SEO is an important tool for digital marketing, and all of us who run a website know and understand its importance. The dilemma for most people involved in managing and maintaining a website is, when and where to start with the SEO of their website.
What Exactly is SEO- Website Optimization?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the technique that involves generating and posting quality content on the website to improve the site’s visibility in search engines and their users. SEO helps in showing the website more often in search engine results. This means if you want to rank higher in search engine results for the keywords, then you should look at creating a SEO strategy that helps you in achieving the desired results on Google, Yahoo, or Bing search engines.
Search Engine Optimization- SEO
What are Search Engines?
We have all heard of search engine like Google, Yahoo, and Bing, but have we ever wondered how they actually work to bring us the most relevant results for our search on the internet. A search engine can be defined as the source that is used to promote a website and its business on the internet. Search engines visit millions of websites every day and they gather information about these websites by exploring their content. This practice helps a search engine to understand whether the content is relevant to a certain search performed on the internet by a user or not. This is where the Search Engine Optimization Techniques come into practice, as these techniques help a website to rank higher in search engine results.
Search engines can be classified into three types:
Crawler based search engines
A crawler-based search engine works on the basis of three specific steps. In the first step the search engine crawls through a website. The second step involves analyzing the information on the website according to the targeted URL or keywords, which ultimately leads to the indexing of the website, and the third and final step involves extracting the information from the indexed webpages in response to a certain query.
Human- Powered Directories
Human- powered directories gather their information from human reviews, category listing and indexing. The owner of the website submits certain information related to its content to such directories and the owner is not aware as to which part of the submitted information will be displayed as the website description on such directories in the final search results. Open Directory, Google Directory, Yahoo Directory and Looksmart are some of the online directories available for such information.
Hybrid search engines
Hybrid search engines present both human- powered- listing and crawler- based results.
Website Indexing Vs. Website Ranking
Website indexing is done by crawler- based search engines like Google with the help of automated programs called crawlers or spiders. These crawlers index a certain website based on its relevance for certain keywords or phrases typed by a user on the internet. The main point to consider here is that only indexed pages and websites are shown by a search engine in search results. These pages are ranked on the basis of complex algorithms that are used by these search engines, but one thing that is certain is that webpages and websites with higher ranking in the search engine results have the highest relevance for those certain keywords. The results that are purely searched based are known as Organic Search results and they actually depend on the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques used by a website. This means in order to rank higher in organic search results you have to work continuously on your SEO strategy.
What are the Different Types of SEO for Website Optimization?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) comes in two different forms: On page SEO and OFF Page SEO.
On Page SEO
On page SEO is most important, as it is something over which the owner of the website has a direct control because it is related to the content of the website. On page SEO includes factors like the structure of the website which the search engine crawlers see when they crawl a certain website and the content that it communicates which a user sees on the website. On Page SEO techniques for managing the structure of the website include: page title, header tags, meta tags, target keywords, keyword density, ALT tags, Content placement, breadcrumb trail, URL structure and size, internal linking of webpages, site update frequency and sitemaps and robots.txt file.
Let’s take a deeper dive into some of the factors responsible for ON Page SEO for Website Optimization
Page Title
If you are a writer, then you would know the actual importance of a good page title. A good page title communicates the intended message for your content. For e.g. A food blog might keep the title of a webpage as “10 Spicy North Indian Recipes for Vegetarians”. Here the title conveys that the recipes are intended for Vegetarians and the reader knows what to expect from the content. The key lies in setting the right expectations from your content through the correct page Title. If the title only said “Spicy North Indian Recipes for Food Lovers”, then a pure vegetarian user scrolling through the content of the page might find it disappointing and a total waste of his or her precious time. Technically, a correct title tag for the webpage assists the Search Engine ranking algorithm to decide about the exact content of the webpage. SERP display the page title in response to a certain query and a correct title tag helps the user in finding the correct information relevant to the query. World wide Web Consortium indicates that the length of the page title should not be more than 64 characters, as a longer title loses its relevance in the SERP. You can use tools like Coshedule.com for analyzing the SEO of your headline or Page Title.
Focus Keyphrase and Meta Tag
If you are using WordPress, then you would definitely know about Yoast and AISEO plugins that help you in optimizing a webpage. Focus keyphrase or the targeted keywords are the ones that help a search engine in finding a page for a searcher. The query typed by a searcher on the web should match the targeted keywords provided by you for your webpage. For e.g., in the earlier example if a user types ‘Spicy Vegetarian Indian Recipes’, then Google might show your webpage as one of the search engine results for the search performed by the user. A keyword can be either a long tail keyword, or a broad match keyword, or an exact phrase. Most of the websites use either broad keywords, as the chances of your webpage getting more impressions for a particular query increases with a broad keyword or a long tail keyword which reduces the number of impressions but helps in getting a higher rank in search engine results. Last but not the least an exact phrase is used by a website that specializes in a certain domain, as it restricts the webpage from landing in search results for a single keyword in the search results.
A Meta Tag is nothing but a description of the webpage in few words. The recommended length of the meta tag is 160 characters.
Content of the Website
The content of the website is the most important factor in deciding the success of the website. The quality and relevance of your content decides its ranking in search engine results. Some tips for managing the content include writing quality and creative content, refreshing your content regularly, making optimal use of relevant keywords in your webpages, and keep writing new content regularly. Content is king when it comes to SEO and digital marketing and search engine like Google rank your website according to the relevance of the content on your website. Try to match up with the required keyword density and avoid keyword stuffing for every webpage on your site.
Header tags
WordPress Header tags like HI, H2, H3 and H4 etc. have their own relevance when it comes to SEO. Try using relevant Header tags as the crawlers try to analyze the content under a separate header tag for indexing purposes. Use proper and relevant keywords for header tags for SEO purpose.
ALT Tag
ALT tag helps in making images visible to the search engines. Images usually are difficult to be indexed by the search engines, but the presence of an ALT tag helps in the indexing of the images of a website.
URLs
Static and Keyword friendly URLs are considered to be a good factor for the higher ranking of a website. URLs should be specific and as an address should point in a defined direction.
Internal Linking
Internal Linking helps the crawlers and the users to find more relevant pages on the website. Linking your pages internally helps in increasing the overall engagement rate for your website.
Off- page SEO for Website Optimization
Off- Page SEO techniques are beyond the content of a website. Some of the Off- page SEO techniques are:
Submitting a website to Directories
Anchor Texts
Link Building
SEO is an important tool for digital marketing as it helps in improving the search engine rank of a website. A website owner should continuously practice these SEO techniques and should focus on developing a perfect SEO strategy for achieving the desired results.
