Before you dive into SEO you should know what SEO is all about and how it works – that’s exactly what we’re going to cover and more in this complete SEO Guide.
When you ask someone what is SEO? They’ll most probably tell you SEO is search engine optimization
. Does that answer explain enough? Hell no!
The optimization part in SEO is what truly matters. It is the process of making web pages search engine friendly and is what you need to know to comprehend the definition of SEO.
What is being optimized and for what?
Mostly a web page, its content, the design, and almost everything about it is being optimized for search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing.
You don’t necessarily need a website to appear on search engines, even publishing content managed on platforms like Quora and YouTube can procure search engine visibility.
Why optimize?
To bring traffic into your web pages through targeted keywords. Your goal ought to be ranking on the first page of Google.
The first page is the center of attraction, who wouldn’t want to be there.
Appearing on the second page of Google is like being in a black hole at the center of the universe where no one can find you.
Well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, you’ll probably be found but your chances are quite slim.
Think of it this way, when you google a keyword, what are the chances of you moving to the second page?
Presumably, you already found what you’re looking for on the first page and thus don’t even bother to shift to the second.
What is SEO and how it works
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a digital marketing method to manipulate the position of which a web page ranks for in a search engine’s organic results – also known as unpaid results.
The web pages that appear higher up on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) tend to get more visits from search engine users.
Results that appear on a search engine depend upon many factors, one being the location of the user who typed in a search term. Typically, a local search for a product or service will display local results.
In general, SEO means:
- optimizing a website so that search algorithms can understand it better.
- removing barriers so that a web page gets indexed on search engines.
- increasing the relevance of a pages content to distinct keywords.
- boosting a site to increase its authority by gaining backlinks.
Types of SEO – Black Hat vs. White Hat SEO
Black Hat SEO refers to gaming the ranking systems of search engines by using sneaky methods to quickly jump positions on search results.
This is not a method anyone would recommend, unless you’re in the game for a short while. Pages that implement this method eventually gets removed from search results.
On the contrary, search engines recommend White Hat SEO to appear on SERPs.
You ought to do white, that is if you want to remain on-top of search results for long periods of time.
There is another strategy called Gray Hat SEO, which is a basically a combination of White & Black. Good plus Bad.
- Focus on user experience
- Proper usage of keywords
- Relevant inbound links
- Spamdexing
- Google bomb
- Keyword Stuffing
- Link farm
Now that you’ve grasped the meaning of SEO, let’s get started on how it works!