Search engine process and search engine listing

Search Engine Optimization or SEO is the process of increasing the number visitors to a web site through natural or organic search engine listing in Googe, Yahoo, MSN, Ask.com (formerly AskJeeves), Exactseek and others. It focuses on improving the rank of a web site in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) when a web surfer use the search engines to search for something he/she needs.

Natural or organic search engine listing is a process by which your own web site is listed in SERP without paying anything, in contrast to the pay per click advertisement listings that requires payment or bid price from a web site to be included in the results page.

The search engines build and maintain a database of web site information submitted by the webmasters or web site owners. They use robots to collect quality information from the web sites that comply to their guidelines of a quality web site. They use this database for responding to the search keyword phrase entered by the search engine users or web surfers into the search box. Keyword phrase is a phrase of group of keywords. The search engines list the web sites into the SERPs in order of relevance to the search keyword phrase and quality of the information the web sites provides.

If your web site lands within the first 2 pages of the result pages, more search engine users will be able to see your own web site. More exposure means more visits or more clicks to your site, especially if your web site looks interesting or intriguing to the search engine users or web surfers.