you have a new site, so it is important to be patient.