Although SEO is a term that’s tossed around a lot these days, not everyone understands what SEO actually is and what it is not.

SEO stands for search engine optimization. A search engine optimization specialist is someone who helps you optimize your website for search engines. Or, as I frequently say, an SEO specialist is someone who helps you get your website listed in search results on Google or on other search engines.

Search engine optimization is a combination of many pieces. One, it’s helping a website improve the actual site structure so that a search engine – from here on out, I’m just going to refer to Google, since Google is the biggest search engine in town – can more easily figure out what the site’s about and match it to what people are looking for.

A search engine optimization specialist keeps up on the newest happenings in the SEO world – in other words, what Google is looking for to place a site in the top search results – and is ready to help their clients update their websites to keep up with those trends. This often means breaking it to the client that no, they cannot use the same text over and over on every page; no, you cannot put all the text on your website into pictures, and no, you cannot copy and paste content from another site on to yours without getting your website penalized.

What SEO is:

1)   Improving your site to make it friendly for search engines to read and understand.

2)   Checking reports and analyses and suggesting improvements to ensure that you don’t have errors or other triggers that would cause a search engine to be confused by your site.

3)   Helping you start ranking for viable keywords in your field, based on what your potential clients are searching for online.

4)   Keeping abreast with current search engine algorithm updates and making sure your site is optimized for those changes.

5)   Either providing or making suggestions on how to create quality content for your website.

6)   Either providing or making suggestions on how to create an interest in your product and your website among your target audience.

What SEO is not:

1)   Using spammy tactics (called Blackhat SEO) to shoot you to the top of the search results instantaneously…where your site will fall off just as fast.

2)   Copying and pasting the same content on every page or in all your meta descriptions and meta titles.

3)   Posting links to your site in forums on questions that have nothing to do with what you’re selling. (“Hey there, I don’t know where to tell you to find quality kids’ furniture, but check out my crocheted mittens!”

4)   Trying to implement information that was current in 1999 but doesn’t at all apply today.

That’s all for today, folks! Feel free to post questions about what SEO is or isn’t in the comments, or share stories about SEO specialist experiences, good or bad!