What is SEO? 13 Effective Ways For SEO

Have you ever thought about why your website is not ranking on top of the Search Engine Result Page (SERP)? Proper visibility on SERPs can drive more traffic to your website, resulting in more sales and revenue. In the present competitive scenario, it becomes very important to be visible on top of SERP else you can lose lots of potential business. One major reason for not ranking on Google or other search engines could be the improper implementation of SEO strategies or no implementation at all. In this article, we will discuss “What is SEO” and “13 Effective Techniques For SEO For A Website”.

What is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, a proven strategy for driving organic traffic to your website or brand by ranking your website on top of SERPs. Search Engine Optimization is done to make Google or other Search Engines understand that your website or webpage is important for a certain search query. Your content is relevant to what people are searching for, and your site should be shown on top of others. 

SEO drives 1000%+ more traffic than organic social media.

That’s the benefit of doing SEO

SEO is one of the most important parts of Digital marketing. Every business or brand that wants to dominate Search Engines and be on top of SERPs is taking advantage of Search Engine Optimization.

Google and other search engines are continuously evolving and updating their algorithm to provide users with relevant results on their search queries. That’s why it becomes important to understand the SEO process to signal the right things to the Search Engines. 

Till now you might have understood what is SEO. Now its time to learn the 13 effective ways to do SEO for a website.

How to do SEO?

SEO can be classified into three types-

• On-page SEO

• Off-page SEO 

• Technical SEO

On-page, Off-page SEO & Technical SEO are three different processes that eventually help a website rank high, generating a lot of traffic and revenues. But getting the attention of Search Engines has never been an easy task. It will help if you put a lot of effort into achieving the desired results.

Now the question that comes to every mind is –

Which type of SEO technique is more effective? On-page SEO, Off-page SEO, or Technical SEO?

To find out the answer to our queries, let’s jump into the world of SEO:

What is On-page SEO?

On-page SEO is the process of optimizing your website from the backend. On-page SEO helps search engines to recognize that your website has the most suitable & relevant content that users are searching for. It helps your website to rank higher on related search queries on SERPs.

Let’s talk about some of the important On-page SEO factors which affect the ranking:

1. Title tags 

Properly optimized Title tags are crucial for On-page SEO. It is the title or main heading of the page. The title tag tells the search engine what this page is all about. Search engines also display the Title tag on the search engine result pages, which also helps attract the user’s attention. This is what Title Tag looks like on SERP. 

For writing the Title Tag effectively, we should always keep the following points in mind:

• Should use up to 60 characters, including space. You can use more than 60 characters, but that won’t be of any use
• Use Primary keywords strategically in your title tag. It should look natural 
• Make it catchy or use a hook

2. Meta description

The meta description is displayed just below the Title tag on SERP. It is a short description that tells the audience about your webpage. The ideal length for getting featured as a snippet on Google is 150-160 characters.

Google or other Search Engines can automatically create a meta description of your webpage if it is missing. They fetch the content for meta description from your webpage, which is displayed. 

But for a better click-through rate, it’s advised that you write an engaging meta description that describes your page & can prompt the user to click on your link. Add your primary keyword in your meta description, but it should match the content and look natural.

3. Uniform Resource Locator (URL) or Permalink

You might think that why a URL is important for SEO. Let’s take an example of two types of URLs –

www.xyzexample.com/page-34

www.xyzexample.com/how-to-do-seo

Now you can decide which one is more appropriate.

Start building your URL user-friendly and always keep it simple and readable. Don’t use irrelevant numbers or words.

You can also add the focused keyword in your URL, but it should not be more than 4 to 5 words. 

4. Heading tags 

Normally we use three levels of Heading Tags – H1, H2 & H3 but it can go up to six levels. These Heading tags give structure to your content. 

H1 should contain the main heading of the article or page. It is the most important and biggest heading of the page. You should use 1 H1 tag in a webpage or post. H2 can be used as a subheading to H1 and so on H3 can be used as another subheading to H2.

Writing Heading tags with properly focused keywords can do wonders for you. Proper heading tag optimization can be a game changer for your website’s ranking. 

5. Internal Linking

Internal linking is the process of linking one page to another page of your website. It is important because Google or other search engines understand the relationship between your pages. Internal linking is also good for user experience, as it helps users discover more of your content.  

Use internal linking to connect relevant pages.

6. Image alt text

Alt text can be defined as the short description we give for the image we use on our website. It is shown in the place of the image when your website’s image doesn’t load.

