The truth is search engine optimization SEO has existed since the creation of the first search engine. Individuals, businesses, and even government organizations have tried to develop their sites in such a way that search query results will list them and since search engines list results ten to a page everyone wants to be on the first page.

The problem in the beginning was that the search algorithms were easy to break by unscrupulous webmasters who would inundate their site with inaccurate keywords and deceptive links. Since the creation of the Google algorithm by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, SEO search and SEO ranking has become more effective. Online search engine marketing is now hitting its stride.

There are still issues though. As powerful as search engines are, they still can’t read minds. They can try to help a searcher narrow the possibilities of a search with advanced techniques but many people are intimidated by that. As a case in point, if you search on the phrase “breast pain” today, your query will return well over a million results. Most of those results concern breast pain during pregnancy. However, these results are of no benefit to men or menopausal women.

SEO service providers strive to allow your market to find you through those millions of results. In the past this was done by inundating your site with words that had little or nothing to do with your business in order to drive the greatest amount of traffic to you. That was fine on the surface but too much traffic can crash a site and the site hits are not guarantees of revenues. The growth of SEO reflects this logic.

SEO today chooses three or four powerful keywords to place in descriptive text in a certain way. So that if a searcher querying on “breast pain” is a man with a pectoral injury the text for a site about that might include a question such as, “Is breast pain in a man injury or illness?” This question would be in the first paragraph and hopefully in the first statement. There is one key phrase in that question and two other keywords to help the
web crawler locate and assess your site for relevance.

The changes in the algorithms of the various search engines and the demand of searchers in finding relevant information has made SEO ranking a powerful tool in online marketing. Search engine optimization SEO has gone from trying to beat the algorithms to tell everyone about your site to working with the algorithms to tell prospective customers about your site. This growth benefits everyone. In fact Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft Windows Live are often sponsors at SEO conventions and roundtables today.

The primary growth of SEO is in its focus. In the past the focus was on farming hits. Today the focus is on drawing prospective business to your site. That is a better value for you, the client, and better business for the online marketing community.