Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Basically, this blog explains the contents of SEO and its related terms and tools. So, if you want to learn about the steps necessary to optimize and rank your content in the search engines then this blog is for you, go through this blog.

1. Introduction to SEO

SEO was introduced first in 1991. In this particular year, the first website was created.

In 1996, Larry Page and Brin build the most successful search engine till today i.e. BackRub and at present, it is named Google.

In general terms, SEO is the practice of increasing the number and quality of visitors to a website by improving rankings in the algorithmic search engine results.

It is an ongoing process.

2. Types of SEO

Generally, there are three main types of SEO and they are;

On-Page SEO

This SEO relates to the content on your website.

This type of SEO is under our control. Examples of on-page SEO include; meta tags on the website, heading, and title on the website, image optimization, and so on.

On-Page SEO Basics

It consists of all the elements of SEO you can control best.

You have almost 100% control of on-page SEO.

Some of the on-page SEO factors that do have direct or indirect ranking effects include;

Crawlable Website
User-Friendly Uniform Resource Locators(URLs)
Well Targeted Content
Keyword Optimization
Website Optimization
Image Optimization
HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS)
Readability and User eXperience (UX)
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
Mobile Friendliness
Quality Outbound Links
Website Structure

Off-Page SEO

This SEO is a technique that assists in strengthening the influence and relationship your website has with other websites. This type is done outside the web page; it is not in our control.

Example of off-page SEO includes backlinks, social links, forum submission, article submission, document sharing, etc.

Technical SEO

This type of SEO relates to the non-content elements of your website. This can be considered as part of an On-Page SEO.

For example; Web Page Speed, Load Time, the structure of the website, sitemap, redirect pages, mobile-friendly, fixing duplicate indexing, etc.

3. How Search Engine Works?

Search Engine Working Mechanism

4. Addition of Website in Google Search Console

You need to add your website to the google search console because it is a freely accessible platform that assists in monitoring our website in consideration with google.

The components like; analyzing the site's traffic, site performance, URL inspection, search results, and so on can be carried out easily via the google search console.

Thus, from the SEO point of view, this is a must to do the task to add the website to the google search console.

5. Placement of Keywords for on-page SEO

Keywords must be placed in their appropriate place in order to optimize the content and make it rank in search results.

The keywords should be placed in the following components to improve SEO;

Title of the page

Description

Heading Tag

Formatted Text

Outgoing Links

URL

Alt Tag

Content

6. Title and Description in SEO

The length of the title should be around 50 - 60 characters.

The usability of the keywords in the title should be in the first 25% - 40%.

The title must be unique. Some action words like; take, boost, learn, get, make, and so on can be used.

Numbers can also be used in the title.

The title of the content can also encompass the usability of the brand name for instance; if there is an about page of it company named IT Nepal Solutions then the page's title can be;

About | IT Nepal Solutions

where about is the title of the page and IT Nepal Solutions is the brand?

Description of the page/content can be summarized up to approximately 155 - 160 characters that describe the webpage content.

The tool that can assist in writing standard and optimized titles and descriptions is Portent SERP Snippet Preview.

7. Install Google Analytics with Google Tag Manager

It is very essential to use and implement google analytics into a website because it helps to keep the track of your overall records of the content of your site.

Through the data gained, you can analyze your site contents.

Basically, it helps to track and analyze your website's traffic and content.

Similarly, google tag manager is used to deliver the ability to add and update your own tags for conversion tracking, analytics of the site, marketing, and so on.

The JavaScript code provided through google tag manager should also be implemented into the website. This helps to track and analyze the activity occurring on your website.

8. Check Mobile Responsiveness of your Website

You also need to analyze whether the site is mobile-friendly or not.

At present each and everyone has a mobile phone in their hand and they feel portable and comfortable to search queries using their mobile devices in that case if your website is not mobile-friendly then that is a huge loss to your website as per the traffic.

If your website is responsive then it can encompass both the community of the audience i.e. web and mobile.

So, it is a must to make your website mobile-friendly as well.

9. H1 Tag for SEO

H1 is usually the most visually notable content on the page.

It is suggested only to use one H1 tag on a web page.

The tag should be from 20 - 70 characters.

It is good practice to use a focused long-tail keyword in the heading tag.

With the applicability of the H1 tag, you should be able to answer the intent of the user.

10. Canonical Tags

If you have the similar or same content available under different URLs, you can use canonical tags to specify which version is the main one and thus, should be indexed.

The syntax is;

<link rel="canonical" href="URL" />, use one canonical tag per page.

The canonical tag is a page-level meta tag that is placed in the HyperText Markup Language (HTML) header of a web page.

11. robots.txt

A robots.txt file tells search engines where they can and cannot go on your site.

Sometimes you don't want certain pages to be crawled and indexed due to certain reasons so you introduce these in this file.

For instant; facebook.com/robots.txt

We can test the robots.txt files through the google webmaster robots.txt tester tool.

12. Sitemap

A sitemap is a simple XML or HTML file through which we can represent the complete structure of our website to the crawler so that the crawler does not find difficulty in crawling our website and can get understood the exact structure of our website.

A sitemap is for both crawlers and users. XML file (sitemap.xml) of sitemap is for crawlers and HTML file (sitemap.html) is for users.

