Beginner’s Guide To SEO

What is Search Engine Optimization? Why is it necessary? How SEO can be done? Let’s have a look at everything you need to know about SEO, as a beginner.

What is SEO?

SEO or “Search Engine Optimization” can be defined as a strategic process of getting traffic from search results on search engines (Google, Bing etc.) to any website. The traffic to any website can be increased immensely, if it ranks high in the search results of popular Search Engines like Google or Bing.

In today’s era which is the era of Internet, everything is available on the net. Not to mention that the amount of information available is also very huge. However it becomes important to know that in this ocean of information, the user will only look up for the best and optimized result. So, in order to be the best the role of SEO becomes very significant. The higher the rank in search results, the better will be the amount of traffic on any particular website. This ranking is given by the search engine itself depending upon certain criteria that it follows.

Now, let’s have a look at different types of SEO and the factors that are considered important by the Search Engines to decide the ranking. These factors will help the SEO companies to provide best rated SEO services. 

Types of SEO

We always have two ways to achieve any goal i.e. the right way or the wrong way. The right way can be difficult and time consuming, but the leading SEO companies use the right way only. On the other hand, the wrong way is much easier and may even get us the desired result but remember it won’t persist for long.

Similarly, there are two approaches for SEO also:-

·        White Hat SEO (the right way) - must be followed always.

·        Black Hat SEO (the wrong way) - must never be followed.

White Hat SEO - This kind of SEO makes use of the techniques and strategies to make a site rank high in search engine results. These techniques do not fall outside the guidelines of search engines (mainly Google) and are 100% effective and safe to be used. This is the reason all the leading SEO companies follow White Hat SEO. Some of the white hat techniques are high quality content development, link acquisition, website HTML optimization etc.

Black Hat SEO – Black Hat SEO tricks the search engine by using false techniques to get high ranks in the search results. These techniques basically exploit the weaknesses of search engines and provide quick results. However, once it comes under the notice of the engine strict action against such sites are taken. Link spam, keyword stuffing, cloaking, hidden text, and hidden links are some of the black hat techniques. All the black hat techniques will only keep you away from the best rated SEO services.

However, there is another SEO type which is said to be used by many SEO companies for their clients, known as the Grey Hat SEO. This SEO do not breaks any guidelines of the search engine but not as effective as the White Hat SEO.

Factors affecting the success of SEO

Every search engine has its own complex algorithm to check the content and quality of information available all over the internet. If the available content matches the standards specified by the search engines, the site will get high ranks. However, there are also many negative factors which may decrease the site rank. So, let’s have a look at all the possible factors which can possibly affect the success rate of SEO.  These factors can be divided into two categories –

1.     On-The-Page factors

2.     Off-The-Page factors

 On-The-Page factors - These are the factors which are under the direct control of the publisher. These factors are comprised of three elements Content, Architecture and HTML. Let’s have a look at them –

1.     Content – Content is the material which is available on the site. The important factors to make the high quality contents are:

· Quality – The content written should be of high quality and proper use of keywords must be done.

·  Research – The keywords used to attract users must be well researched before the use.

·  Words - The words which will lure the user to the site must be used in organized manner.

·  Fresh- The content must be fresh i.e. it must be new and unique, must not be already present on the internet.

·  Vertical- Vertical means the use of images and videos in our site. The more the vertical information used the better results we will get.

·  Thin- It is one of the negative factors that must be taken care of. The content should not be shallow or lacking substance in it.

2.     Architecture – It forms the structure of the site. Following important factors should be taken care of:

· Crawl- The search engines should be able to easily move between the different pages on your site.

·  Duplicate- How well are you able to take care of the duplicate content issues.

· Mobile- How responsive is your site? Whether it works properly on mobile devices or not?

·   Speed- The site should load quickly on the search engine.

·  URLs- The links used in the site should contain those words which help are being searched by the user.

· HTTPS- The site is using HTTPS (hyper text transfer protocol) to provide safe connection to the users or not.

·        Cloaking- It is another negative factor which might degrade the reputation of your site. Cloaking means that the pages shown to the search engine are different from the ones shown to the users.

3.     HTML- This part includes the factors including the design of the site. Let’s have a look :

·   Title- The title must be catchy and must contain the keywords.

· Description- Meta description should be provided giving brief introduction about the title.

·   Structure- Pages should be structured in a manner to enhance listings.

·  Headers- Headlines and subheads must use header tags with relevant keywords.

· Stuffing- Another negative factor to be taken care of. The words for which we want the pages to be found should not be used much.

· Hidden- Negative factor to be avoided. The words used on the pages to attract the users should not be hidden by colors and design.

Off-The-Page-Factors - It includes the elements which are influenced by the users (the visitors or the publishers). These factors are listed below:

1. Trust- The publisher has managed to gain the trust of the user or not, whether they will choose to visit the site again or not.

2.  Links- More and more number of authentic links should be provided in your site. This will help you gain the authority.

3.   Personal- These factors include the personal details regarding the country or the locality of users. It tells us about the history shared with any individual or the friends of any individual.

4.  Social- Social factors play an important role in online marketing of the site. The number of shares done by the people in our social circle accounts to high rank in search results.

So, these were all the factors that were important to be taken care of for a perfect SEO execution. Moreover, all these factors work together in making a site better every day and each one of them is important. In addition to that if the SEO companies keep this in the mind they will surely provide the best rated SEO services.