What is SEO?

What is Search Engine Optimization and Why is it Important?

Search engine optimization often refers as SEO is the process of increasing the visibility of web pages to appear higher in the non-paid search results. The traffic that comes from SEO sources is free or organic. It is not only important to optimize the web pages for search engines but also for the users. Here are the key reasons why SEO is important-

1. The majority of people click the top five results in SERPs so it is crucial to perform the best practice of SEO to appear higher in the search results.
2. SEO improves the usability and user experience of the website for the users.
3. Users trust the results of search engines and having a higher position develops credibility for the site to entice clicks.
4. If the site appears higher in the search results, then people prefer to share most likely on social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, etc.
5. SEO helps outperform your competitors if the site is optimized then it will likely get more sales as most people perform search queries before buying a product or service.

How Search Engine Works?

Search engines use a combination of automated processes as answer machines to find and rank web pages based on a user’s query.

Image Source

When bots crawl the website in the form of URLs or links, then based on the instructions provided by robots.txt file allowing and disallowing webpages, it renders and indexes the pages. 

Whenever a search query is performed, SEO helps to rank your web page higher in the SERPs based on the following SEO elements-

Hence SEO is a slow process and requires continuous effort to maintain the ranking positions as crawlers continue to move and see if the webpage has quality content to rank higher.

Effective SEO Techniques

1. White Hat – SEO techniques that follow strict SEO Algorithms and provide valuable search results to the users. The results of these techniques are slow but long-lasting. They provide sustainable results and have a positive impact on rankings.

Examples –

2. Black Hat – SEO techniques that don’t follow the SEO guidelines and algorithms. The main intention is to manipulate rankings. They show the results quickly but there is short-term growth in the rankings of the site and penalized by Google and other search engines.

Examples

Link spam, cloaking, keyword stuffing, creating duplicate content, etc

3. Grey Hat – These techniques fall somewhere between white and black but they don’t violate the Google updates and can be risky.

Examples

• Guest posting on the other websites to get nofollow links.
• Building links on expired domains to gain authority.
• Cloaking – Showing different content to users and search engines.

SEO and Keyword Research

Keyword research is the foundation of SEO. It is the process of researching and choosing the keywords users may type in the search engines that relate to your product or service. It is crucial to select the right keywords to appear higher for the given set of queries and drive organic traffic. Ensure you follow the search intent when finalizing your keywords, including informational, navigational, commercial, and transactional. Utilize the power of long tail keywords as users are more specific when they perform the search queries. If you have a small business that is area-based, search local keywords.

Once the research is done, check the search volume and keyword difficulty. Your aim should be to select the keywords having high or medium search volume with less difficulty. You can use tools to perform this selection. Some of the popular tools are-

• ahref
• SEMrush
• Moz Keyword Research Tool

Related: How to do Keyword Research for SEO?

To rank the web pages higher in the search results, there are 200 SEO ranking factors that Google considers to rank. But there are 30 SEO most important factors which are classified into on-page and off-page SEO factors. Here is the list-

On-Page SEO Factors

1. Website URL Structure
2. Meta Title
3. Meta Description
4. Heading Tags
5. Keyword Research
6. Keyword Density
7. Keyword Proximity
8. Image Optimization
9. Internal Linking
10. Site Speed
11. Quality & Optimized Content
12. Content Relevancy
13. Content Freshness
14. Responsive Design
15. Schema Implementations
16. Social Sharing Buttons
17. User Experience
18. No Follow
19. No Index
20. Visual Assets
21. SEO Writing
22. E-E-A-T
23. Core web vitals
24. Geo tagging
25. Website Hierarchy
26. Links

Related: On-Page SEO – A Detailed Guide to Boost Online Visibility

Off Page SEO Factors

1. Domain Authority
2. Page Authority
3. Trust Flow
4. Citation Flow
5. Social Shares
6. Link Juice
7. Referring Domains
8. Anchor text
9. Relevance of Links
10. Quality of Backlinks
11. Link Building
12. Online reviews
13. Online reputation Management
14. Google Business Profile
15. Brand Mentions

Related – Off Page SEO – Key Factors and Effective Techniques

Website SEO Analysis

This is one of the most important processes in SEO learning. Analysis of website for all the most important SEO Ranking Factors is called the website SEO analysis. It is important to analyze the website to improve the online presence, and visibility on the search engines and resolve technical errors of the site. You must check the website SEO analysis steps along with the basic SEO audit checklist and free tools. It is crucial to optimize the website for better user experience and site usability to increase the average time spent and reduce the bounce rate. Rectify all the technical errors and broken links by using the Search Console tool.

How to Improve the Performance of Website?

There are many factors responsible for increasing the performance of a website such as average time spent on the site, bounce rate, traffic, number of visitors, social sharing, etc.  It is crucial to create the right SEO strategy to stay ahead in the competition and outperform competitors in the industry. Follow the latest SEO trends, white hat SEO techniques, and building techniques to get effective results. Although the results of all these are slow, but there is a saying by an ancient proverb-

“Slow and steady wins the SEO race”

So, results might be slow but effective and have long-term benefits to drive organic traffic. For better results, it is important to improve website visibility.

Traffic Measurement and Analysis

This plays an essential role in learning SEO concepts. Add Google Analytics code on the site and track the important key metrics such as traffic sources, average time spent on the site, important events, bounce rate, visitors, and conversions also called Key Events. You can also check the top-performing landing pages, channels, and traffic details. Link your Google Analytics account with the Search Console to check the search queries performed by searchers.

