SEO is one of the most important aspects of the Digital Marketing area. Search Engine Optimization is all about getting a higher rank on Search Engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo etc. Every website wants to be at the top of the search results. This is where Search Engine Optimization (SEO) comes into the picture.
SEO is an important discipline of optimizing websites to rank higher in the search engine. It is the process of making a website as good or effective as possible. SEO is the practice of increasing organic traffic on Search Engine Result Page [SERP].
Before going deep into SEO, first understand how search engines work. You must know how it works and what factors are involved in it.
How Search Engines Work?
It is very important to know how search engines work to find the relevant content when a searcher searches for a query. Actually search engine doesn’t show live results, it stores every content, every website data into its server (database) and as search query enters, engine downloads some relevant data to the searcher.
Now the question exists: how do search engines download data?
Google has spiders/bots all over the search engines, these spiders continuously scan websites by following links. These spiders scan websites and download the entire data from the website and store it on the server.
There are three categories are performed by search engines:
Crawling is a process done by search engine spiders or bots, where they scan a website and copy the entire website’s content and store it in the search engines index.
Indexing means when search engine bots crawl the web pages and save a copy of all information on index servers and search engines show the relevant results when a user performs a search query.
Ranking is based on crawling method, Google finds out which website has relevant content related to certain keywords. When a user types a query on a search engine, the most relevant websites (from the Index) will appear on the search result based on multiple factors.
Now you know how search engines work and download data from websites and how it shows the relevant content to the searchers. But what should be done to get your website on top of the search engine?
Keyword Research
Every search in a search engine is based on keywords. A Keyword is a word typed in by the searcher to find the required information.
It is important to understand what people are searching for—the words, the patterns, and the associations they are using—to optimize your page according to their needs.
Keyword Research is one of the most important activities in SEO. Keyword Research gives you a better understanding of how high the demand is for certain keywords.
Keyword research helps you identify search phrases and search intent. There are four methods to research keyword intent:
- Look for a brand name.
- Look for related keywords and concepts.
- Look for specific indicators of time, location, or features.
- Identify the questions and needs.
Keyword research helps you understand how people move through the search path and how they utilize the information they receive to move from one keyword to another.
Types of SEO
- On Page SEO
- Off Page SEO
On Page SEO
On-page SEO is the practice of optimizing web pages to earn organic traffic and improve a website’s rankings in the SERP.
Common on-page SEO practices include optimizing title tags, content, internal links and URLs.
1. Title Tags
The title tag is used to specify the title of the webpage. This title is the clickable text displayed in the result as the title of the webpage. Also known as page titles, influence both the click through rates and people’s first impressions of your website.
Page title is the first phrase seen by the searchers and plays an important role in on-page optimization. The page title should be clear and concise for better optimization and clarity.
2. Meta Description
This is a short description (of up to 155 characters) that summarizes the content of a webpage. It is shown in the results page. It gives users more understanding of what your webpage offers. It does not influence rankings but does influence clicks.
3. URL Structure
A URL (Uniform Resource Locator), more commonly known as a “web address” specifies the location of a web page. Use SEO friendly URLs as they help to understand what the webpage is about.
These are very important for relevancy and for users. Include appropriate keywords in URLs and keep them short. Domain Name is the core of URL as it represents your business online. Make it easy to spell, share, and pronounce.
4. Header Tags
Header tags are the HTML tags that are used to break the information of a page into hierarchical order such as headings and subheadings.
The H1 heading tag is the most important for search engines as they form the title of the page and tell the algorithm what the content is about. The H2 tag and H3 tag then explain to the search engine the importance of each piece of content in order.
The structure to be followed for creating headings in web pages is as follows:
- <h1> Main Heading </h1>
- <h2> Subheading of H1 </h2>
- <h3> Subheading of H2 </h3>
5. Sitemaps
Sitemaps tell users and search engines the structure and hierarchy of a website. Sitemaps also tell search engines which pages on your site are most important.
A sitemap is a file where you provide information about the pages, videos, and other files on your site, and the relationships between them.
There are two types of sitemaps:
- HTML Sitemaps – for human
- XML Sitemaps – for crawlers
6. Internal Links
Internal Link of a hyperlink that goes from one page to another on your own website. They help search engines understand the website sections.
These links allow users to navigate the website and also useful to spread link equity from one website to another website.
Off Page SEO
Off Page Optimization is the process of linking or promoting your website using link building. Off-page SEO is a powerful SEO tactic that plays a large part in getting a site to rank higher on Google.
Google uses over 200 factors for ranking sites. It is difficult to rank based on content alone. This is where Off Page SEO comes in. By telling Google what others think about you and your site, you are helping it determine how much your content is relevant for users.
Link building is the king of off-page SEO, plus there are many other things you can do off the website to get it to rank higher, such as social media marketing, etc.
Benefits of Off Page SEO
Domain Authority – When doing off-page activities, you must always bear in mind the importance of this metric. Domain authority, or simply DA, assess website performance and quality. If a back link leads from a website with higher DA to a website with lower DA via a do-follow link, it helps the lower DA website get a better page rank and get higher in SERPs.
Relevance – Getting links from high-DA sites is the way to go; however, it is even more crucial that these sites are relevant to the one you’re linking to.
Site traffic – When doing off-page activities like forum posting, blogger outreach, etc. you need to figure out how much traffic these sites/people can drive towards you.
Link Type – Here are the two main types of links involved in link building or promotion activities.
- Do-Follow Links. A do-follow link is the default link type that allows Google bots or spiders to pass value to the link or webpage that is linked to.
- No-Follow Links. A no-follow link type means Google bots or spiders will not follow such links. They won’t pass any value to the page where it is linked to.
Conclusion:
This is the basic part of Search Engine Optimization. SEO is like an ocean and whatever you read here is just a bucket of water. So you have to learn more and more about it. It is quite interesting to know about SEO and Search Engines. So for deep knowledge of SEO stay tuned with us. We are available to social channels. You can join us here.
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