What is the Meaning of SEO?
SEO is a technical term used in digital marketing.
Digital Marketing is the marketing of any business through online platforms like Google, Facebook, Youtube etc. for its success or growth.
By the way, the full form of SEO is “Search Engine Optimization” but seeing the most usage of Google search engine everywhere, I think the name of SEO should be changed to GSEO.
I said this because according to a report, more than 80% people in the world give the highest priority to Google search engine among all search engines.
Search engines are the tools that help any person to get the information as per their requirement through search on the internet.
Now Let’s come to the definition of SEO.
Search engine optimization means optimizing any website for search engines so that it can appear on higher ranking in SERPs.
In simple words, SEO is a process that gives an extra power to the website to get higher rankings on search engine result pages.
Do you know:
SERPs are the pages that are shown by the search engine to the user when he searches his query on the search engine.
Did you notice something in the definition of Search engine optimization?
In the definition, I called SEO “extra power” for a website. Do you know why I said that?
Because SEO alone is not enough for a website to get higher ranking in SERPs. There are other factors in a website such as understanding user intent, following E-A-T principles, good user experience etc. which are responsible for higher ranking of a website.
How is SEO related to SEM?
With the help of SEO or Search Engine Optimization, the website appears on higher rankings on search engine result pages, as a result of which the website receives more organic traffic.
On the other hand, with the help of SEM or search engine marketing, the website receives both organic and paid traffic.
When a user searches with a keyword, he gets a list of websites in SERPs, out of which the first few websites are paid. To identify them, they have a sponsored tag. If a user visits these websites after searching, then that user is counted in paid traffic.
Sponsored websites receive higher rankings on targeted keywords through paid ads. This practice of getting high volumes of traffic is also known as PPC (pay-per-click).
For running paid ads on their target keywords, websites have to pay for every click by the user. Apart from this, websites also have to pay for their ads based on their ranking in search engines. The higher the ranking, the higher the payment.
The biggest advantage of paid ads or PPC is that the website gets a lot of traffic in a short time but the traffic brought to the website through paid ads is not sustainable; this traffic ends when the ads are completed.
The websites listed below the sponsored websites are unpaid and they rank there due to their good SEO. If a user visits any of these websites after searching, then it is counted in organic traffic or natural traffic.
Organic traffic completely depends on the SEO of the website. The better the SEO of a website, the higher ranking it will get in the unpaid website listings of SERPs.
Since SEO is half of SEM and PPC is the other half of it, so in a easy way we can say that
SEO= responsible for driving only organic traffic to the website
SEM= responsible for driving both organic and paid traffic to the website
How many types of SEO are there?
Although there are many types of SEO, but for high ranking of the website in the search engine, mainly three types of it are necessary which are on-page, off-page and technical, so let us know about them one by one:
On-page
On-page (or it can also be called on-site) SEO is the most important part of SEO for a website to get higher ranking in the SERPs.
In the process of on-page SEO, the website and the content present in it are optimized in such a way that users and search engines can easily understand them.
Content, search intent, keywords, title tags, meta description, headings, subheadings, URLs, internal linking, images, external links etc. are the factors that come under on-page SEO.
It is necessary to optimize all these factors to get higher ranking in SERPs. If any one of these factors is not optimized properly, it can have a significant impact on the search engine ranking of any website.
Off-page
Off-page (also known as off-site) SEO is activities performed to improve a website’s search engine rankings.
The difference between on-page and off-page SEO is that on-page activities are performed within the website while off-page activities are performed outside the website.
There is only one downside of off-page SEO and that is that we can never have 100% control over off-page activities because the website has to depend on other sites or platforms in off-page SEO. But still off-page SEO is considered as an important ranking factor by search engines.
Websites also gain trust and authority from search engines through off-page activities.
Link building is the most important activity of off page SEO which is done in many forms such as guest posting, broken link building, online directories, business listings, public relations, ratings, reviews etc.
Nowadays, anyone who is new to the field of SEO or who only does link building in SEO, considers only link building as complete off page SEO but it is not so. Because link building is only a part of off page SEO.
Apart from link building, there are many activities which are considered as off page SEO activities. For example: Brand mentions, social media engagement, online reputation management etc.
Technical
Those factors of the website which are technical and are responsible for higher ranking of the website in search engines are optimized for both search engines and users under technical SEO.
Website Architecture, Website Performance, Crawling and Indexing, HTML Tags, Sitemaps, Schema Markup, Error Handling, Server Response Codes, Redirections, robots.txt etc. are the technical elements of a website that are optimized as technical SEO.
Therefore, technical SEO is also called the base of other SEO activities because in order to make an impact of on-page and off-page activities on the website, it is very important to first optimize the technical elements of the website well. No website can get higher ranking in search engines based only on on-page and off-page activities.
