Internet is highly regarded as the future of human race. The virtual world is growing with such a pace that it cannot be predicted in any ways. The number of subscribers of the internet is rapidly growing and according to online surveys, the number will double by 2012. The number of internet service providers has also seen growth in pace with the users. Businesses, no matter how big or small they are, are fighting hard to have a slice of share in this service market.
The virtual world is getting closer to becoming a reality with the announcement of net-based operating system (Chrome OS) and cloud computing based data management services (Google Apps) by Google. The market is becoming fiercer day by day, and market biggies like Google and Microsoft are fighting it out face-to-face. This fierceness can go on until the initiatives driven by market biggies become a reality or may be until 2020.
Internet Marketing is a concept which became popular with Google emerging as the dominant leader in the search market. In 1998, Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin when the two were attending Stanford University as Ph.D. candidates. Then the real game began. Internet Marketing was dubbed to be the technique of promoting websites over the internet or online medium to drive traffic to the website or business, and thus generating leads for the business.
The initial trend of online marketing before the days of Google was very simple and consisted of limited procedures to be followed. But, after the advent of the Google era, things changed. People started to think differently and new techniques of digital marketing came into existence as and when the search engines, especially Google, started to transform themselves as the blue water navies of the mighty ocean called the Internet or the Virtual World. Possible head-on collisions caused by the evolution of search engines were tackled by the introduction of different internet marketing techniques. Search engine optimization is one among them.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) technique was invented when the concept of search engines was first introduced to the members of virtual world during the 1990’s by search provides like Ask Jeeves, Lycos, etc. SEO has evolved rapidly since then.
During the initial days of SEO, the keywords or key phrases would be stuffed into the website profusely within the text content and the Meta Keywords tag, and the website would rank in search engines for related keywords. But, during the later stages, as search engines evolved, the concept of backlinks (virtual voting system) came into existence and it became a purely number game. Websites with lots of keywords stuffed into them and with more backlinks than their competitors would rank higher in search engine listings. This way of easy going SEO tactics was shattered with the emergence of Google.
Google entered the search market with a bang and changed the rules of the game completely. It started with the introduction of Google Bot (Google’s Search Engine Algorithm) and Google PageRank. Google introduced a new concept called quality into the market and websites with quality backlinks from quality websites or authoritative websites like .gov, .edu, .mil, and media websites, and with quality webpage content began to rank higher in Google’s search result for their respective keywords.
During this evolving era of search engines, webmasters used to gather in undisclosed online community forums and discuss the tactics and techniques of SEO. A Googler in disguise would assist them and provide insights of the Google search engine updates. But, this is no more followed except for the Black-Hat techniques, which are unethical ways of performing search engine optimization, and against the webmaster guidelines provided by the search engines. The Googler in disguise has emerged into the outer world with the identity and name Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s anti-spam team.
In today’s world, SEO is no more an easy play. It has evolved from the keyword stuffing and quantity days to a whole new era of quality and perfection. Many business owners still believe that anyone having a basic knowledge on SEO and internet or just by studying related content and reading study material can perform search engine optimization tasks. But, this myth is no more alive and search engine optimisation cannot be performed as it was being handled during the 1990’s. Since search engines have evolved and have come a long way in their sophistication, search engine optimisation can only be handled by an expert or an
Internet Marketing Company in India. Today’s SEO expects precision in mathematical calculations and uses large volume of data, including analytics.
Thus it can be clearly stated that search engine optimisation is full of quality data gathering, analytics and precision achieved with calculations. As it is a highly competitive world that requires regular data analysis and performance monitoring of websites for related keywords on search results, it is better for business owners to leave all the complexities and headaches to experts, sit back and relax, and expect some good results.