What is SEO
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What is SEO and what is its purpose?
SEO is the shorter term for “Search Engine Optimization“. It is the method or process of acquiring free and organic results in search engines.
Search Engine Optimization has two words:
Search Engine Optimization has two separate words. First is the Search Engine, the tool to search data from thousands of websites.
For example, if you are looking for information on Men’s leather jackets, then enter this keyword in Google’s search bar, and in seconds, you will find tons of information on Men’s leather jackets.
Now what is Optimization? It is a method or technique that SEO companies, developers, freelancers or in-house SEO members use to make keywords from a website more popular in search engines and gather information when searching.
The competition starts in the SEO industry and who can provide the best ranking for a website and the most competitive price.
The most efficient companies follow Google’s algorithm or coding and use White Hat SEO policies also set by Google, also known as the best practices of SEO, to win the game.
What are the two categories or techniques of SEO?
What are White Hat and Black Hat SEO?
White Hat SEO is doing things the right way, ethically and by following Google’s best practices and guidelines. It, also known as Organic SEO, is doing it naturally. You can learn a few techniques of White Hat SEOs by Elegant Theme.
Black Hat SEO is a practice against search engine guidelines used to get a site ranking in search results. These unethical tactics often result in penalties from search engines. Black Hat SEO methods also include keyword stuffing and cloaking. Wordstream shows more definitions of Black Hat SEO.
What are main types of SEO?
-On-page SEO, also known as on-site SEO
-Off-page SEO, also known as off-site SEO
-Technical SEO. …
-Local SEO.
On-page SEO:
On-page SEO refers to optimizing the parts of your website you control, like content, HTML or title of the page URL etc. Few techniques used in On-Page SEO:
- Optimized HTML file
- Content Optimization
- Keyword-rich content
- Optimized URLs
- Image optimization
- Technical aspects of the website etc.
Off-page SEO:
Off-page SEO is a link-building technique outside your website (like WordPress) to improve search engine rankings, helping build a website’s recognition and domain authority (DA).
Some purposes of Off-page SEO includes:
1. Backlinks
What is a backlink?
Backlinks help search engines index your site’s content. You’ll need to choose reputable websites to put your links on to get an effective Backlink strategy.
Google can penalize and ban a website for poor-quality backlinks and broken links. It is advisable to seek professional help. Check NightWatch for some solutions.
BrandPush shares ways to improve your brand’s exposure by publishing and writing high-quality articles on a network of 200 news sites and driving quality buyers to your website. Their massive audience of 100 million per month can be a significant boost to get higher search engine rankings.
2. Domain Authority
3. Social Links
4. Forum Submission etc.
Technical SEO:
Technical SEO is mainly a part of the On-Page SEO procedure. It includes:
1. Better Crawling
Before Google considers ranking your content, it first needs to know it exists.
Google uses several methods to discover new content on the web, but the primary process is crawling. Simply put, crawling is where Google follows links to pages it already knows about that it hasn’t visited.
To do this, they use a computer program called Spider.
The next time they crawl that site, they’ll follow that link to discover your website’s homepage and possibly add it to their index.
From there, they will crawl the links on your homepage to find other pages on your site.
2. Better indexing
When users search Google with keywords, then, Google will find the most relevant content by using its index. This method allows Google to find the website by indexing search results to show it in the search results.
3. Google Search Console
Google provides a tool called Google Search Console to help monitor websites by efficiently crawling and indexing a site.
Technical SEO techniques include:
- Web page speed/load time
- Structure of website
- Sitemap
- Redirect pages like 301, 302, 404
- Mobile friendliness
Local SEO:
Local SEO is one part of search engine optimization focusing on the search’s geographical or regional area components. It is the method of optimizing a website that increases visibility and traffic to a website and helps improve the ranking of local brick-and-mortar businesses.
Key strategies to rank a website in first page:
Website SEO audit
An SEO audit is necessary to find overall website performance and structure. It’s like a health check for a website. An in-depth analysis and evaluation will reveal a website’s strengths and weaknesses.
The SEO developer looks at the insights of sites from a technical and marketing perspective and recommends solutions for improving search engine rankings and increasing traffic.
Semrush provides 15 steps to perform a complete SEO audit, an all-in-one SEO toolset that looks at a site’s performance to find errors and improve a website in all essential areas.
Neil Patel, one of the top 10 SEO experts, offers a complete list of mistakes preventing your website from ranking high on Google.
In-depth keyword research and identification
What is key word?
The keyword is a word or phrase describing your web page’s content. Search engines use keywords as an essential factor to rank a website in Google.
For example, if your website or Blog is about men’s leather jackets, visitors may search on Google for men’s leather jackets or the lowest price, etc. If your website uses such keywords as tags, then your website will be found easily.
How are short-tail keywords different than long-tail keywords? Short tail keywords are those that refer to general queries, and long tail keywords are those words that refer to a more specific question. An example of a short tail keyword is a jacket; the long tail keyword, in this case, will be men’s leather jacket.
transactional or commercial keywords
All these keywords require an intelligent keyword strategy which SEO experts can help. Some of the famous and well-known Keyword strategy platforms are provided by Semrush, Ahrefs, Moz, Backlinko.
