Have you ever wondered why certain pages appear on Google when you search for something? What makes Google choose them?
Is it a random resultant or is there a proper algorithm behind it?
If you don’t know the answer you that and are curious then let me tell that it is not at all random. There is a proper algorithm that Google follows to generate those results. Honestly, this is a very intense thing called Search Engine Optimization (SEO).SEO is exactly what marketers use to move up the ranking of the results.
In this article we will tell you what SEO is and how important is it in Digital Marketing, the types of SEO and the manner to utilize them for personal growth.
Table of Contents
What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results.
SEO plays a very vital role in getting more visitors to your website. It is a must-use way to keep you ahead of your contenders.
What is the Function of SEO?
The main reason for the use of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is to improve a website’s online presence, its traffic and ultimately upgrade the ranking of the website on Google.
According to HubSpot, 57% of B2B marketers stated that SEO generates more leads than any other marketing initiative.
- SEO is pocket-friendly rather than PC and other marketing techniques. It is a fixed paid service provided by an agency accordingly.
- SEO strategy must work and improve the search engine ranking of your websites.
- SEO is necessary for website ranking and driving more user traffic on your website.
- Mobile SEO a bigger factor in SEO technique and cannot be ignored to improve the visibility of a website because more than computers and PCs, people are more inclined towards using their mobile phones.
- SEO must collect as much ROI by attracting visitors and due to this the conversion rate increases due to higher ranking.
Types of SEOs
Traditionally there are two types of SEOs which marketers have been using to promote their products online, these are:
White Hat SEOs
White Hat SEOs are legitimate and ethical ways used by the marketer to gain traffic which is according to the Google guidelines. To get information and penetrate into the market Google Algorithms are followed and it does not give way to any malpractices.
Among many White Hat SEOs, the most popularly used and effective practices are publishing quality content on the website, HTML optimization and restructuring of the website, link acquisition campaigns supported by quality content along with manual research and outreach. These practises due to their fair approach may be slow in producing results but have a long-lasting effect.
Black Hat SEOs
This type is the exact opposite of the former, it means getting results by finding loopholes in the Google algorithm and ultimately getting a higher ranking in the Google pages. Before you get all excited this type of SEOs is against the guidelines of Google and is considered illegal.
The most common black hat SEO techniques include spam links, keyword stuffing, cloaking, hidden text, and hidden links. These practices aim at misleading the users and redirecting to the sites they didn’t intend to open.
Apart from the above there are some other types of SEOs, and these are most popularly used SEOs today, they are as follows:
Grey Hat SEOs
As the name suggests Grey Hat SEOs are a combination of Black and White SEOs, you guessed it right, they are a mix of ethical and unethical means of gaining traffic. Marketers adopt these practices mostly at the request of the client who insists on getting results to get ahead of their competition.
On-Page SEO
Activities carried out on the website in order to rank higher in the search page of Google such as infusing keywords in the right quantity, inserting internal links, meta tags, Meta description, building a customized URL structure, inserting the alt attributes, taking care of the image SEO but the most important and relevant activity is providing the users with superior quality content that they will love. These are a kind of Behind the Scenes activities and pave way for the next activity.
Off-Page SEO
Activities that are performed only after a page goes live on the internet and include activities like sharing the post, commenting on the post to build engagement, like the post on the social media, giving the star ratings to the post, answering the queries of the target consumers.
Techniques of SEOs
Techniques of SEOs are used to gain web traffic through qualitative and quantitative measures and these include:
- Improve user experience across your entire site
- Optimize for voice search
- Focus on topic clusters instead of keywords
- Go into detail – but only when it’s relevant
- Conquer video with YouTube SEO
- Build a variety of backlinks
- Get a grip over technical optimization
- Target local searchers with local landing pages and listings
- Know how to measure SEO performance
Scope of Using SEOs for Unlimited Growth
Whenever you take interest in something and want to pursue it you must find out if it’s something you can be good at, do you possess the skill to excel in it?
And is it even something that can make you money? Same goes for digital marketers and their interest in SEO, if you think you can make a good SEO executive then you need to know how to utilize each technique for unlimited growth, and here is how you do it:
White Hat SEO
This is the most authentic type of SEO and in order to succeed in this all you need to do is stay true to yourself and your work.
Create amazing content that is useful to your visitors and use the SEO keyword research to generate the most relatable and relevant keywords for your content, and use them to make articles like How-to, user guide article and become the first search for the visitors.
Apart from that follow creative ways when you’re creating Meta descriptions, in this way the search engine and the users will discover your website easily.
Be careful when organizing the Information Architecture because sites with good IA perform much better in search results because they are easy for the visitors to understand and relate to.
Black Hat SEO
It’s better you don’t excel in this, you may be clever but search engine companies are much smarter and keep on upgrading their algorithms to keep Black Hatter from taking advantage of any loopholes. Still, if you insist let me share some ‘black’ secrets with you.
Black hatters use the products of another company to gain top ranks, they do it by spamming keywords in areas of a website that are unseen by the user (such as in comment tags, in tiny text, or in text the same colour as the background).
This is done to make a website look more important to a Google and other search engines and the user who are looking for those keywords, in short, a visitor writes a certain keyword and among the top results get the black hatter whether it has information on the keyword or not.
Grey Hat SEO
The important thing to remember and learn from this types of SEO is that change is inevitable, you must be prepared to upgrade for entire change your strategies and most importantly be able to distinguish between which strategies to adopt and which to rebuff.
There is a thin line between thinking outside the box and outrightly doing something unethical to gain results. Hence in order to grow in these types of SEO, be prepared to see your strategy from the previous become irrelevant in the next year and make sure you have another strategy ready for the next year.
Off-Page SEO:
The Off-Page SEO is based on the pillar and if you learn to hold these pillars to the ground then you will easily reach the top and control the market. These are as follows –
- Brand – Here the technique to gain growth is first to create the best product you can (improve the existing product based on complaints or make a new product that can help the customers in the best possible way). Customer Service is another important virtue that should be imbibed by the marketers, it is important for them to make the customer happy and content in every way possible with positive interactions. Focus on web searchers’ intent, matching the titles and descriptions to what the visitor wants helps gain more traffic.
- Audience – Handling the audience means having a reciprocating social media presence, building connections with all the social media influencers, commenting on various related blogs and forums and at all cost avoid guest blogging for links.
- Content – This doesn’t only mean upgrading your articles, photos or videos, it means to redefine your brand designs, creates, online & offline shares, logos and tag lines to personnel, phone calls, signage etc.
On-Page SEO:
The most important things to remember to make your website grow through On-Page SEO then you should crawl your website properly, audit your SEO strategy & define your site architecture clearly and update all the URLs, page titles, and meta descriptions.
Establishing value propositions for each page is very necessary just like defining your target audience is, and always plan new page titles for your website. Always track keywords and topics for each page and keep on reviewing and editing page content as needed, include more visual content as it is easy to grasp. Lastly, remember to add internal links and optimize for conversions.
SEO is an integral part of Digital Marketing and the one who masters this art, masters the entire digital marketing world. The beginning of any online websites’ success is when it appears on the first pages of Google because when visitors see that the search engine itself thinks that you have the best solution to the problem then they start believing it too. They trust the search engine and believe that the search engines trust you, which results in them trusting you.
In order to attain the trust of the visitors and the search engine its very vital for you to understand all the above-mentioned types of SEOs and learn how each of these can be utilized for gaining personal growth of the product and the website.
