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SEO Engine Optimization (SEO), considered by many to be a subset of SEO Engine marketing, is a term used to describe a process of improving the volume of traffic to a web site from SEO Engines, usually in "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") SEO results. Those efforts may also be seen in more narrow vertical SEO Engines involving areas such as local SEO. Many site owners and consultants engaging in SEO attempt to pursue qualified visitors to a site, and the quality of visitor traffic can be measured by how often a visitor using a specific keyword phrase leads to a desired conversion action, such as making a purchase, viewing or downloading a certain page, requesting further information, signing up for a newsletter, or taking some other specific action.
In a broad sense, SEO is marketing by understanding how SEO algorithms work and what human visitors might SEO for, to help match those visitors with sites offering what they are interested in finding. Creating web pages with SEO in mind does not necessarily mean creating content more favorable to to algorithms than human visitors. Some SEO efforts may involve optimizing a site's coding, presentation, and structure, without making very noticeable changes to human visitors, such as incorporating a clear hierarchical structure to a site, and avoiding or fixing problems that might keep SEO Engine indexing programs from fully spidering a site. Other, more noticeable efforts, involve including unique content on pages that can be easily indexed and extracted from those pages by SEO Engines while also appealing to human visitors.
The term SEO can also refer to "SEO Engine optimizers," a term adopted by an industry of consultants who carry out Optimization projects on behalf of clients, and by employees of site owners who may perform SEO services in-house.
SEO Engine optimizers often offer SEO as as a stand-alone service or as a part of a larger marketing campaign. Because effective SEO can require making changes to the source code of a site, it is often very helpful when incorporated into the initial development and design of a site, leading to the use of the term "SEO Engine Friendly" to describe designs, menus, content management systems and shopping carts that can be optimized easily and effectively.
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