What Are The Types Of SEO & How Do They Work

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is one of the most significant and effective tools of digital marketing. Businesses striving to get more traffic to their websites essentially need optimization. And while SEO appears to be a small word, it contains a number of types and techniques that businesses use in large numbers. Hence in the below section you are going to learn about the different types of SEO in digital marketing. You’ll also learn how they are significant in planning an organic search strategy to rank higher in organic listings of search.

Types Of SEO In Digital Marketing

Following are the different types of SEO, which can help your websites rank in the search engine results. Not all of them could be used for any website, however you must have a proper understanding before choosing one. Hence, select the types of SEO that suits best for your website and business. Let us now read about them.

1.On-Page SEO

The most common two types of SEO a website needs are On-Page SEO and Off-Page SEO.

On-Page SEO refers to the optimization of elements on your website so that it performs well in the search engine results. Following elements can be optimized in an On-Page SEO:

• Website URL

The address of each page of the website should precisely describe the page’s content and must also have a relevant keyword. 

• Title Tag

Titles should also be descriptive, impressive, and include keywords.

• Heading Tag

Heading tags are useful to divide the page’s content into sections. And they also contain relevant keywords.

• Alt Tag

Alt Tag is used to describe the content of the page’s images, thus helping the search engine understand them properly.

• Meta Description

Meta Description is used to describe the content of the page in not more than 160 characters. One can see it below the title tag on the search engine results pages.

• Internal Links

Internal links link the pages of a website in order to let visitors and search engines recognize and find them. They also improve the rankings of new pages of the website.

• Content 

Content holds the largest part of the website. Therefore, it has to be of good quality, relevant, and useful to the visitors. Plus, it must also contain necessary keywords and other important elements. 

• Navigation

An easy-to-navigate website allows the audience to easily find what they are looking for. Plus it also makes them want to remain on the website for a longer period. The long stay of the visitors will ultimately increase the website’s ranking. 

• Website Design

Your foremost priority should be a professional website design, without which the website won’t be able to attract the audience. Make sure it looks uncluttered, tidy, and contains simple elements so that it can easily engage the audience and boost your ranking.

Read More: SEO Trends For Success

2. Off-Page SEO

The second among the different types of SEO  is Off-Page SEO. 

Off-Page SEO deals with an optimization that does not occur on your website. However, it includes strategies to develop a website’s reputation significantly. The most common way to perform Off-Page SEO is through backlinking.

Backlinks refer to the links coming from other websites to yours. These links are checked on qualitative and quantitative factors by Google. By this, it determines the reputation and relevance of the websites, which ultimately influences the ranking. There are three types of backlinks:

• Links You Created

Links that you post on different web pages are called created links. Search engines may consider created links spam, therefore these are not recommended. 

• Links Created Naturally

Natural links are created naturally. Here, the websites themselves discover your content on the internet and link their content to it. These are the best type of backlinks. 

• Links That Are Built

When you promote your content to a website, which in turn links to it, is called a build link. 

Other ways of performing Off-Page SEO are social media sharing and reviews.

3. Technical SEO

Technical SEO also stands among the most used types of search engine optimization.  It includes strategies aiming at the backend website and server optimization. These strategies help search engines to crawl and understand a website, which boosts the website’s rank and enhances the user experience. Technical SEO performs the following functions:

• Accelerate the Website Speed

Web Page speed is an important factor that Google takes into account to rank websites. Hence, the faster the web page is the better is the user experience and website’s rank. By code cleaning, image compressing, and using browser cache, one can improve a web page’s speed.

• Upgrades The Robots.Txt File

The ‘.txt’ file informs the search engine crawlers about what parts of the website should not be crawled and indexed. Technical SEO makes sure that the right pages are blocked by robots.txt.

• Makes Website Mobile-Friendly

By incorporating a responsive design, websites can be made mobile-friendly. Responsive design is a requisite to a positive user experience. Hence, by making it easy for the audience to access the site on mobiles, the user experience can be enhanced.

• Creates An XML Sitemap or Site Architecture

XML sitemaps are files that contain the list of the site’s most important pages. They make sure that Google crawls all of them quickly and index them. Plus, they also help search engines to understand the website structure properly. 

• Handles Duplicate Content

The presence of duplicate content on a website can severely impact its rank. By using a canonical tag, one can notify Google about the originality of a page version. While you can direct traffic from one-page address to another with the help of a 301 redirect.

4. White hat SEO

White Hat SEO is among the best types of SEO in digital marketing. It refers to techniques performed in accordance with the Google’s search engine guidelines. It is therefore recommended by Google to get better ranks and positive results. 

Although White hat SEO takes time to give results, however, those results will yield lasting growth and better performance. This type of SEO includes the following techniques:

• Creation Of Relevant & High Quality Content

Audience always look for relevant and high quality content. Hence by creating one, websites may earn valuable traffic and thus rank better on the search engines.

• User-Friendly Website

Your website should be user-friendly, have an impressive design, easy to navigate, and contain appropriate and engaging graphics. 

• HTML Optimization

HTML optimization includes practices such as cleaning up website’s messy code, removing white space, and reducing irrelevant text. These practices help site perform more effectively.

• Social Media Sharing

Sharing your content and website links on social media platforms also boost traffic to your website. It also increases the site’s engagement and rank.

5. Black hat SEO

Black Hat SEO is another among the main types of SEO. It is the opposite of White hat SEO that manipulates search algorithms to get higher ranks or quick results. However, Google can easily catch these techniques, hence, once caught, websites can be banned from search results. 