What is the Difference between black hat and white hat strategies in SEO?
If you are new to SEO then I think you might not know anything about black hat and white hat.
Black hat and white hat in SEO are the strategies used by any website to get higher ranking in SERPs. But before using these strategies on your website, it is important to know the difference between them.
Some major differences between black hat and white hat strategies are:
| Difference of | Black Hat Strategy | White Hat Strategy |
| Type | Unethical and Unstable | Ethical and Stable |
| Search engines guidelines | Don’t follows | Follows |
| Strategy | Manipulates search engines for higher rankings | Focuses on improving the quality and relevance of the website for both users and search engines |
| Results | Gets ranking quickly but for a short period of time. Also, the website is at a high risk of getting penalized or banned at any time. | Ranking is achieved slowly but it is stable and long term. Also, the visibility of the website and trust in the website increases. |
| User experience | Negative or Bad | Positive or Good |
| To do methods | Use of spammy content, keyword stuffing, hidden text or links, buying links, cloaking, link schemes participation etc. | Use of high-quality content, keywords research, optimize keywords naturally, optimization of technical elements, social media engagement, brand mentions etc. |
| Example | Creating pages that have spammy or low-value content and using keywords unnaturally to rank higher in search results. | Creating pages with high-value, unique and informative content that gives first priority to users’ needs. |
What are the benefits of doing SEO for a website?
Having good SEO for a website brings many benefits to it. Some of these benefits are:
- Organic traffic: A good SEO helps the website to get higher rankings in SERPs for targeted keywords. A good SEO helps the website get higher rankings in SERPs for targeted keywords which in turn leads to more organic traffic. More organic traffic means a greater chance of getting more customers.
- Conversion rates: If your website is related to selling any product or service then SEO also makes your product or service reach more and more customers. By ranking higher in SERPs, the website gets more leads due to which the conversion rate of lead to customer also increases.
- Brand and trust: By applying a good SEO strategy to your website with time, you can gain people’s trust in your product or service. This trust helps you to get recognition as a brand.
- High returns and stable growth: Investing some money initially for good SEO is never a waste. With time, we get more returns due to good SEO. Good SEO also helps the website to maintain high ranking in SERPs for a long time and as a result the website gets stable growth.
- User experience: Through SEO, website structure, loading speed etc. are also improved which play an important role in determining the user experience of a website.
- Beat your competitors in the rankings: By using the best SEO strategy in your website, you can beat your competitors in SERPs ranking and present your brand as a leader in the market.
- Local growth: SEO also helps your business grow locally. If your website provides physical services to its customers then local SEO is important for your website to get higher local search engine rankings.
What is the step by step process for doing SEO of a website?
Most of the beginners working in the SEO field do not know what they should do first in the SEO of the website and what not. They do the SEO of the website according to their own way, the result of which is that the website does not see any improvement in its rankings on the search engine result pages. Therefore, before starting the SEO of the website, it is very important for you to know the steps of SEO. Those steps are:
Keyword research
Keyword research is the first step of any website’s SEO. In this, you have to find those keywords (words used by people to search) related to your website which can make your website appear in SERPs when people search.
To find relevant keywords for your website, you can use tools like Google Keyword Planner, semrush, Ahrefs, Ubersuggest, Moz etc. In these tools, you can select keywords by analyzing the search volume of the keyword and the competition on the keyword.
Content creation
In this step, you have to create content for your website which is of high quality, relevant, unique, informative and fulfills the user’s search intent. While creating the content, you also have to keep in mind that the targeted keywords of your website should also be present in that content but in a natural way.
On-page optimization
In this step, you have to optimize each page of your website for target keywords. To do this, you have to use target keywords in the titles, meta descriptions, urls, headings (h1, h2…) and content of the website pages. But keep in mind that use your target keywords in the content naturally and not as keyword stuffing.
Technical optimization
After optimizing the on-page portion of the website, the technical portion is optimized so that the website is easily understandable by both search engines and users.
The benefit of technical optimization by search engines is that the chances of crawling and indexing of your website pages increases and the user experience improves due to better page speed, website performance, website structure, mobile friendliness, etc.
Off-page optimization
In this step, the off-page aspect of the website is optimized in which backlinks are obtained from high authority websites for the website. Apart from this, activities like social media marketing, brand awareness, public relations, business listing etc. are also done under off-page.
Monitoring and Analyzing
After completing all the five steps, now it is time to monitor and analyze the website. For this, you can use Google’s Analytics tool and Search Console tool and see whether the optimization you have done in your website is affecting the ranking of the website or not.
If not, then you can change your SEO strategy, but before doing this, keep one thing in mind that it may take time to see changes in the ranking of your website due to SEO. So be patient!
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