Search engine optimization: why it matters, what it does
Social Media Systems’ Barry Hurd presented an introduction to search engine optimization (SEO) in a real estate publication that I would like to summarize here, since it has a lot of interesting figures! 
According to Hurd, spending on search engine marketing will top $12 billion by 2010.
A 2006 Forrester Research report revealed:
- 93% of all Internet traffic is generated from Internet search engines
- 89% of them are first-time visitors
- 99% of Internet searchers do not search beyond the top 30 results
- 97% of them never look beyond the top three results
- Top 10 positions receive 78% more traffic than those in positions 11-30
- 65% of online revenue is generated from Web sites in the top three positions on search engine results pages (SERPs)
- 93% of global consumers use search engines to find Web sites
- 76.7% of Google users use the natural search links (organic unpaid listings)
Hurd says “SEO is the process of analyzing elements on a site so that the code maximizes the combinations of keywords contained on the site when a search engine looks at it. While text elements are visible to a human eye, dozens of pieces of code within a site are also important to showing up for specific keywords: this includes structure, HTML code, directories, images and content on the site. The selection of the keywords a site shows up for is radically important to a business, as the competitiveness and importance of those keywords could potentially send thousands of viewers a day to a site.”
Keyword inclusion is important. Having a keyword density of 5% to 7% (repeating those important keywords in online documents and web pages) will help the search engines index your site by that keyworded topic.
