SEO is about helping search engines understand and present the content. SEO is known in full as Search Engine Optimization.
In technical terms, SEO is the process of improving the quality and quantity of the website traffic to a website or a web page from search engines.
SEO targets unpaid traffic rather than direct traffic or paid traffic. These techniques get traffic from free, organic, editorials or natural search engines.
The aim of the SEO technique is to improve the website’s position in the results of the search engine’s pages. The higher the rank, the higher is the possibility of people visiting the site.
Table of Contents
There are four basic types of SEO techniques:
- On-page SEO often referred to as on-site optimization
- Off-page SEO often referred to as off-site optimization
- Technical SEO
- Local SEO
Let us look at each of the above Search Engine Optimization techniques, a little bit in detail:
On-Page SEO
The On-page SEO often refers to the process of optimizing pages on the site to improve the ranking and user experience. This technique can include back-links or mentions of the social media.
Some of the examples of the On-page SEO techniques include:
- Optimizing the title tags and the meta descriptions.
- Writing in-depth related to the business, quality content that focuses on the offerings on the page.
- Cleaning up the site’s code.
- Streamlining the site’s navigation.
- Speeding up the website by reducing the number of code calls.
Off-Page SEO
The Off-page SEO refers to the actions taken outside the website to impact the rankings within the search engine results page. It does not involve updating the contents of the site.
Here are some of the ways the traffic to the site can be improved with SEO:
- Brand Building
- Citation Building
- Content Marketing
- Social Media and more
These tactics, help the users and the search engines to understand the website better and increase the site’s authority, trust and relevance.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO refers to website and server optimization techniques that help the search engine spiders crawl and index the site more effectively. This helps improve the organic ranking.
Search engines give preferential treatment to websites that showcase certain technical traits like SSL certificates which showcase that the site meets the security requirements.
Here are some of the steps that will help get the technical SEO right:
1. Use SSL
Secure Socket Layer is a security technology which creates an encrypted link between the web server and the browser. The noticeable difference would be in the url where you can notice the ‘https’ instead of the ‘http’.
This can be done by installing an SSL certificate on the website, though most top website builders now include SSL by default.
2. Ensure that the site is mobile friendly
A responsive website design adjusts itself automatically so that it can be navigated and read easily on any device.
Having a responsive site is considered a very significant ranking signal in SEO, by the algorithms on the search engines.
3. Improve the speed of the site
Search engines prefer the sites that load quickly. Page speed is considered to be a very important aspect for any search engine. There are some ways this can be boosted up:
- Fast web hosting is one of the selections that can help us with this.
- A fast DNS provider can also prove to be of help in improving the speed of the site.
- Minimize the HTTP requests – with the use of scripts and plugins to the bare minimum.
- Use one CSS stylesheet instead of many CSS sheets.
- Images should be as small as possible. Larger images tend to slow down the page loading.
- Compress the webpages.
- Minify the site code.
4. Fix issues with duplicate content
Duplicate content can be confusing for search engine algorithms as for humans. It can be used to manipulate search rankings and win more traffic.
5. Create an XML sitemap
A XML sitemap will tell the search engine crawler where exactly to look for. It is like a road map for the crawler to look for.
A well laid out sitemap will help the search engine crawler get to the pages faster and hence result in better rankings from the SEO perspective.
This map would also contain useful information about every page on the site, that includes
- When the page was last modified
- The frequency of updating the pages
- The priority of the page
6. Consider Enabling AMP
AMP is a Google backed project that aims to speed up the delivery of the content on the mobile devices through the use of special code known as AMP HTML.
AMP strips the content to the last piece, leaving text and images, including video intact, but disabling comments, scripts and forms. This is actually very good from the SEO perspective and helps improve the ranking.
7. Adding structured data
Adding structured data enhances search results through the addition of ‘rich snippets’ – for example the structured data can be used to add star ratings to the reviews, prices or products.
Register your site with the Google Search Console and The Webmaster tools from Bing
These services help to keep an eye on the general performance of the site from the search engine perspective. These tools also help –
- Testing the site’s usability on the mobile
- Accessing search analytics
- Viewing back-links to the site
SEO Checkers & Tools
SEO tools provide data and alerts about the overall health and success of your website. They help uncover areas of opportunity and identify weaknesses or issues that may prevent you from ranking and earning visibility in the search engines.
There are some Search Engine Optimization Tools that can help improve the rankings for the site. Let us look at some of them:
1. Semrush Keyword Magic Tool
2. Semrush Keyword Gap Tool
3. Semrush Position Tracking Tool
4. Google Trends
5. QuestionDB
6. AnswerThePublic
7. TubeBuddy
8. Keyword Tool
9. AlsoAsked
10. Soovle
11. The Keyword Wizard For Amazon tool (AppCenter)
12. Google Ads
The benefits of using the Search Engine Optimization Tools are:
- It Boosts the site’s Credibility
- It Doesn’t Have To Cost Anything
- It Supports Content Marketing
- It Maximizes PPC Campaigns
- It Gives the site A Competitive Advantage
- It Can Help the business Reach More People
For more information on marketing tools to improve your marketing path, talk to the Exabytes Digital professionals.