Following is the list of the Black Hat SEO techniques:

• Spamming of links

• Keyword stuffing

• Content copying

• Link Buying

• Hidden text/links

• Inserting irrelevant or popular keywords

• Cloaking

• Over optimizing of HTML headings 

Read More: Beginners Guide to Link Building

6. Gray hat SEO

Gray Hat SEO, falls between White and Black Hat SEO. In other words, it is neither good for your site nor listed as a bad SEO practice. However, it is not counted among good SEO and its types. 

Google has not banned these techniques, but they do not come in the list of the adequate ways to acquire leads. 

Gray Hat SEO involves the following techniques:

• Paid reviews

• Exchange of links

• Content spinning

• Clickbait articles

7. Negative SEO

Negative SEO is different than other types of SEO in digital marketing. Here businesses perform SEO for their own benefit but by damaging the reputation of their competitors. Here they adopt black and gray hat techniques and follow the below strategies:

• Creating unnatural links to competitor's website. 

• Posting harmful reviews about the competitor’s products and services.

• Hacking competitor’s websites to make changes into the content. 

8. Voice Search SEO

Voice search has become the most favorite way to conduct quick search today. And with Google Home, Alexa, etc. devices it will keep experiencing a boost. 

Voice search SEO is among the latest types of SEO, that involves optimizing the website for the right keywords. 

An effective voice search SEO follows these guidelines:

• Websites are optimized for keywords or words that are spoken by the audience, even slangs, etc.

• Optimization aims at a quick delivery of results, since audience use voice search for quick respionses. 

• Create easy content structure, so that google can quickly pick it. For example, use bulleted lists, or put important content on first priority while replying to queries.

• Consider slang words, if your audience is likely to use them for conducting search. This will make it easy for them to reach your page. 

Read More: Best SEO Strategy

9. Mobile SEO

Mobile SEO refers to optimizing a website for search engines, while also making sure that it works on mobiles as good as on desktops. This type of SEO has become essential because of the increasing use of mobile devices for Google searches. It is not counted amongst the different types of SEO,  but is a part of the SEO process. 

The following things should be taken into account while doing the Mobile SEO:

• Website should be mobile friendly.

• It should load fast on mobiles.

• Can be easily accessed on mobiles.

• Should not irritate users with disruptive ads, pop-ups etc.

10. Local SEO

Local SEO falls next in the most essential search engine marketing types. This SEO is aimed at a specific location and is suited best for local businesses only. For example, businesses having a local store, and wanting local customers to visit it can optimize their websites for local SEO. 

In order to perform local SEO, one should make sure of the following:

• Put your business name, address, and contact details (email id, contact number, etc.) on all the pages of the website. 

• Develop content focussing on the local area and including location-specific keywords.

• Create a Google My Business Account.

• Ask your customers to review your local business online. 

• Reply to the posted reviews.

• Get your business registered on directories like Yelp, Yahoo small business, etc. And also promote it in online local newspapers. 

11. International SEO

In international SEO, you optimize your website to get traffic from various countries and languages. These types of search engine optimization are performed specifically when you want to regularly serve international clients.

The following things are taken care of in international SEO:

• Letting the target audience buy in their currencies and language.

• Addressing them as per their cultural context. 

• Using correct date and time formats as per their country.

• Communicating with them and solving their queries in their native languages. 

• Providing an overall positive experience to the audience. 

Read More: 5 Tip To Improve An International SEO

12. Content SEO

Content SEO is the next among the significant website SEO types. It is actually a part of the On-Page SEO, focussed on improving and optimizing the quality of the content. It works best when the content created is SEO friendly that search engines understands and readers like.

The following guidelines helps perform content search engine optimization in the best manner: 

• Keyword Research

Search for relevant keywords for your websites, and add them to your content. 

• Long-tail keywords

Find long-tail keywords and incorporate them in your titles, headings, and main content. 

• Post Your Content

Publish relevant, high quality content that readers find informative and search engines can understand.

• Linking

If necessary, connect with other good websites and/or link with other pages of your website. 

• Schemas

Use Schemas to inform about the significant parts of your content to the search engines.

13. Ecommerce SEO

Ecommerce SEO is among the main types of SEO performed by ecommerce companies. It is more complex than usual website SEO, since a large number of pages have to be optimized. However, it is worth it for increasing the traffic and rank of an ecommerce website. 

The most significant factors of an ecommerce SEO are:

• Primarily, optimize the home page and category pages. 

• Then, optimize the product pages, depending on the keyword research results. 

• Optimize all the images and videos on your website.

• Insert required schemas for products, offers, and so on.

• Promote your ecommerce store on social media platforms.

• Find ways to encourage people to link to your product pages. 

• Create a blog page and post content related to the products you sell. 

Read More: SEO Friendly E-Commerce Page

14. YouTube SEO

YouTube being one of the most famous search engines, also requires SEO. And therefore it is counted among the main SEO types. 

The following guideline will help you in performing the Youtube SEO effectively.

• Video Compositon

Make sure that your video is great. By great we mean that it should answer questions, solve queries, and entertain more than other videos. A successful video will make viewers stay longer on the page, win more subscribers, comments, likes, etc.

• Video Title & Description

It is vital that Google or other search engines can understand the video content and message. For this, the title and description of the video should be as high quality and descriptive as the page's title and description. Plus, it must also contain relevant keywords and keyword tags. 

• Video Keywords

These are valuable keywords for which Google specifically shows video results at the top of the search page. Look for these keywords and insert them to get good ranks.

• Backlinking

Other practices of YouTube SEO include getting links to your video, people embedding your video links in their blogs, encouraging comments, likes, discussions, etc.

Conclusion- Types Of SEO

As mentioned earlier, SEO is among the most effective digital marketing tools. A website, when optimized, enhances the user experience, boosts website’s visibility on the search engines and improve its rank. To understand the SEO types better, we listed the different types of SEO. Hope, after going through the above list, you were able to understand the SEO types in-depth. 

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