Prepare the SEO report including a contribution of traffic by each channel, average time spent, bounce rate, new VS returning visitors, key events, and keyword ranking positions. You can also set the goals according to the industry requirements and track how many conversions are completed successfully. Compare the results with the past month and year to know month-on-month and year-on-year growth.

Link Building and SEO

Link-building techniques have changed a lot in the past few years. Now it is more important to build quality links on authoritative sites than perform the bulk submission on low-quality sites. Before building links, it is necessary to check some of the factors such as traffic, DA, PA, and Page Rank. While building links, try to add value to the users instead of just adding the link for the sake of traffic. Link building can improve the authority of a site. At the same time, bad links affect the site and should be disavowed in the Google Search Console Tool. Some of the latest and trending link-building techniques are-

• Using HARO
• Original research& new data statistics
• Broken link building
• Visual assets from an old viral post
• Link-worthy listicles
• In-depth pillar pages and link them to blogs
• Industry forum participation
• Engage with industry influencers
• Adding profile in online business directories
• Answering on Quora & Reddit
• Skyscraper technique
• Shareable infographics
• Brand Unlinked Mentions
• Guest Posting

Related: Link Building – A Comprehensive Guide for SEO Professionals

Role of Local SEO

Local SEO is an effective way to promote the products or services to the local customers. It is important to build citations including Name, address, phone number and website aka NAP+W. You can build accurate citations of your business on Google My Business, Foursquare, Yelp, Yellow Pages, and other online business directories. Localize the content, and website, get online reviews, and build strategies. Here are some of the important reasons why local SEO can attract more customers to the site.

1. Most people perform searches to find information about local businesses. It is important to optimize the local site for mobile as 63% of Google searches occur on mobile in the U.S.
2. Local search marketing yields a better return on investment than any other channels of marketing 46% of Google searches have local intent.
3. It is important to build the citations and business listing on the online directories as 50% of conversion comes from there.
4. People make a purchase decision by looking to the online reviews so encourage the online reviews on the business profile present on the authoritative sites.
5. By optimizing the Google My Business profile, building citations, and earning reviews your business can come on the first page of Google in local 3-pack search results.

Importance of Content Marketing in SEO

Content Marketing plays a vital role in SEO. Quality Content boosts the SEO efforts by making it more attractive to convert visitors into buyers. Here are the key points on how both of them can improve the performance of the site.

1. With the help of SEO and content marketing, you can research a trendy and latest topic and create unique, relevant, and high-quality content. This will help drive massive traffic to the site, reduce bounce rates, and boost conversions.
2. Content Marketing helps in writing appealing Meta tags such as title and description which will result in high social shares, good click-through rates, and drive massive organic traffic to the site.
3. High-quality content can earn more links as people like to link the quality content on their site as it is more authoritative.
4. Content Marketing skills help SEO specialists perform link-building through content such as guest posting, Quora answers, and Yahoo answers. This makes a strong online reputation and improves the domain authority of the site.
5. Content Marketing helps to optimize the content properly by placing the keywords naturally in the content. It also helps in integrating the long tail keywords rightly in the content and follows the right percentage of keyword proximity and variations.

Role of Social Media in SEO

Social media and SEO go hand in hand. It increases the authority and visibility of the site in search engines. Here are the roles of social media to improve SEO for a site-

1. Links built on social media are considered to be authoritative which improves the credibility of the site. By regularly sharing the content of the site, time spent can be increased and the bounce rate can be reduced. These all provide strong signals to search engines to rank the site higher in SERPs
2. Social media helps in increasing the follower base which turns into the visitors of the site. Visitors are important for improving the visibility of the site that spend the time on the site and finally convert into buyers.
3. Social media helps in improving the position of keywords in SERPs by targeting exactly the same keywords in the social media posts or hashtags.
4. Social media especially Google+ profile helps in improving the presence in local 3-pack results. All you need to do for this is to optimize the social profile, build accurate citations, and keep the profile active.
5. Social media makes your content viral drives huge traffic and increases the time spent. This results in the high visibility of the web pages in the SERPs.

Importance of Search Engine Marketing

Integrating SEO and PPC to increase visibility and maximize traffic and conversions is called Search Engine Marketing. There are many benefits of SEO and PPC integration. Here is the list of some of them.

1. You can link Adwords and Analytics accounts and utilize the keywords for various SEO activities. This also helps in avoiding the problems of exact search volumes which Google now doesn’t show.  From the integration, you will get the keywords that are driving traffic and conversions.
2. Ad copy prepared by a PPC specialist helps to make an attractive title in SEO. A good title for the web page is important for improving the visibility in the search engines.
3. The PPC team helps to create an effective landing page. An optimized landing page will help to drive the leads or conversions. Thus improve the overall performance of the site and satisfy the clients.

Role of Mobile SEO

Having a mobile version of the site is the key to success in the coming years. With the mobile-first indexing update, it is now almost mandatory to have the mobile version of the site to improve the visibility in the search results. You can also use responsive design for a mobile-friendly view of the site. Here is the list of six key components that are necessary to improve the site-

1. Focus on Improving Mobile ranking
2. Fix mobile-friendly errors
3. Perform the keyword research for mobile and optimize the content
4. Focus on app store optimization
5. Perform app indexing
6. Utilize Accelerated Mobile Pages