The Bacterial Foraging Optimization Algorithm is a swarm intelligence optimization algorithm. This paper first analyzes the chemotaxis, as well as elimination and dispersal operation, based on the basic Bacterial Foraging Optimization Algorithm. The elimination and dispersal operation makes a bacterium which has found or nearly found an optimal position escape away from that position, which greatly affects the convergence speed of the algorithm. In order to avoid this escape, the sphere of action of the elimination and dispersal operation can be altered in accordance with the generations of evolution. Secondly, we put forward an algorithm of an adaptive adjustment of step length we called improved bacterial foraging optimization (IBFO) after making a detailed analysis of the impacts of the step length on the efficiency and accuracy of the algorithm, based on chemotaxis operation. The classic test functions show that the convergence speed and accuracy of the IBFO algorithm is much better than the original algorithm.