SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a process of generating or driving quality and quantity traffic to the website. It is one of the effective methods of gaining traffic without incurring any cost. SEO also helps to improve the visibility of the website or a webpage. It not only improves the position of the content but also helps images, videos, or products to rank for the keywords. There are three types of methods using which we can improve the quality and quality of a website or web page.
1) On-Page SEO Optimization
2) Off-Page Optimization
3) Technical SEO
On-Page SEO
On-Page SEO also referred to as on-site SEO. It refers to a process of improving the quality of the content and making required changes in the HTML source code of a page. It involves making certain changes to the content or design to make it more attractive for the users to read and for Google to search the content and serve to the users based on the query.
Important Factors of On-page SEO
E-A-T
E-A-T is referred to as Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Google raters use this framework to determine content creators, webpages, and websites. Google tries to make sure that it rewards high-quality content by giving high ranking and giving low-quality content less ranking and visibility. So, it is important that you consider E-A-T in your SEO strategies.
Title Tag
In the head section of every webpage, an HTML tag is there which is known as the title tag. It helps in providing the initial context of that subject matter in the respective page it is in. It is always shown on the search engine result page.
Header tags
Header tags which are H tags are commonly known as heading that can be used to structure content in an effective way. It ranges from H1, H2, H3…. to H6. H1 is the most important Htag, the H1 tag should be used only once in the content.
Meta tags
Meta tags are also one of the important factors for a page to rank in the SERP (Search Engine Result Page). It helps in describing the page’s content. And also it is not visible on the page itself rather it is present in the page’s source code. Meta tags help search engines in knowing what the content is all about.
Meta title
It plays a vital role in positioning the web page or a website on the first page of Google. And we all know that the first three results in the SERP are the best position for a website to rank as it attracts users. The meta title should be appealing and must contain keyword having good search volume.
Meta description
An effective meta description helps in getting clicks. It doesn’t affect the ranking of the page directly but indirectly it does affect the ranking of the page.
URL structure
It is very important that your URL is rich with the keywords and shows the hierarchy of the content on your page. Remember to keep your URL short, self-descriptive, and easily understandable.
Keyword
The keyword plays an important role in on-page optimization. It makes sure that your keyword is used in heading, meta description, and at the beginning of your content. It is also important that in your content the keyword is used enough times.
Content
Always make sure that your content is unique and not duplicate. But just making it unique is not enough, it should also add some value to the readers. Make your content crisp and informative.
Interlinking
Interlinking helps google in knowing the structure of your site and connecting your content to each other. It also gives hierarchy to your sites which helps in giving more importance to your valuable content and less importance to your less valuable content. So, to boost your SEO strategies it is important to use interlinking.
Advantages of On-Page SEO
- On-page SEO helps the search engine in understanding the website and the content. When the search engine understands the content, it further checks whether it is relevant to searcher’s query or not.
- In order to gain visibility, it is very important to do on-page optimization. If your on-page optimization is not done properly, the search engine won’t be able to find your website or your page.
- On-page optimization also helps in improving the ranking of your website or page by making the content according to the search engine, so that the search engine can understand it easily.
- It is also very useful in improving the readability of your content overall so that it is more user friendly.
- Doing on-page SEO of your content which represents your website, helps your website in getting authority that leads in creating more traffic on your page or website.
- On-page optimization gives your website of being recognized by the masses, which can lead to a high conversion rate.
Off-Page SEO
Unlike on-page, off-page SEO mainly focuses on creating good quality backlinks. It refers to a process of promoting a website or a webpage by submitting the URL to the third party website. To raise the ranking of a page with a search engine, there are certain activities that you do away from your website, this is nothing but off-page SEO
Some Important Techniques of Off-Page Optimization
Link Building
One of the most important parts of off-page SEO is the link building. Gaining links back to your sites is very useful for the search engines to know how much your site is trustworthy, valuable, and authoritative. Not all links are important for search engines, only some links influence search engine. Gaining high-quality backlinks from an authoritative site having relevant content is very important. Link building is divided into three parts, the first one is natural links, the second is manually built links, and the last one is self-created links.
Social Media
While ranking a page, Google does keep in mind your social signals. Social media was not so important until now. So, in order to rank high be responsive and engaged with your followers. connect to influencers, renowned professionals, and leaders as they will help in promoting your page or website. There are a number of social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and many more.
Commenting
Commenting on other blogs and leaving a link to your website will give you more backlinks and increase your website traffic. But posting irrelevant comments and links are not accepted by Google. So, it is important that commenting is done properly and with relevant context.
