My view on Search engine optimization:

In this video I describe what search engine optimization is.  I describe how search engines are like bugs.  I also describe the use of alt tags, title tags, meta-description, sitemaps, anchor text, and how to keep people on your page for an extended period of time.  If you would like to view the video on Youtube please click here.

Overview of Video:

Web crawlers are much like bugs crawling through the the forest floor.  As crawlers come to new web pages they search for clickable links.  As the crawlers find the links they record the information and bring it back to Google’s servers.  This action is very similar to a colony of ants.  In addition, as ants crawl around the forest floor they record where food is and bring it back to the colony.  Therefore, ants just like web crawlers remember where the food was and will revisit the same location to search for new food or links.

Maps?

Creating a sitemap gives the crawlers a road map to find there way home.  Alt tags and title tags allow people who can’t see the ability to use the mouse to obtain information on images.  Therefore, Google also use them to describe the image.  The Meta-description is like an index of a book describing the contents.  Obviously, the content should match the description otherwise people won’t use your site.  Anchor text is the a clickable hyper link, like the “here” link above.

A little trick on You 🙂

The video is approximately 7:20 to keep people on the page for the appropriate amount of time.  Google’s crawlers can tell when users are bouncing back to the search engine.  This indicates the user didn’t find the information they are seeking.  As a result, if your site has too many bounce backs google will lower your ranking.  Thus, if you are running a business this could mean the difference between gaining a sale or losing a sale.  If you are interested in increasing your sales please click here to watch a video discussing marketing for the future.