24 Mar What is SEO?
According to Wikipedia, SEO is the process of improving the quality and quantity of website traffic to a website or web page from search engines. SEO targets unpaid traffic (known as (“natural” or “organic” results) rather than direct or paid traffic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization
SEO in summary is:
A combination ofthe website’s content attributes and the technical side.Combined these enable Google to understand and determine your website to be a worthy source of information to drive web traffic to.
There are three main components of a good SEO website that one must cover:
- Use of StrongKeywordedContent (Making sure that you have high quality content)
- Use of High-Quality Backlinks (Use links that increase authority to your website)
- The Technical SEO requirements (Making the site is easy for google)
Even if you don’t know or understand all Google’s algorithms, or the exact metrics that Google use to rank your site, you need to at least cover these three SEO components to be found by the google search engine.
Useful Vocabulary
It’s always helpful to know the vocabulary used by SEO if you want to fully understand SEO.
Here’s some useful vocab that you may come across.
On-page SEO and Off page SEO
Black hat SEO & white hat SEO
On-page SEO and Off page SEO
These terms categorise the SEO activities that you may or may not perform on your website.
On-page SEO is everything you can do on awebsite: from the optimization of content all the way through to technical aspects. Examples include:
- Keyword research
- Content optimization
- Title tag optimization
- Page performance optimization
- Internal linking
The goal is to provide both perfect content and UX while showing search engines what the page is about.
Important Note: The terms on-page SEO and technical SEO are sometimes used interchangeably, and then instead, sometimes they’re used to distinguish content-related optimization (e.g. title tags) and system optimization (e.g. page speed).
Off-page SEO is mostly about getting quality backlinks to show search engines that your website has authority and value. Link building may involve techniques like:
- Guest blogging
- Email outreach
- Broken link building
Off-page SEO is also closely connected to other areas of online marketing, such as social media marketing and branding, which have an indirect impact on building the trust and authority of your website.
Remember that a successful SEO strategy consists of both on-page and off-page SEO activities.
White hat SEO vs. black hat SEO
Black hats and white hats have their origin in Western movies and are a representation of the bad and good guys.
In SEO, these terms represent and describe two groups of SEOs – those who adhere to the rules (white hat) set out by Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and those who don’t (black hat). Or more specifically, the practices that adhere to the rules, and those that don’t.
Black hat SEO is a set of unethical (and usually spammy) practices to improve the rankings of a website.
These techniques can get you to the top of the search results in a short time, however, search engines will most probably penalize and ban the website sooner or later.Indeed there are some major companies that have fallen foul of google and been deindexed.
White hat SEO, on the other hand, refers to all the regular SEO techniques that stick to the guidelines and rules. It is a long-term strategy in which good rankings are a side-product of good optimization, quality content, and a user-oriented approach.
While SEO experts agree that “white hat” is the way to go, there’s a difference in opinion as to what is acceptable when it comes to link building (including link buying). So like many things in life, there are also shades of grey between the two.
Frequently asked questions
Can I do SEO on my own?
Yes. SEO is not rocket science, but then it’s not easy either.
The question is whether you’re willing to invest the timeinto learning all aspects of SEO, or whether you would rather hire a professional and focus your energy on building other areas of your business.
How can I learn SEO?
There are a few things you should do to learn SEO:
- Read reliable resources
- Get hands-on experience
- Don’t be afraid of experimentation
- Have a lot of patience (SEO is very much a marathon, not a sprint)
Implementing things from this guide is a great way to start 🙂
How long does it take to learn SEO?
To answer this question, here’s acommon answer SEO experts give to almost any SEO issue: It depends.
While understanding the basics won’t take you longer than a couple of weeks, the actual mastering of this discipline depends largely on practice, which is a question of months, even years.
Last but not least, remember SEO is evolving all the time. Google, Yahoo, Bing, DuckDuckGo, etc. can change their algorithm whenever they want. So,keep learning if you want your knowledge to be relevant.
Do I need SEO tools?
If you’re serious about SEO, you shouldn’t neglect the useful data and insights provided by SEO tools. They give you a competitive advantage and save a lot oftime.
Here are some essential SEO tools every website owner should use:
- Google Search Console
- a traffic analysis tool (e.g. Google Analytics)
- a keyword research tool (e.g. KWFinder)
- a backlink analysis tool (e.g. LinkMiner)
- a rank tracker (e.g. SERPWatcher)
Is SEO dead?
When people use the phrase “SEO is dead”, they usually mean that “the spammy attempts to cheat the Google algorithm that were used 10-20 years ago are dead”.
Outside of that, search engine optimization is in fact the umbrella under which all non-direct online marketing falls. It’s essential and, for as long as there are search engines, will remain an ever-relevant industry.