Things to keep in mind while writing Alt text for images:

• Keep it short and informative
• Optimize it with your keywords
• Do not stuff keywords or irrelevant text 
•  

What is Off-page SEO?

Off-page SEO is the process or actions you take outside of your website to make your website rank on the SERP. By implementing proper Off-page SEO strategies, you can achieve the following goals like- brand awareness, Domain Authority (DA), leads and conversions, etc.

Off-page SEO is the process of promoting and linking your website to other websites to achieve the abovementioned goals.

Following are the steps for doing proper Off-page SEO:

1. External link building

External link building is one of the major factors in increasing your website’s Domain Authority (DA). 

Let’s take an example to understand External Link Building – let’s say someone sees the title of this blog on some website or social media with a short description. If he gets curious to know more about SEO, he will click the link and come to this blog. In this example, our blog is the platform getting a backlink from that website or Facebook.

But getting links from spammy or non-authoritative websites can increase your spam score or decrease your DA. And nobody wants this because both of these are not good for SEO.

In the first instance, getting backlinks from reputed sites might be difficult. But you can always analyze your competitor’s backlinks and try to ask for a link from the same source. If they successfully acquired a link, you may also get one.

2. Internal Link Building

In internal linking, we create a link from one page of our website to another page. It helps a user and search engine as well to find content on your website. By doing proper internal linking you guide a user or Google to your most important page.

For example, if someone is reading a blog on a Career in Digital Marketing and he wants to know more about courses and institutes. And if he gets a link to check out the page for Best Digital Marketing Institute in Lucknow, then probably he will check the linked page too. This way you can increase traffic to different pages of your website.

3. Forum sites

Forum sites are platforms where people across the globe can ask their queries and get answers to them.

You can answer questions similar to your niche, and linking back to your website can bring in a lot of new audiences.

What is Technical SEO?

Technical SEO refers to optimizing your website on the server level to help Search Engine crawl and index your website more effectively.

Now Search Engines, especially Google, prefer websites with certain technical characteristics, for example, Secure Connection, Faster loading speed, or responsive design.

Following are the guidelines for optimizing your website for Technical SEO

1. Use SSL

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a technology that makes your website secure. In 2014 Google announced that websites with SSL would be given preference over non-SSL. That’s why it becomes important to have your website installed with SSL as soon as you make it live.

2. Make Sure your Website is Mobile Friendly or Responsive

Mobile responsive websites are those websites that adjust themselves automatically so that they can be read easily on any device, let it be Laptop, Mobile, or Tab.

Google and many other Search Engines prefer websites that are mobile responsive. Mobile responsiveness has become an important SEO factor for getting a good rank on SERPs.

Make sure that your website is fully mobile responsive or mobile friendly.

3. Speed up your website

 Search engines, including Google, prefer websites that load quickly. Page speed now a day has become an important ranking factor.

The following are the factors that affect your website loading speed –

• Use fast Hosting
• Minimize ‘HTTP requests’ – keep the use of scripts and plugins to a minimum
• Keep your image files as small as possible without losing much of their quality 
• Minify your site’s code – get rid of any spaces, line breaks, or indentation in your HTML, CSS, and Javascript

4. Create XML Sitemap

XML Sitemap is used to help Search Engines understand the website while crawling. It is used to provide information to Search Engines about the pages and other media on your website.

Now the main question that comes to our mind.

Which SEO technique is more effective- On-page SEO, Off-page SEO, or Technical SEO?

The answer is quite simple – you need to focus on all three aspects of SEO. But firstly, focus on improving the Technical SEO, then the On-page SEO, and finally, focus on different strategies for Off-page SEO. 

Practicing them together is a win-win situation.

You can start doing SEO for your website by learning SEO Course in Lucknow or hiring an SEO agency or a freelancer.

Learning SEO can also help you start your CAREER in Digital Marketing. You can also read about the Career Opportunities in Digital Marketing.

Conclusion – ‘What is SEO’             

We are sure that by following the steps mentioned earlier, you can create a healthy base for your site. SEO does give results, but it’s not magic. It would be best to be patient, as search engines can take time to index and rank your website.

In SEO, there is no shortcut. If you do any unethical practice, you might get caught by the search engines and get penalized. It is better to create a website that can provide users with what they want and optimize it for search engines in a way that they can find your site/

The bottom line: if you stick with the proper strategies mentioned in this article, you will definitely get the results.

You can ask us any doubts regarding SEO in the comments.

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