The Secret Behind Every High-Ranking Website: What is SEO?
Have you ever thought about how some websites always appear on the first page of Google and many don’t? The answer is very simple, it’s the magic of SEO. But wait, what is SEO and why does it matter so much for anyone who has a website? Whether you are a business owner, digital enthusiast or blogger, it is very important for you to understand the concept of SEO and how it can help in your online growth.
What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimization, popularly known as SEO is the process of optimizing your website to rank higher in search engines like Google, Yahoo or Bing for the targeted search term. It is found that more than 90% of the people tend to click the website that is ranked on the first page so businesses have realized the power of SEO and started adopting it. In layman terms, SEO is the process which helps your website to be found on the search engine when people search online.
Why is SEO Important?
To realize the importance of SEO just think about your own habits. When you are searching about something on Google, how often do you go beyond the first page? I am sure its very less.
So, that is why SEO matters. To understand it better, let’s talk about what SEO does:
- Drive Organic Traffic: SEO is the best thing to attract the organic visitor without spending on ads.
- Build Trust & Credibility: People usually tend to trust those websites that appear at the top of the search result. So, it helps to build that trust and credibility among the users.
- Boost Conversion: When people search something related to your product or services then SEO can help your page to rank higher and increase the visibility. And as it is the inbound customers meaning they came to you there is high chances of converting visitors into leads or sales.
- Long Term ROI: Where paid ads are effective until you are paying for it, SEO is totally different. It will keep on bringing visitors and good results over time. So, there is a long term ROI of SEO.
As we learn about what is SEO, now let’s understand various types of SEO.
Types of SEO
SEO is further divided into different types mainly 3 and each focuses on specific aspects of the website. Understanding each of them can help you to create the perfect strategy to improve your website visibility, user experience and ultimately search engine ranking. To known how search engine actually works, click here.
On-Page SEO
On-Page SEO focuses on optimizing the content and structure within the websites. It helps to ensure that each page of the website is relevant, readable and informative for the users. It involves following things:
- Optimizing title tags and meta description
- Optimizing the heading (H1, H2,etc.)
- Add internal link
- Optimize image with alt text
- Placing keyword naturally in the content
Off-Page SEO
Off-page SEO is mostly off-site SEO where its all about building your website’s authority and reputation by getting the quality backlinks from other websites. It helps to ensure that your website is trusted and valuable which further helps in ranking. It involves following things:
- Getting high-quality backlink from other websites
- Guest blogging and Outreach
- Promoting content on social media platforms
- Brand mentions
Technical SEO
Technical SEO focuses on improving your website’s technical aspect and backend performance so that it will be easier for users to explore your website. Similarly, it also helps search engine bot or crawler to easily crawl, index and understand your site. It involves following activities:
- Improving site speed and load time
- FIx crawl errors and broken links
- Mobile-friendliness and responsiveness
- Implementing schema markup or structured data
- Submit sitemaps
- Ensure SSL certificate
Local SEO
Local SEO is not directly considered as types of SEO but it is the subcategory or specialised form of SEO that helps your businesses to appear in location based search like ‘tattoo studio near me’ or ‘best restaurant in New York’. It is best for the businesses that serve specific geographic areas. It involves various activities as follow:
- Optimize My Google Business Profile
- Add NAP (Name, Address, Phone)
- Collect online customer reviews
- Add business to local directories and Google map
Conclusion
All of them play a huge role in making websites more visible and user-friendly. If you can combine on-page, off-page, technical and local SEO strategies effectively, then you can create a stronger presence in search engines that can help you to drive huge organic traffic that converts.