Understanding the history and evolution of SEO, or search engine optimization, is important to all marketers and companies looking to enhance their web marketing efforts to gain greater access to the huge online buying population. In the age of the on-the-go consumer the use of the old medias when read to buy, particularly the Yellow Pages, have seen a huge decline in consumer usage as the information we need is so quickly accessible online or via our PDAs. The rise of Google local and the growing opportunity to source recommendations from our trusted social networks has changed the way we source and buy products forever.

So as we race to try and get on the first page of Google the real question to answer is what value does SEO and search marketing have in the online marketing mix? To look into the future in this regard we need to explore, briefly, the past and what led us to this point.

SEO Beginnings

SEO as Wikipedia defines it, is “the process of improving the visibility of a web site in search engines” through organic means. SEO was not developed overnight. Instead, it took a number of trial and error attempts as well as some changes on the end of the search engine to end up where it is today.

According to the HistoryofSEO.com, SEO had its genesis during the early 90s when website marketers realized the value of search engine result rankings to their website traffic. During the early days of the search engines. optimization was alphabetical. You could obtain the choice position just like you did in the old Yellow Pages by registering alpha URLs such “AAA” or “A#1”. Because of this “AAA” and “A#1” type optimization, trends began. This methodology was simple for the optimizer, but it wasn’t effective since it allowed sites that aren’t relevant to the search keyword to get a top rank.

In 1994 Yahoo! started using Webcrawler, but it was in 1997 when on-page optimization started. Greenlightsearch.com looks at the history further by gauging the importance of on page SEO, page rank, anchor text, domain authority, link context, and user signals over time (by 2009, domain authority is the most important factor out of all the ones mentioned).

SEO today

In order to understand how search engine optimization has changed it’s important to know how page rankings work. Google, Yahoo!, and other search engines use certain algorithms to determine the relevance of a website to the keyword used by a person on a search engine. For instance, if you search the word “notebook” on Google, http://www.google.com/notebook appears on the top slot. There are four main ranking criteria, as often cited in SEOMOZ.org: domain authority, anchor text, on-page SEO, and raw pagerank. As mentioned above, domain authority is the main factor that determines the rank. This is why sites like Wikipedia and many Google pages top the ranks—they have domain trust.

There have been many changes to how search engines determine rankings. In 2002, links were the most important factor in SEO. Some factors, like on-page SEO, hardly change. In this field, it’s important to know the trends in order to stay on top.

When selecting a search engine marketing partner it is important to know how an SEO team keeps abreast of algorithmic changes and on top of trends to ensure that clients’ search marketing program encompasses the best in class approach and results. The team at PCM Interactive has found a way to monitor this and they have seen many changes since 2000 when the decision was made to enter this foray.

Companies who have realized the importance of search engine marketing and SEO as a mainstay in their regular online marketing diet have realized the strategic value of increased quality traffic to their company web sites. SEO, which was once a technical exercise, is evolving rapidly into a marketer’s game and this provides online marketing agencies like PCM Interactive some exciting opportunities to provide some innovative cross-platform solutions geared to enhanced results.

SEO is contantly evolving but there are four things that don’t change (even in the advent of personalized search) these are: make pages accessible, target the right keywords, build content that is useful and earn links from good sources.