Introduction to Search Engine Optimization or SEO
What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is basically the process of getting traffic to your website by organic or free means from the Google Search Engine Result Page (SERP).
When user search on Google, Bing, or Yahoo have results on the primary page, where websites, videos, local listings are shown based on the ranking, which search engine consider most relevant to the search of the user. In SEO payment is not involved to rank your website.
SEO targets different types of searches, which include website search, image search, video search, news search, etc.
Types of SEO:
Basically, the SEO process is divided into two different categories:
- On-page SEO: On-page SEO is a process of optimizing the individual webpages of the website to rank them higher on the SERP and get more free traffic to the website.
- Off-page SEO: As the name shows Off-page SEO is a process i.e. done off the website, basically, building backlinks on other websites to get traffic from them.
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On-page SEO:
In this optimization is done on individual webpages, which includes headlines, HTML tags (title, meta and header) and images. It makes sure the website has a high level of expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthy. Optimization of all these factors improves the visibility of the website in SERP.
Why On-Page SEO is Required
It is important because it helps Google crawlers understand your website and its content, so when a user makes a search it shows the relevant information to the user.
As the search engines are getting more sophisticated, Google algorithms are now more advanced. It understands the search made by the user when they type query and show the relevant information to the user. In order to ensure that website and its content, which is visible to the user (text, image, video, or audio) and which is visible to search engines (HTML tags, structured data) are well-optimized according to the latest updates for search engines.
There are various parameters which need to be optimized for On-Page SEO. Few of them are:
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- Keywords: It is the foremost important aspect of On-Page SEO. Keyword determines the content in the webpage, so for all webpage, it must be different. When a user makes a query in the search engine, that query is basically a keyword on basis of that search engine searches the information and show the results to the user. The keyword must be 1 – 2% not more than that.
- Unique content: The content must be unique, having the selected keyword and must be more than 300 words. The content of the article must be engaging so that user will not bounce from the article.
- Title Tag: It is an HTML tag that exists in the head section of the webpage, which gives an idea about what the webpage and content are all about. The title should be written in such a way that it contains the keyword preferably at the starting.
- Meta Description: It provides a description of what page is about, it is also displayed on the SERPs below the title. This improves the quality of Click Through Rate (CTR). The description must contain the keyword.
- Header Tags: Headline to an article makes it different from others and make it more clickable. Header tags are HTML elements H1 to H6 all play an important role in the article, in identifying heading and subheadings.
- Image optimization: Images give an aesthetic look to the article, but at the same, it slows the website. So, it is very important to optimize the images. The image must support your content and use a descriptive title and alt text.
- Responsive: Website must be responsive to the computer, laptop, mobile and tabs
- Site Speed: Speed of the site is very important. If the site speed is slow to use may bounce back.
- Linking: Internal and external linking in the website is also must
- Sitemap: sitemap should be updated and submitted to Google search console
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Off-page SEO:
As the name suggests Off-Page SEO doesn’t happen directly on the website. Off-Page SEO is about link building on other websites. Search Engines use backlinks as indications of the linked-to website content quality. A site with high-quality backlinks will usually rank better than other websites.
Off-Page SEO activity is done on the following websites:
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- Guest Blogging
- Article Submission
- Press Release
- Social Bookmarking
- Document/PDF Submission
- Video Submission
- Directory Submission
- Question and Answer Submission
- Leave comments with Backlinks
- Blogging
- Create link wheel: Linkwheel is creating a link between all above website links together and all giving a link back to the website