In very basic terms, SEO or search engine optimization is the process of improving the traffic going to your web site from the search engine. When people search for things in the search engines, they are served up results in the form of web sites that have relevant information. For example, if people are looking for "dirty blue widgets" they are given search page results that will have some or all of those terms in their web site content content. The searcher then clicks on each web site link given to find exactly what he/she wants.

In general terms then, if you want your web site to show up in a search for dirty blue widgets, you need to make sure the search engine spiders who visit your pages know that your website is all about that keyword term. The search engine spiders crawl or move throught the internet and the world wide web looking for every piece of information available and send it back to its search engine home to be indexed and catalogued according to the terms found.

You can see how important it is then, to make sure your web site is optimized to the highest degree. If you are talking about a certain subject or selling certain items, you want people to be able to find you in the search engine results.

There are a number of things that you can look at to ensure maximum optimization:

---using specific, relevant keyword[s]

---proper keyword density

---using related keywords

---using your keywords in the right places like your url, metatags, title tags, heading tags etc

---linking properly within your web site pages

Those are some very basic things you can do within your web site pages, this is known as on-site SEO. You also need to look at off-site SEO:

. incoming or backlinks to your site

Think of links coming in to your site as votes. The more that people vote, the more importance the search engines place on your web site and its content. The more relevant the links are the better. In other words, links form other sites that have to do with "dirty blue widgets" will count for more than a site about peanut butter. There are a number of things that you can do here:

---directory listings with a link back to your site

---articles in article directories or other web sites with links back to your site

---forum postings with a link back to your site

---comments with a link back to your site on blogs

---link exchanges

---buying links

---creating content that people want to link to. Sometimes referred to as "link bait"

There are a number of things that you can control and a number that you can't when it comes to SEO. But basically, you want to make it very easy for people to find your web site. And that means you need to make it as easy as possible for the search engines to find you and know exactly what your web site is about. Remember that these search engine spiders are programs that visit and help to index your site. They need to have the information served to them in specific ways to help them do their job. You won't have a live human visiting who can make a judgement call.

On the other hand, your live visitors will come and make a judgement call as to whether you web site is relevant to them and whether your content is compelling enough to stay or buy. There is a balancing act in SEO between your electronic visitors and your live ones.

In the next few articles we will go through all of the necessary steps in optimizing your web site for "dirty blue widgets" in more detail. Learn more about dirty blue widgets and SEO basics using dirty blue widgets keyword term