Search engine optimization (SEO) is all about optimizing a website around specific words, known as keywords. It consists in making an online store or website appealing for search engines like Google. You should keep in mind that SEO is a long-term commitment and the little things contribute to positioning just as much as the big ones.
How do I position my site?
- Providing a better user experience with an intuitive interface, an optimized site for mobiles.
- Providing valuable information and revealing the most by answering a wide range of questions about a topic your target cares about.
- Using better images, videos, or content, in general, to illustrate your point with good examples.
Why is SEO important?
It can bring massive amounts of traffic to your website. When used properly, it can boost traffic immensely. Unlike other marketing channels that stop delivering traffic when you stop paying, the search engine will still consider your website as long as you convince it that the site is valuable.
Types of SEO
On-site SEO
It includes tactics you have direct control over. All the practices and enhancements you can do to your site so that search engines understand the webpage better.
Off-site SEO
Refers to the tactics you do not have control over. They are usually signals from other websites that show the value of your website to search engines. You cannot add them to your website. But as long as there are other pages talking about you, it will help you.
Techniques of SEO
White-Hat SEO
White-Hat refers to the completely legitimate SEO tactics aligned with Google’s rules that follow those almost to the letter. These techniques are a good way to get to rank your site, but white-hat SEO will demand a lot of effort, time, networking, and relationship-building. It is important to mention this is the safest group of techniques in the long run and they do not represent any risk for your website.
Grey-Hat SEO
This term defines techniques that consist of a mixture of following the rules and bending them in a slight way. Grey-Hat basically includes some shortcuts that search engines do not advise but do not penalize either. This method is not advised for a long period of time, but you could use it with discretion and caution.
Black-Hat SEO
These techniques are usually used by churn and burn sites (sites that are set up to make money fast but are aware that they’ll likely get de-indexed quickly). In this practice, people rely on software to create traffic to a site by spinning hundreds of versions of blog articles, creating thousands of social links on automated accounts, blasting blogs to automated websites, and spamming backlinks.
The sole purpose of black-hat SEO is to get websites ranked on search engines really fast, but it is definitely not a technique advised to follow for long-term purposes.
Players in SEO
There are four players:
- Product: The online business, blog, or website.
- Search engine: The most known example is Google.
- Searchers: People who use search engines to find information.
- Algorithm: It is mostly unknown and varies from time to time.