Example: 1

Sitemap Structure 1

Example: 2

Sitemap Structure 2

Among the above examples, sitemap structure 2 (example 2) is a better-structured sitemap than sitemap structure 1 (example 1).

13. Domain Authority (DA) and Page Authority (PA)

DA is a value (metric) that is developed by Moz that gives us information about the ranking ability of our website's domain.

The score of DA ranges from 0 to 100 where a higher number leads to a greater ability to rank and vice versa.

Similar to DA, PA is also developed by Moz and the score range is also the same i.e. from 0 to 100.

DA is for domain or subdomain but PA is for specific page ranking ability with their competitor's pages. Both DA and PA are based on the link profile.

In order to improve PA, try to get external links from other high authority websites.

PA considers DA as well. The tool that can be used is Moz for DA and PA.

14. Redirects

Redirects are the best way to send both users and search engines to a different URL from the one they originally requested.

The types of redirects are; 301 and 302 redirects.

301 Redirects: It refers to that a URL has been moved permanently to another URL.

This redirect passes between 90% and 99% of link equity (ranking power) to the redirected page.

Change of domain name and conversion of HTTP to HTTPS are some of the examples of 301 redirects.

302 Redirects: It indicates that a URL has been temporarily moved to another URL.

The search engine does not immediately pass Page Rank to the destination URL.

A 302 redirect does not indicate the destination URL should be indexed.

Updating content, and changing the contents for temporary purposes are some of the examples of 302 redirects.

15. URL

In the context of SEO, URLs are not advised to be lengthy.

The URLs can be made maximum up to level 3.

Keywords can also be used in the URL.

Never include special characters like; & in the URL. The characters in the URL should be lowercase.

16. Alt Text

If an image file cannot be loaded on the website then the alt text is displayed in the place of an image. The syntax is;

<img src="img.jpg" alt="image alt text">

Alt tags provide better image context/descriptions to search engine crawlers, helping them to index an image properly.

17. Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificate

A website whose protocol encompasses HTTP means the content is not secure and HTTPS represents that the content in the site is secure.

The types of SSL certificates are;

Single Domain SSL Certificate: does not work for any subdomain.

Multi-Domain SSL Certificate: works for multi-domain

Wild Card SSL Certificate: covers all domains on a single root domain.

Organizational SSL Certificate: works as a single domain, also authentic organization-related details.

Extended SSL Certificate: It is a bit extended which might be appropriate to showcase the brand in the URL. It is expensive and mostly used by bigger companies like Twitter.

18. Search Intent

It is the why behind a search query.

The type of searches are; Informational (eg, what is SEO?, which gives informational search intent), Navigational (eg, Facebook login, which gives navigation that might not be much essential in SEO point), Transactional (eg, buy a laptop, it means trying to purchase or perform transactions), Commercial (eg, offers in laptop, this search intent is very close to purchasing goods) and Local Searches (eg, pizza restaurant near me, it satisfies through google my business).

19. Query vs Keyword

Query and Keyword are quite similar.

If a consumer is a user then for them it is a query and in case the consumer is a marketer, SEO expert or from a tech background then they consider it as a keyword.

They are analyzed through the google search console.

20. SEOquake Chrome Extension

This is a chrome extension used in order to observe and analyze the keyword difficulty and so on.

21. Link Building vs Link Earning

Link Building includes the tasks like; building links, article submissions, spammy emails, reciprocal linking, and so on.

Link Earning includes the tasks like; content curation, guest blogging, personalized email outreach, building partnership, and so on.

You must focus on link earning rather than link building for long-term SEO.

22. Value of Links in SEO

In comparison with the external and internal links, the external links create more value than the internal.

23. Multiple Keywords in Single Page

Implementation of multiple keywords on a single page is a good practice from an SEO point of view.

24. Google's EAT Algorithm

Google EAT Algorithm

25. Generate Keyword Ideas

The website named answerthepublic.com can be applicable to get ideas about the keywords.

26. What is Pogo Sticking in SEO?

If the user enters a query in a search engine and the search engine gives a result then the user clicks to one of the Search Engine Result Pages (SERP) and moves to its landing page and within a few seconds if the user gets back to SERP and without changing the query if the user clicks to another SERP then this situation is called pogo-sticking in SEO.

This indicates that the user is not satisfied with the first clicked result in the SERP.

27. Pogo Sticking vs Bounce Rate

This indicates that the user is not satisfied with the first clicked result in the SERP.

On the other hand, if the user goes to any website's landing page and spends some time there but does not interact with the website and goes back without interacting then it is called a bounce.

This indicates that users may or may not be satisfied with the content available on the site.

If a user finds their searched content on the landing page of the website then the user is satisfied and there exists a bounce which is considered to be good but in the case of pogo-sticking the user is not satisfied at all with the site's content in any case.

28. Meta Tags to Ignore in SEO

The meta tags that do not impact in SEO at present context include; keyword, revisit-after, cache control, geo and expires meta tags.

29. Backlinks to Avoid

Some of the backlinks to avoid in SEO points are described below;

Spammy links on comments/blog community

Non-relevant reciprocal links Exchanges

Automation Tools like Xrumer

Buying Links From Fiver

Link Velocity and so on.