In-depth Competitor analysis
An in-depth competitor analysis of your industry competitors will provide your website with an understanding of how your business performs compared to existing and potential customers and also rate the market.
If you can understand your competitor’s strengths and weaknesses and their market position in Google search ranking, you can develop an effective method and competitive strategies in your target market.
This method comes down to White Hat SEO strategies. Find the best SEO program to help you achieve your best strategies.
SEO Site change recommendation and implementation as possible
Some of the critical areas in SEO recommendation include providing helpful product or service information that would be useful to customers.
They are applying short and meaningful page titles and headings so customers will find what they want on that page.
Include details about your business mainly on the About Us page; check image and video tags which can be helpful for users with disabilities. Use descriptions that your website visitors and potential customers can relate to.
Site traffic and statistical analysis
What is site traffic analysis?
Website traffic analysis is a roadmap to a website’s performance and success. It provides the number of visitors to your site daily. It is the yardstick of collecting and analyzing critical data points that explain the web traffic to and from your site.
Similarweb and Semrush are two platforms that provide reliable website analytics and traffic data.
Keywords or key phrases Optimizing (see above)
Optimizing Title Tags & Meta Tags
What is title tag optimization?
SEO Heading Tag Optimization is an essential factor for content and ranking strategies. The heading or title tags, such as H1, H2, H3, and up to H6, must be readable for your audiences.
Title tags are at the top of the search engine results page (SERP). Search engines use this title tag to define the theme of the website.
A few websites provide great ideas on title tags, such as Embitel, Semrush, Moz, Neil Patel, and Search Engine Watch.
What is Meta Tag optimization?
When it comes to describing a page’s content on a website, then Meta keywords or Meta tags are the foundation. Visitors can not see the Meta tags on websites. Meta tag creation requires a lot of brainstorming by website owners and SEO developers.
Ahref provides valuable insights on Meta tags and how to use them. Other recommended sites to learn about meta tags are Workstream, W3schools, Semrush, and Google Search Central, to name a few.
Optimize Structure & Navigation
Anchor Tag Optimization
What is SEO Anchor Text or Tag, and how to optimize it?
The anchor text is a hyperlink. It usually has a blue colour to highlight the link. Ahrefs, Moz, Semrush, Neil Patel, Search Engine Journal.
Content Rewriting and Optimization
Install Google WebMaster Code, Analytics Code
What is Google Webmaster?
The Webmaster is the initial contact for all areas of the owner’s website. It handles a range of activities that may include web design and development and routine site and content maintenance to ensure it aligns with the company’s and its website’s goals and objectives.
To learn more, visit Google Search Central for a better understanding.
What is Google Analytics?
Google Analytics is a service provided by Google web analytics service which allows valuable data and site traffic stats from audiences visiting various pages.
Website owners can use this data to optimize their website for better performance by looking at different page visits and taking appropriate strategic steps.
Visit Google Analytics Support, Simplilearn, Medium
Robots.txt file, modification/setup
What is a Robots.txt file?
Robots.txt is a text file that directs search engine crawlers to visit certain web pages. For more information about Robots.txt, visit Semrush, Moz, Cloudflare, Backlinko, and Robots.txt.
Directory submission, Link Building through manual directory submission
What is directory submission?
Directory Submission is an Off-Page SEO technique. Submitting to various directories your website link will bring more authenticated searches and gradually improve your website ranking in the Google search engine. The ultimate goal is to increase business growth.
Targeted campaign for Global and Local search engines optimization
Forum Thread & Blog, Comments, Bookmarking, Press release, Video, and Document Submission
What is Forum Thread or Forum Posting?
Forum is an online platform where different communities share their opinions, thoughts, and ideas via dialogue and discussion to promote their website content.
It also gets replies from different members of that particular category.
The Forum plays a critical Off-Page SEO technique to build traffic to your website from the links shared. To learn How Forum works, visit Verint, Digital Media Law, and Drupal.
What is a Blog Commenting?
Blog commenting is also an Off-Page SEO method for generating traffic for your website. Blog commenting for SEO is a simple strategy to start building backlinks to your site while building solid relationships with people in your industry.
If done correctly, Blog commenting can lead to hundreds of new site visitors and countless future link-building opportunities.
The most important thing is to get a quality Blog Commenting list. For more details on how to do Blog commenting, visit Rank Watch, SEOBUDDY and Neil Patel.
What is Social Bookmarking?
Social Bookmarking is an OFF page SEO technique. First, understand what Bookmarking is. Bookmark is a process where you can save and store the website domain or URL and later retrieve it.
Now in SEO, we need Social Bookmarking to increase backlinks. Mostly we get No-Follow backlinks, which is the fastest way to increase backlinks for your website. For more information, visit Sproutsocial, Hubspot, big commerce, and Lifewire.
What is Press Release Submission?
Press Release is also an Off-Page backlink-building technique vital to search engine ranking. A press release is a written text about specific news or events that are happening or are happening within your business.
It is an important SEO strategy that helps to gain the popularity of your events, your website’s products or services on the search engine to improve the SEO of your website.
Fit Small Business shares how to send a press release in 6 steps. Prowly, e-releases, Cartoozo.