Introduction to SEO

Before we begin into an explanation of SEO, let's talk a bit about search engines on what they are used for.

Why are search engines so important?

• The Internet is the world’s second most commonly used medium after television (Internet Statistics Compendium, 2006)
• Approximately 1.5 billion people use the Internet, worldwide (Internet World Stats, 2008)
• That’s a massive 305% increase since 2000! And still it’s only 21.9% of the world’s population (Internet World Stats)66% of online Americans have purchased a product online (Pew Internet)
• 93% of users worldwide use search engines to find websites (Forrester Research)
• Search engines are the way most people (85%) find new sites, and the way most businesses find new sources for products and services (Direct Marketing Association)
• Roughly 750 million people worldwide over the age 15 conducted a search on the Internet in August 2007 (comScore)
• About 15% of traffic on brand names is landing at competitor, affiliate or ‘other’ websites in US and AU markets where trademark restrictions are not strictly enforced (Hitwise)