Search Engine Optimization

The first search engine, Wandex, was developed in 1993. As soon as search engines became more common, webmasters learned to appreciate the traffic sent to them by search engines. They began submitting their sites on a regular basis, and soon figured out that they could tweak their sites to achieve better ranking in search results.

Almost as quickly, consultants went into the "business" of performing search engine optimization (SEO). The SEO consultants attempted to decipher the algorithms used by the search engines. The goal was to establish code and design characteristics that ultimately would increase a site's exposure.

Some SEO consultants provide generally helpful services. Many SEO consultants, however, can provide ultimately harmful services. Thankfully, the bad ones are easy to spot:

Dear Friend,

I wanted to ask you a quick question...

What is the highest you have ever been ranked in the search engines?

The reason I ask is this...

You can start to get LASER TARGETED, and pre-qualified visitors to your site if you have a good enough, and high enough search engine ranking.

Chris Jackson got a #2 ranking in Google in only 2 days and that one listing will produce thousands of totally targeted and 100% interested visitors to his site....

Some unscrupulous SEO consultants claim to have a "special relationship" with Google. They don't. Google is not in the business of cultivating special relationships. If an SEO consultant begins talking about special relationships, you can be sure that the consultant is not on the up-and-up.

Shortly after the rise of the SEO consultants, the search engines tweaked their algorithms to counter the tricks being played to bump up sites. Once the tricks lost their magic, search ranking became, for the most part, based on site quality. Which is how it should be: Success comes from being what people are searching for in the first place.

To learn more about search engine optimization and SEO consultants, read Google's SEO recommendations.