Search Engine Optimization

What is SEO?

SEO stands for search engine optimization. SEO is a technique to get good ranking of website, page, blog, video or any content on the SERP (Search engine result page) and bringing Unpaid, Natural, Free or Organic traffic to a website or any targeted page. In simple language SEO is a strategy to get good results and ranking on search engine for a specific keyword without paying for advertisement. Optimization of any content on Search engines (e.g Google, Yahoo, bing etc) involves ensuring our contents/website meets all the algorithm governing search engine for ranking any website/content on the first page of the search result. For increasing organic traffic to a website, SEO is must.

For better SEO implementation, we need to understand the algorithm of the crawler of the search engine. The website should be optimized such that the search engine understands the content and thereby indexing the page/content on the SERP. Also, the technical terms involved in the process should be understood first:-

  • Index – Google or any search engine indexes a page of a website when it fetches and reads the content.
  • Crawl – This is the method used by the search engine crawler for finding new or updated content. This work is performed by the search engine using automated software which as generically called as search engine bots e.g Googlebots.

Key Points

SEO can be classified into two types:-

  • On-page SEO.
  • Off-page SEO.

On-page SEO

This is within the boundary of website, means every changes to be done will be implemented within the internal ambit of the website. It involves publishing the content on our website that meets the intended requirement of the visitors. This SEO technique follows a MIRROR technique, means when u look at the mirror and u don’t find yourself the way u want to look then u would try different things. The same applies to the website if the visitor doesn’t find the needed information, products, contents, videos etc on the website then there is a little chance that u could retain the traffic. The user will switch to your competitor website which is what you don’t want to happen. Same applies for the search engines, if some user search for a keyword and the crawler goes through the website without finding the intended keyword result then that’s not helping the cause. To avoid the above problem and to get better SERP ranking on-page SEO should be done with utmost care.

Some of the on-page SEO techniques and strategies involved are:-

1. Use target keywords relevant to the content in <title> tag within the <head> tag in the html document. 2. Use <h1> tag or <strong> tag in the html code to bold the keywords use in the description ta get better SERP rankings. 3. Use synonyms of the keyword or the words similar to that for better on page SEO. 4. Use unique title for each page so that google can crawl all tha pages individually and index them on the SERP. 5. Use of description meta tags to input all the information about the content of the page, the description can be of one line or can contain a complete paragraph. This help google get the snippet of the match the visitor are searching for on the search engine. 6. Use of alt attribute in the <img> tag of the html, this informs the search engine about the description of the image, because crawler cannot decipher the image code.

NOTE:- For the webmasters using the WORDPRESS as a hosting platform then it offers a very helpful plugin for SEO – YOAST. You can try it and tel, us your experience.

TIPS for On-page SEO:-

  • Internal Links should not be greater than 20-25.
  • External Links should not be greater than 6-10.
  • There should not be any broken Link.
  • The broken Link/Search should redirect to a 404 error page.

Off-page SEO

It is an offline technique to get better rank on the SERP. This is called ‘Off-page SEO‘ or ‘Off-line SEO‘ because it is done beyond the boundaries of the website and not visible on the live website. It is used to build backlinks on other website. It is a long term process and must be done regularly. To have a complete optimization of a website Off-page SEO is as important as the On-page SEO. The best way to get better ranking on the SERP is to get a natural link building and have a useful content to rank the website. A good quality website is considered to have a linking with other website of the same niche and it is expected that the website having social media presence, social media bookmarking and liked by the community of the relevant niche.

With the frequent updates in the SERP ranking algorithm of the search engines from the “PANDA” version of 2011 to the recent till date “FRED” version of 2017. Off-page SEO has become really sensitive with the above advent of the algorithm shake-up by the search engines which keeps a check on the Spamming done by the “BLACK HAT SEO Techniques”. So, while doing the Off-page SEO some extra attention should be kept to avoid the blacklisting of our website.

Some of the on-page SEO techniques and strategies involved are:-

1.Link Building:- This is one of the most powerful, popular and effective Off-page SEO technique to improve ranking on the SERPs. This is done organically when someone likes the Content/Blogs of the website and share it on there website/page/blog and then the intended traffic on that third party website will be redirected to our Content/Blogs and thus having higher rankings on the SERPs. This technique has become more powerful with advent of the social media.

NOTE:- There should be proper balance between the “FOLLOW” and the “NO FOLLOW” links on the website. When we are building link with ‘directory submission‘,  ‘Social bookmarking’,  etc techniques then Add special tag to the link as [“dimX“] that tells search engines not to count the particular link as a “Vote of trust” to the referenced website this is called as the “NO FOLLOW LINK” while the link without any rel attribute in the tag will be treated as the “FOLLOW” link.

2. Directory Submission:- Submitting the Link of the website on a directory which offers the link/url submission in the relevant category which will boost the traffic when the visitor reaches the directory and clicks on the link of the intended keyword, redirects it to the our website thus helping for better traffic and improved ranking on SERP.

3. Social Bookmarking:- In Social bookmarking technique no follow links are generated, which signifies that the reliability(relevancy) of the concerned website is not guaranteed by the host. These hosts are again some websites that holds the web address.

4.Blog Commenting:- Commenting on the article/blogs and giving the signature on it as the link of the website, this may either be a FOLLOW link or a NO FOLLOW link depending on the criteria and setting of the blogs/article.

5. Article Submission:- Find some reliable and relevant article submitting websites and submit unique content of article within the required word length. Also the reference/source should be mentioned at the end of the article that signifies the search engine crawler the relevancy of the content thereby increasing the ranking of the content and hence improving the website ranking and traffic.

6. Guest Posting:- Search for sites that offers free posting on their platform without having to signup to their site thus creating a backlink for website and therby increasing the traffic.

7. Social Media:- This technique is catching the wild fire in this modern era of social media obsession. Social media is being used as a significant platform to market online the product/website of the company on the famous social media platform e.g facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Linkedin, Pinterest whatsApp and many more. For more info on Social Media Marketing click on the given Link. This is the live example of how to get the backlink for your website and increase traffic organically.

8. Video and Image Sharing:- Similar to the above method is the video sharing where the information about the website/product is conveyed via a video method which has a greater impact because of the internet revolution as well as the popularity of social media such as Youtube, Vimeo and other video platforms where billions of visitors arrive daily. This will provide handfull of Off-page SEO. Similar is the sharing of images on the platform such as the instagram which can generate as much traffic as the other social media websites

 Category of the SEO can be defines as: