search engine optimization

what is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is the process of getting traffic from the free, organic, editorial, or natural search results on the search engines. Simply put, it’s the name given to the activity that attempts to improve search engine rankings. In many respects, it’s simply quality control for websites.

SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search, and news search engines. Employing a sound SEO strategy will help you position your website properly to be found at the most critical points in the buying process or when people need your site.

Search Engine Crawlers
The leading search engines, such as Google, Bing and Yahoo!, use crawlers to find the pages for their algorithmic search results. Pages that are linked from other search engine indexed pages do not need to be submitted because they are found automatically.

Search engine crawlers may look at a number of different factors when crawling a site. Not every page is indexed by the search engines. Distance of pages from the root directory of a site may also be a factor in whether or not pages get crawled.

Points to Note
You should be careful to keep the following points in mind in order to ensure your brand is well positioned on search engines −

Search engines want to do their jobs as best as possible by referring users to websites and content that is most relevant to what the user is looking for. This is determined by the site content, how fast your site loads, how often your site is linked to from other credible online resources, and user experience, including design, navigation and bounce rate.

The items that the search engines don’t want are: keyword stuffing, buying links, and poor user experience (too many ads and high bounce rates).

Domain naming is important to your overall branding. As a best practice, use sub-directory root domains (example.com/events) versus sub-domains (events.example.com). Other best practices with domain names are to use consistent domains and keywords in the URL.

Optimize for different types of results. In addition to optimizing for desktop experience, focus on mobile and tablet optimization along with other media.

Content on the site should have title tags and meta descriptions. Although meta tags aren’t as important as they used to be in the past; if you do use them, ensure they are formatted correctly.

types of SEO

1. White-Hat SEO

White-hat SEO refers to all the optimization techniques which abides by Google’s search engine guidelines. Although one needs to be patient to see results, they are sustainable and create genuine goodwill around your brand. Besides, there is no risk of your site getting banned or bumped down in the search results if there is a new algorithm change. All in all, white-hat SEO is low-risk and high rewards if you do it right. Examples of white-hat SEO techniques include authoring useful and relevant content after doing extensive keyword research, earning links from high-authority sites based on the merit of your on-page content, etc.

2. Black-Hat SEO

Black-hat SEO is the exact opposite of white-hat SEO in that it finds and takes advantage of any loopholes or weaknesses in Google’s search algorithm to rank better on its SERPs. It does not stick to the search engine’s list of SEO dos and don’ts and resorts to spammy or paid link building methods, keyword stuffing, showing different content to bots/crawlers and humans (called cloaking), etc. to get ahead. It goes without saying that black-hat SEO can get your site blacklisted or its rankings to drop so it is best avoided. Besides, these high-risk SEO techniques give you only short-lived results.

Here in this video, Matt Cutts explained how can a website compete using White Hat Techniques rather than using Black Hat Techniques.

3. Grey-Hat SEO

Grey-hat SEO tactics are often used by SEO agencies due to pressure to see quick results from a client and fall in between white and black hat SEO in terms of approach. Although Google’s webmaster guidelines do not explicitly say that such methods are prohibited, they are still frowned upon and can lead to undesired search outcomes. Examples of this type of SEO include clickbait content that is sensational yet mediocre and of no value to the user, excessive and suspicious link exchange between sites, paid reviews, etc. Again, it is best to stay far away from such underhanded SEO tactics.

4. Negative SEO

Among the different types of SEO, this is by far the most detestable and unethical. Negative SEO is done with the intention of making your competitor’s search rankings suffer so that you yourself can take their place or benefit from it. Negative SEO methods include hacking into someone’s site and building a suspiciously high number of low-quality links to it, posting negative feedback or reviews about them in various online forums, etc. Needless to say, negative SEO can even lead to legal ordeals if the one practicing it is caught. Check out this video to know more about Negative SEO.

5. On-Page SEO

All the measures you take to make your web page rank higher on search engines falls under this umbrella. On-Page SEO includes authoring high-quality content with the sole purpose of it proving helpful to your website visitors, adding meta tags to help Google bots better understand your content, using HTML tags to highlight headings and other content elements and ensuring there are no broken links or duplicate content/pages. Cleaning up the URL structure and having an ordered naming system for various similar pages that fall under one category, choosing images that are not too big while writing descriptive file names, etc. are just a few other on-page SEO techniques. If you want to know more about it, you can read our detailed post on what is on-page SEO.

6. Technical SEO

Technical SEO is largely to help Google bots successfully crawl, interpret and index all the pages of your site for future use. Creating a thorough XML sitemap, making your site mobile-friendly, adding structured data to help web crawlers sort and categorize your pages based on the type of content they carry are just some of the techniques used. Do refer to our deep-dive post on what is technical SEO for more insights.

7. Off-Page SEO

Off-page SEO refers to everything you do outside of your site to fare better and feature higher up in Google’s SERPs. It includes working on external ranking factors like building links from trusted s

Advantage of SEO

Top Advantages of SEO
Small and medium businesses can gain a lot of advantages from the SEO. These companies who spend in search engine marketing can have higher ranks on search engine. Those businesses that do not practice SEO can slide down as their situation can turn worse. For the beginners and the current users, knowing about the advantages of SEO will help them hugely to make the best of SEO.



1. Build a better user friendly website
For the beginners, SEO will assist you in crafting quicker, better and friendly website for the users. If you’ll follow appropriate on-page SEO techniques, it certainly develops the user experience, which produces short term as well as long term profits. When your users are content, then search engines are also pleased.

2. Discover new markets

With the help of a flourishing SEO campaign, you can discover new markets and explore new economies worldwide. Your traffic level can reach to great heights with the support of social media platforms and mobile marketplaces, by increasing your SEO performance.

3. Find out new customers and help expansion

The businesses that hold their own websites can increase their customer base hugely. SEO will assist you in achieving excellent rankings on the search engine result pages that can grab more targeted customers.

4. Establish brand awareness via improved rankings

Brand awareness stands as the best advantage for ranking on the highest positions of SERPs. The users nowadays prefer to believe a brand completely when it approaches in the first place while they search for a particular term; instead of those brands which haven’t made their web presence in a well way. Small and medium businesses that require expanding their brand awareness; require spending in SEO, and touch high positions in their industry!

5. Gain better conversation rates

A SEO that is optimized site is quick and simple to use, and well-suited with mobile and tablet appliances. It even transforms to excellent conversions, where common people visiting your site most probably turn to faithful visitors, customers or subscribers.

6. Remain in-synch with the trendiest developments

Search engine industry being one of the quickest evolving industries, you are recommended to remain in-synch with the trendiest developments that will pour more benefits. You can better advice if you’re hiring a consistent SEO company.

7. Put up a loyal fan base through newsletter

A better SEO brings more traffic to your site which can further put up a loyal fan base through newsletter and RSS feeds. You should make it simple for your users to subscribe to your newsletter and feed on your site. From your website’s side, the newsletter should be sent every month or after every two weeks in their mail-box.

8. 24/7 business should be open

Your business should be open for 24 hours per day and 7 days per week. You need to invest your money as well as time for taking your site to the top of SERPs and at the same time achieve new customers towards your website.

9. Fight your own competition

When you and your competitors are both executing SEO and social media marketing, then you need to execute better performance than your competitor. You require fighting your own competition by putting a step ahead than the other businesses.

10. SEO is superior for social media

Any webpage with top rankings will achieve more and better social media exposure. People while searching will most probably Tweet/Like/+1 a particular web page, when they see it in the first rank positions of SEO results than the page that is ranked low.

Significant SEO Tips for Your Website
While building your own website for personal use or for your company, you require knowing what your website is actually about; what is its functions; and how much committed you are regarding your website. Once you’re clear about these three points, then you should start off. In order to begin with optimizing your complete website, you should keep in mind some of the significant SEO tips required for your website to rank high on the search engine optimization