What Is SEO / Search Engine Optimization?

SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” It is the process of getting traffic from the “free,” “organic,” “editorial” or “natural” listings on search engines. All major search engines such asGoogle, Yahoo and Bing have such results, where web pages and other content such as videos or local listings are shown and ranked based on what the search engine considers most relevant to users. Payment isn’t involved, as it is with paid search ads.

Start With A Movie!

New to SEO? Why not take three minutes and watch our video introduction to search engine optimization? It’ll quickly cover the basics:

Search Engine Land worked with Common Craft to produce the video, and they have many more great explainer videos like this in the Common Craft video library, so check that out!

More Advice For Newbies

For more basic but also in-depth advice, our Periodic Table Of SEO Ranking Factors, shown below, introduces you to all the key concepts you need to know:

You can click on the table to view a larger version of it. You can download a copy to print for easy reference!

Search Engine Land’s Guide To SEO

As a companion to the table, Search Engine Land’s Guide To SEO explains the ranking factors in more depth, in a tutorial providing tips and advice on implementing them. Links to the entire guide are shown below (start at the beginning, and each page will take you to the next):

• Introduction: Search Engine Land’s Guide To SEO
• Chapter 1: Types Of Search Engine Ranking Factors
• Chapter 2: Content & Search Engine Ranking Factors
• Chapter 3: HTML Code & Search Engine Ranking Factors
• Chapter 4: Site Architecture & Search Engine Ranking Factors
• Chapter 5: Link Building & Ranking In Search Engines
• Chapter 6: Social Media & Ranking In Search Results
• Chapter 7: Trust, Authority & Search Rankings
• Chapter 8: Personalization & Search Engine Rankings
• Chapter 9: Violations & Search Engine Spam Penalties
• Chapter 10: Blocking & Search Engine Results

TIP: If you’re a Search Engine Land member, the Search Engine Land Guide To SEO is available as a downloadable eBook. It’s just one of many benefits you get. Not a member? Consider signing-up!

More Guides & Books

Another excellent guide is Google’s “Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide.” This is a free PDF download that covers basic tips that Google provides to its own employees on how to get listed. You’ll find it here.

Also well worth checking out is SEOmoz’s “Beginner’s Guide To SEO,” which you’ll find here, and the SEO Success Pyramid from Small Business Search Marketing.

There are also a variety of print books you might consider. Here’s our review of some newer books: A Roundup Of Best SEO Books.

SEO Resources From Around The Web

There are a number of blogs and forums that focus heavily on SEO topics, including: aimClear, Blogstorm, Bruce Clay Blog, David Naylor, Eric Ward, Fire Horse Trail, High Rankings Forum, John Andrews, Matt Cutts, Michael Gray, Mikkel deMib Svendsen, Nine By Blue, Outspoken Media, Search Cowboys, Search Engine Guide, Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Land, Search Engine Watch, Sebastian’s Pamphlets, SEOmoz, SEOoptimize, SEO By The Sea, SEO Book, SEO Copywriting, SEO Gadget, Stone Temple, The Link Spiel, WebProNews and WebmasterWorld.

Looking for an easy-to-scan compilation of SEO news? Check out Alltop. For compilations of the best articles on search engine optimization in a given year, visit The Semmys.

At Search Engine Roundtable, you’ll discover a regular compilation of important discussions happening on a variety of search marketing forums. For definitions about terms like SEO and other technological issues, check out Webopedia.

Don’t forget to take our free SearchCap newsletter! SearchCap provides a recap of all the day’s SEO-related news from sources all over the web.

Search Engine Land Columns

Search Engine Land has a variety of columns that cover SEO issues mainly from an in-the-trenches perspective:

• All Things SEO
• B2B Search Marketing
• In House Search Marketing
• In The Trenches
• Industrial Strength
• Link Week
• Local Search 
• Search & Social

Top Search Engine Land Articles

Here are a few of Search Engine Land’s more popular articles about SEO:

• Some SEO Advice For Bill Gates
• 29 Worst Practices & Most Common Failures: SEO Checklist
• SEO Checklist Part 2: Best Practices
• 36 SEO Myths That Won’t Die But Need To
• 36 More SEO Myths That Won’t Die But Need To
• 21 Essential SEO Tips & Techniques

Search Engine Land’s Library

The SEO Library is an area within Search Engine Land that provides a collection of all stories we’ve written on the topic of SEO. We also have sub-categories, including:

• SEO: Blocking Spiders
• SEO: Blogs & Feeds
• SEO: Cloaking & Doorway Pages
• SEO: Domain Names & URLs
• SEO: Duplicate Content
• SEO: Flash
• SEO: General
• SEO: Image Search
• SEO: Local
• SEO: Mobile Search
• SEO: Redirects & Moving Sites
• SEO: Spamming
• SEO: Submitting & Sitemaps
• SEO: Tagging
• SEO: Titles & Descriptions
• SEO: Video Search
• SEO: Writing & Body Copy

Also see our related Link Building category and these sub-categories:

• Link Building: Link Bombs
• Link Building: Linkbait
• Link Building: Paid Links

In addition to covering SEO generally, Search Engine Land also has search engine optimization areas specifically for each of the major search engines:

• Google SEO
• Microsoft’s Bing SEO
• Yahoo SEO

Also within our library is the How To: SEO section, which is devoted to practical tips and tactics about search engine optimization.

The full library is open to those with with Search Engine Land memberships, just one of several benefits that membership provides. Check it out!

Seo Virtual Assistant

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How to write a thesis (Bachelor, Master, or PhD) and which software tools to use

How to write a PhD thesis? This is not a trivial task. Related literature needs to be found, notes need to be taken and finally the thesis has to be drafted and written including the creation of the bibliography. Dozens of books exist about how to do a literature survey and how to write a PhD and scholarly literature in general (e.g. [1-9]). However, software tools that might help in doing a literature survey or writing a thesis are hardly covered by these books, if at all. This is surprising as many software tools exist facilitating the daily work of a PhD student.
In this tutorial we present a new method to reviewing scholarly literature and drafting a PhD thesis with mind mapping software, PDF readers and reference managers.  This tutorial focuses on PhD students. However, Bachelor and Master students can use the here presented methods as well to plan and write their thesis. What makes this tutorial special is the fact that everything – PDF files, the content of PDFs (bookmarks) and references are integrated with mind mapping and word processing software.

To make the tutorial better understandable we provide many examples for which we assume that you want to write a PhD thesis about academic search engines.

Please note that

• All tools presented in this tutorial are free and open source(except Microsoft Word)
• All tools presented in this tutorial are based on Java and run on Windows, Linux and MacOS (again, except Microsoft Word)
• All tools used in this tutorial may be substituted:
  • SciPlore Mindmapping may be substituted with FreeMind, MindManager, XMIND and most other mind mapping tools allowing to link PDF files
  • Foxit Reader may be substituted with Adobe Acrobat
  • JabRef may be substituted with any other reference manager supporting BibTeX (e.g. BibDesk, Referencer and Mendeley)
  • Microsoft Word may be substituted with OpenOffice or LaTeX or any other word processor that BibTeX support/plugins exist for

You will spend the next couple of years doing your PhD (or months if you are doing a Master or Bachelor). We highly recommend to read this andother tutorials to find out the way that is best for you to manage your literature and references and write your PhD. Spending a few hours now will save you days if not even weeks later. This tutorial will be updated from time to time to consider the latest features of the tools presented here.Last update of this tutorial: Mai 2010

Before starting, we present some user feedback that we got by email for our software and this tutorial. We hope it motivates you to read the complete tutorial :-).