Guest posting
Guest posting is still on-trend. There are a number of sites that promote guest posting. It helps you in gaining more backlinks and ultimately giving your site more traffic. But posting multiple times on the same site is not suggested.
Social bookmarking
Social bookmarking is done by bookmarking your website or page on different social bookmarking sites in order to gain more traffic to your page. It is advised that you should do social bookmarking on those sites which have good domain authority(DA). Few examples of social bookmarking sites are Digg, Reddit, Tumbler.
Forum Submission
Forum submission is another way of engaging more traffic to your sites by participating in related forum sites, connecting with the related community, answering questions asked by people, and giving them suggestions and advice. Some forum submission sites are WordPress, Microsoft answers, forums myspace.
Image Submissions
Image submission also helps in gaining more traffic to your website by submitting photos on popular image submission sites. It is important to check the URL and title tag before submitting the image. Make sure that they have a proper title, description, and tags. Some image submissions sites are Pinterest, ImageShack, Scoop, Flicker.
Blog Directory Submissions
Blog directory submissions help in creating quality backlinks for the website. Selecting the effective directory and correct category is very important to obtain the desired result. Yes, these results take time to show but once they show the results they stay for a long period of time. some of the directory submission sites are industry directory, directory entire web, site promotion directory.
Article Submissions
In Press Release (PR) submission sites you can submit your article and leave the link of your website in order to get more backlinks. While submitting your article it is important to note that your article should be unique and it should not be stuffed with too many keywords as it may gate rejected. Some article submission sites are HubPages, the free library, bright hub.
Question and Answer Sites
Posting answers to the relevant questions in popular question and answer(Q&A) sites also helps in gaining traffic to your website. Go for those sites which have high PR. Search for the questions which are relevant to your site and answer them and don’t forget to leave the link of your website to get backlinks. Some Q&A sites are Quora, yahoo answers, answer bag.
Benefits of Off-Page SEO
- Knowing how others look at your website plays an important role in off-page SEO. It is the game of referencing from other websites, social media mentioning, bookmarking, and sharing between communities which help your page to range higher.
- Once your page is ranked higher it will bring more links, more traffic, and your site will start getting mentioned more in social media. it will keep on growing without falling. This helps your website in having a strong ground and being recognized by masses.
- By doing off-page optimization like linking building and submissions in different sites, your website ranking increases which lead to more traffic on your website.
- Search engines get to know that your website is important to other web users by off-page optimizations. This helps search engines to know that your website has the quality, which leads to higher ranking in search engine results pages (SERP).
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is the process of correcting the technical part of the website. Its main purpose is to improve your search visibility by optimizing your site for better crawling and indexing. It helps search engines to access and crawl your content easily and then interpret and index them.
Important Technical SEO Tools
Secure Sockets Layer use
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) helps in creating an encrypted link between the web server and the browser. To know which site is using SSL and which is not using it, just check the starting of URL. I URL starts with “https://” is means it is using SSL and URL starting with “http://” means it is not using SSL. The websites using SSL are preferred by Google more.
Loading Speed
One of the part factors that affect the ranking of the web page is the loading speed. Your website should be open within 2 seconds of clicking the link to your website.
Gadget Friendly
People nowadays are using different smart gadgets like smartphones, tablets, etc. It is important that you are responsive to your website and makes your website easily adaptable to different gadgets and at the same time easily navigated and read. Google algorithm is clear that if you are responsive then your ranking is also high.
XML Sitemape
An XML sitemap helps in creating a map or you can say a road map of your website which tells the search engine where each content is on your website. It is also useful in telling when the page was last modified, what is its priority in your website, and the frequency of its update.
Accelerated Mobile Pages
Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is considerably a new concept given by Google to fasten the mobile web speed. A new special code AMP HTML is created, which helps in speeding up the content delivery on mobiles.
Advantages of Technical SEO
- Creating good content is not all you need. It is of no use if the users can’t search it. With good content, you also need strong technical SEO strategies which will help users to access your content easily.
- If you have good unique content but your page loading speed is less, no one is going to stay on your page. Good loading speed is required in order to gain more traffic on the website.
- Technical SEO is considered as the backbone of any website. Just like a body can’t stand straight without a backbone in the same way, the website can’t stand straight without it the technical SEO.
- Technical SEO is also helpful in making your website more mobile-friendly. So, people can access your website without having trouble in navigating and understanding the content. Google promotes these kinds of websites and ranks them higher in SERP