I assume that you will have some knowledge of SEO being involved with your Forum "Z"..or that you may have at sometime become aware about it in connection to who ever created it for you .
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is something that has become popular since the evolvement of google and search engines.
There is now quite a lot of new jobs created and persons who become SEO consultants..
At one time it may have been quite rare and maybe in the earlier days those who had the knowledge and skills may have made a good income from it..
and probably some still do so...but now there is more competition.
It can be quite complex.. and involved and it helps if one is good with words as well as programming skills.
As being good at related and descriptive phasing and coming up with relevant associated wording is part of the ability and skill involved , although there are tools to aid them.
It is something that is probably more understood by Computer geeks...but is a service that is become popular towards anyone who has a website..in particular more lately Businesses that have a website who want to promote themselves online.
Someone who learns about or understands SEO can then add various word phrases within the design of parts of ones website within its Programming such as within its HTML or PHP Language especially with relation to major keywords and images that relate to that businesses or websites main descriptive topic that relate to it.
So for eg, a Business that say is in a particular niche or that sells products or offers a service related to a particular subject, topic or profession ...for eg...say a Garage business. that maybe sells certain cars or maintains them and maybe within a particular area or town .
Popular keywords maybe the type of cars that they sell..
say.."Ford Escort" or a specific model..
Another related phases to their business maybe "Maintain" "service" MOT or "repair" for that model. say within your local town.
as an example he may create a description such as ..
Ford Escorts for sale in (say somewhere) in Las Vegas.
There may be a picture of a Ford Escort in Las Vegas
or with some ref to Vegas on the image...
so the SEO expert may give a descriptive title in the HTML for that image..sometimes these are just very basic descriptions.
he may title it say "Ford Escorts in Vegas"
Images with specific descriptions can be picked up maybe better and quicker on google and sometimes stand out better..
or they may write some phrases such as ..
Ford Escort Service and Repair in Las Vegas
There is a keword search tool on google that allows you to write in a keyword or phrase and it will then give you many other related or similar words and phrases that people search for..
This link I think may give some more detailed explanations.
http://www.seomark.co.uk/google-keyword-tool-uk/This explains about the Google keyword searches..
that can be used for use with finding related words for use with adwords..(Placing small adverts on googles search pages that are shown on the right hand side)
I think this is the Google keyword search tool.
the webpage seems to have changed since I last looked at it ..You may have to sign up to use it.. but I think you used to be able to visit the page and use it at one time without signing up or messing around.
https://adwords.google.co.uk/KeywordPlannerthe SEO expert may then use that to obtain many other suggestions as to what to consider using in the descriptions within ones website.
For them to get noticed within the search engines..
If they have a website... there will be various descriptions of the business and what they do or the services that they offer and the products that they may sell.
Certain Keywords and Phrases for these are what people may write within google or various other search engines.
Within the website they have whats known as tags wrote in the HTML language and Images that need to have a description.
What the SEO expert would try to do is maybe rewrite certain descriptive parts & retitle Images to be wrote in a way to meet the most popular associated keywords and phrases that people write in a search engine such as google when doing a search.
Because someone has gone to the effort to write these descriptions within the websites language coding... it then gets picked up by the search engines. and comes higher up in the search rankings.
The SEO expert may also create several other webpages just related to certain keywords and phrases related to that business or things that relate to it..
These then all link back to the main website and help the business website get found more easily by those searching for those particular descriptions.
There is an art to it and it can be quite complex and very time consuming..
but if done correctly a website will get a lot of Free traffic....and this may last for some time..
unless a competitor comes along and also attempts the same thing... if they do a better job, they get a better ranking say on google..
And this does go on as the website rankings for some major companies often change...
and there are ways to obtain a competitors SEO.
and then copy it or use it to help one create a better version on one with another website.
SEO can also be used for any type of website...and forums..
I think maybe for eg this forum has certain things built in it that automatically create SEO within it..
for eg with the many various related topics that you cover on PRC... be it Conspiracies, UFOs, Aliens. Free Energy, or what ever..
If you wanted this forum to become much more well known using and doing extra SEO could be the best way to go.
SEO when done right, is supposed to get Free visitors to ones website for quite some time ...maybe for years to come.. which could be free if one learns how to do it themselves..and finds time and one actually gets around to applying or to do it..
The problem is its time consuming and tedius.
but tools can help one do it quicker..
otherwise you have to pay someone to do it for you.
but maybe its better rather than say paying for daily or weekly advertising.such as googles adwords..where you pay daily to have small ads appear on related webpages or on googles search engine pages for related topics to say PRC.
Since the Internet has become so competitive..
the cost of Adwords for many niches has become very expensive..
but some businesses or companies still pay to use adwords and in many cases pay a lot more than they need to..
I know of one businessman who set up an Internet Business as a one man business a few years ago selling Information products..
and he used adwords to promote his website that sold his products... and at the time he was paying a pittance of a few cents/ pennies per every click to place an advert to to get a certain amount of visitor to click on his advert /link that took people to his website.
but now for that same niche... now you may have to pay £$ 5 to £$10 or more for every visitor who has clicked on his advert on google on a very narrowed descriptive word or phase related to his product or business description.
when he did this a few yrs ago he made over a £ Million pounds in profits on his sales.
SEO is also now very expensive to do in some cases if one attempts to do as good a job to really get a website ranked highly in the search engines.
Seriously why would any SANE person pay this Buffoon £40 an hour as an 'expert'
Mr McKinnon launched Small SEO, a site where he charges £40 an hour to help businesses get mentioned in search results.
On his site, he says he has more than 20 years' experience in IT services.
He had hacked US government computers but his extradition to face charges there was blocked.
The story was first reported in the Sunday Times. Search engine optimisation, or SEO, is a strategy to make sure a website or web page appears prominently in Google and other search engine results.