Backlinking. Of course, off-page optimization must also be taken into consideration, which an SEO consultant performs to improve rankings.

In essence, off-page optimization involves identifying backlink opportunities and submitting the business to local online directories, among other tasks. This will not only help drive more traffic to the site, but it will also help to improve the authority of the site. A site with a stronger authority, along with quality content based around keywords, will rank higher in search engines.

search-engine optimization: the methods used to boost the ranking or frequency of a website in results returned by a search engine, in an effort to maximize user traffic to the site: The first step in SEO is to generate keywords that are relevant to your site's content.

SEO is the active practice of optimizing a web site by improving internal and external aspects in order to increase the traffic the site receives from search engines. Firms that practice SEO can vary; some have a highly specialized focus, while others take a more broad and general approach.

Optimizing a web site for search engines can require looking at so many unique elements that many practitioners of SEO (SEOs) consider themselves to be in the broad field of website optimization (since so many of those elements intertwine).