What is SEO & its types?
SEO called as Search Engine Optimization is mainly classified into two different types, they are On-Page SEO & Off-Page SEO. These are the two main types of SEO which you should know if you are into the Search Engine Optimization field. In this blog let’s see how SEO is classified into these two categories and the terminologies under each category.
- On-Page SEO
- Off-Page SEO
1. On-Page SEO?
On-Page SEO as the name suggests it would cover all the changes which we make on the website. On-Page SEO covers the on-site website optimization like content optimization, image optimization and many more. Below are the some of the main terminologies in the On-Page SEO.
- Title Tag
- URL Slug
- Meta Description
- Meta Keywords
- Heading Tags
- Image Optimization
- Internal & External Links
Title Tag
The title tag by default is the h1 (heading) of the post. The title tag will be displayed in the Google Search Engine Results Page (SERP) as shown in the below image.
The title tag can be a maximum of 60 characters. When we talk about optimizing the title tag, we can have the target keyword in it, and also at the same time, we should make it more perfect to the particular topic. having the best title tag will help you get more clicks from the users.
URL Slug
URL slug is the webpage link that appears in the Google SERP. Optimizing the URL’s is not a big task and the guidelines are simple.
We should keep the URL short as much as we can and also at the same time we should try to have the core keyword in the URL. So it helps Google to know what our webpage is exactly about.
From the above image, we can see that I have added the core keyword “career in digital marketing” in the URL slug which I am trying to rank this post, https://www.dineshkumarvm.com/career-in-digital-marketing/ for.
Meta Description
Mets Description is the short piece of descriptive content that appears in the Google SERP. With the meta description, users can easily identify what the content in the post is all about.
There are certain guidelines to write a perfect meta description. It should be less than or equal to 160 characters, As mentioned earlier, we should try to have the core keywords in the meta description in the suitable places, so it will help us to rank.
At the same time, we should not stuff the keywords too much in the meta description. Keep the meta description short and simple.
But in recent times, Google has started showing the description from the content and show slightly longer descriptions. But it always recommended giving the description in 160 characters.
Meta Keywords
Meta keywords is one of the main factors in On-Page SEO. We can update the meta keywords either using the HTML tag or by using the SEO plugin.
I would personally recommend using the All in One SEO Plugin to add the meta keywords. Not only the meta keywords, by using the All in One SEO plugin, but you can also optimize the title tags and meta descriptions as well.
Add the core keywords in the meta keywords section. We can also add the LSI terms if it’s relevant to our post.
From the above image, we can see that I have added the title tag, meta description, and meta keywords using the All in One SEO Plugin.
Heading Tags
Heading tags in the On-Page SEO varies from H1 to H6. By default page/post title will be the H1 tag. So we need to work on the remaining heading tags in the post.
When it comes to heading tags, try to add the LSI keywords and the long tail keyword in the heading tags from H2 to H6. Heading tags may contain different variations of the target keyword.
Adding the LSI keywords in the heading tags is an additional value to our post and will help us to rank for many long-tail keywords.
Image Optimization
When we are publishing a post, we must try to add many images. It will really help if we create infographic content and add in the post. When it comes to image optimization, the main thing we need to give importance is “Alt Text”.
This is ideally the name for images that Google understands. Image “Alt Text” (Alternative Text) can be added using the HTML tag <img src=”image source” alt=”alt text comes here”>.
We can also add the alt text while uploading the images to WordPress as shown in the below image.
We should try to add the keywords in the image alt text. We should not stuff the keywords, instead, we need to add long-tail relevant search terms in the alt text of the images.
Internal & External Links
Internal links are the links that we add in the post to make the users navigate to the different posts of the same website. External links are the outbound links which we add in the post to the relevant resources on the other high authority website.
We should add as much as internal links we can in each post, So both users and the search engine crawlers will have the chance to navigate to the different pages of our website and access more content.
At the same time, we should add few external links to the high authority websites as it will add value to our On-Page SEO.
Check out the below video as I have explained how to publish a blog in WordPress with proper On-Page SEO.
2. Off-Page SEO?
Off-Page SEO as the name suggests, it’s the list of works that are done outside of the website. Off-Page SEO terminologies are fully based on the work which we do outside of the website.
Below are some of the Off-Page SEO terminologies. The most commonly core part of the Off-Page is building backlinks to the website.
- Directory Submission
- Social Media
- Building Backlinks
- Infographic Submission
- Video Submission
- Forum Linking
- Guest Posting
Directory Submission
Directory submission is the process of submitting your business information like Name, Address, Phone Number (NAP details) in the online web directories like Yelp, Yello Pages, UK Business List, etc.
Directory submission should be the first work that we should do if we are planning to start the Off-Page SEO works for a brand new website. It should be country-based. For instance, if we are running a business in the UK, then we should aim to submit our business website in all the UK based web directories.
An additional benefit is that we will get a backlink from each directory to our target website. If you are planning to do directory submissions for your business website, you can check out https://www.clickdo.co.uk/citation-building-services/
Social Media
Social media signals are vital for SEO. Whether it can be a blogging website or business website, we should have social media profiles like Facebook page, twitter profile, LinkedIn page/profile, etc for the website. We should share the regular updates about our business in social media profiles.
There are two main advantages, one is it will add value to our SEO & the second thing is that we get additional traffic to our website from the social media profiles.
Building Backlinks
Building backlinks is the core Off-Page SEO factor. Backlinks are the links which points to our website from the other external websites. The more links that we have, it adds value to our website. There three types of backlinks are there.
When building backlinks manually we should give more importance to the factors like domain authority, traffic, niche, spam score and many more factors. Having niche relevant backlinks from high-quality websites will help us rank easily on top of Google for the main keywords.
Backlinks can be built by different ways like guest posting (https://www.clickdo.co.uk/guest-posting-service/), infographic submissions, video submissions, etc.
Infographic Submission
Infographic submission is one of the methods in link building. An important thing to note about the infographic submissions is that it’s free in many sites and we don’t need to spend to get the backlinks.
But in the case of guest posts, we need to pay for the publishers/site owners to publish our blogs with links to our website. Infographics is the pictorial data that conveys/describes about a particular topic.
Embedding the infographics in the relevant sites like https://infographic.clickdo.co.uk/, Visual.ly, etc will help us get backlinks to our website.
Video Submission
Video submission is the organic way of building backlinks to our website from different video submission platforms like YouTube, Vimeo, etc. It’s simple, we can create a short video about our business by using some free video creation platforms like Canva and can submit in the video submission platforms by adding a backlink to our website. This will ideally help us get a backlink and also to get some traffic to our website from different sources.
Forum Linking
There are many online forums like Quora where we can get a resource link back to our website. It’s simple, we just need to search for questions related to our business website and then write a nice long answer to that with a resource link to our website.
This will help us get more relevant traffic to our site from mediums like Quora and also increase the authority of our website.
Guest Posting
Guest Posting is the most common type of the link building strategy and it’s also more effective as well. Its the process of writing and publish a guest blog about our business in other high authority websites and getting backlinks to our website.
Its always recommended publishing a guest post in quality Google News Approved websites like The London Economic, UK Business Blog, London Business News, UK News Blog, etc. Publishing in premium sites like this will help us increase the authority of our business website and improve the ranks.