SEO - not Sia, unfortunately.

I'll be frank, I had zero clue as to what search engine optimization (SEO) was up until a few minutes ago. When I first read the phrase I assumed it had something to do with Boolean searches, but apparently not. Thankfully, the Internet knows all the things.

This beginner's guide defines SEO as a marketing discipline focused on growing visibility in organic (non-paid) search engine results. SEO encompasses both the technical and creative elements required to improve rankings, drive traffic, and increase awareness in search engines. So, from what I understand, it's the process of getting your web page to be pulled up in the search results when a keywords or phrases are typed into a search engine. The goal is to create more traffic: people accessing your web page.

The majority of web traffic is driven by the major commercial search engines, Google, Bing, and Yahoo!. Although social media and other types of traffic can generate visits to your website, search engines are the primary method of navigation for most Internet users. Obviously, Google has the upper hand here, with more than 80% of all people using Google's search engine.

The argument has been made that while Bing is the most helpful search engine,  as we talked in class, because of how popular and well known Google is, it will most likely always have the upper hand. The word "google" is a verb itself, so if you want to focus on a specific search engine optimization - stick with Google. I inserted a commercial from YouTube that Bing produced that shows how the results you want from Bing are generally more accurate than what you receive from Google.

Anyways, back to SEO's. There are some common tools and search engine protocols that can help get more traffic to your website. The first is Sitemaps.

Sitemaps are most easily understood if you think of them as files that can give hints to search engine on how they can find your website. They can help the search engine label specific content on your site that the search engine might not have found on its own. Sitemaps can be useful because if you have videos, images, or news on your website because Sitemaps can use those different types of formats to generate more traffic.

You can also implement Geotagging.

Formally, geotagging is know as: "the process of adding geographical identification metadata to various media such as a geotagged photograph or video, websites, SMS messages, QR Codes or RSS feeds and is a form of geospatial metadata. This data usually consists of latitude and longitude coordinates, though they can also include altitude, bearing, distance, accuracy data, and place names."
Simply stated:geotagging is the process of adding geographical identification to photographs, video, websites and SMS messages.

Keep in mind, geotagging has big privacy flaws to it. Why? Well, you are giving up your location, whether you are still there or not. In this article, it explains how to avoid the potential risks to geotagging.

You should always be aware that your phone may automatically geotag your location - this has been shown to be problematic, especially for people in the public eye who do not want their location given away. Turn your location settings off if you do not want your photos to be tagged with your location.

There are other risks involved because if your photo is posted with the location it can be a great way for potential stalkers or thieves to find you/your location. It's important to know where you shouldn't geotag: private addresses, dorms, hotel rooms, public settings (beaches, amusement parks, etc) and never geotag photos of children.

And finally, if using geotagging websites, control with great care the people who are able to see where you're located. "Each website differs in how it confines your information to only those people whom you want seeing it; always be sure to read the instructions carefully and don't just rely on the default setting which might be allowing anyone to see your whereabouts."

Overall, search engine optimizing can be extremely helpful when trying to gain more traffic to your website through keywords and phrases, especially using tools like sitemaps and geotagging. But be careful, privacy is something that is much harder to get back than it is to maintain.