What Is SEO?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of getting targeted traffic to a website from a search engine’s organic rankings. Common tasks associated with SEO include creating high-quality content, optimizing content around specific keywords, and building backlinks.
Types of SEO…
There are two types of SEO
1) On Page SEO
2) Off page SEO
What is On-Page SEO?
On-page SEO is the process of raising the rank of web pages in order to rank better and gain more visitor in search engines. On-page SEO refers both the HTML source codes and contents of web pages that can be improved.
On Page SEO directs to factors that have a direct effect on webpage or website. Those factors are managed by coding on our webpage.
On Page SEO includes the following factors-
1) Meta Title:
It is an HTML code that is shown on Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) as a clickable, blue headline of a web page for the given result. Google recommended us that Meta Title is between 60 – 70 characters which include primary and Secondary keyword.
Code Sample:
<head>
<title>Title of Page</title>
</head>
2) Meta Description:
Meta Description is an HTML attribute that is displayed on Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) below the URL of that page. It should be between 150 – 160 characters which include primary and Secondary keyword.
Code Sample:
<head>
<meta name=”description” content=”Contents of your page “>
</head>
3) Alt Tag:
The alt tag is also called an alternative text, alt attribute, alt description are used within the HTML code of an image to describe the appearance as the name of the primary keyword.
Code Sample:
<img src=”download.jpg” alt=”On Page SEO”>
How To Add ALT Text Automatically Using A Plugin
Adding ALT text to new images is easy. But it’s not easy if you need to do it for old images one by one.
On that case, you need to use a plugin to automate the process. You can use the plugin – Auto Image Alt Attribute.
This plugin automatically adds ALT Text attribute to your images where alt tags are missing. Just install the plugin and alt attributes of missing images will be added automatically.
Now you need to install the plugin. Just go to your WordPress Dashboard > Plugins > Add New and type ‘Auto Image Alt Attribute’ on the search box. Click on the ‘Install Now’ button.
Once you’ve activated the plugin, go to Dashboard > Auto Image Alt and make sure that it’s enabled.
That’s it. Your images will be updated with alt tags.
Further Reading: WP Smush.it Plugin: Reduce Image Sizes for Faster Loading
4) URL Structure:
It makes sure that URL should be hierarchy form. URL should not contain _, 0-9 etc.
Example:
http://movies.com/bollywood-movies/robot2.0
It is SEO friendly.
But
http://movies.com/bollywood_movies/ro77523245
It is not SEO friendly.
5) Header Tag:
Header tags are an important factor for on-page SEO because those are used to express to the search engines that what your website is about. Search engines identify the copy in our header tag starts with h1 is more important than other parts.
The importance of header tag is down through to the h2, h3 and so on. Those tags help to support the overall theme or purpose of our web page.
Code Sample:
<h1>Header Tag</h1>
<h2>Header Tag</h2>
<h3>Header Tag</h3>
<h4>Header Tag</h4>
<h5>Header Tag</h5>
<h6>Header Tag</h6>
6) Keyword Density:
Keyword density is calculated as how much a keyword or keyword phrase displays in a web page compared to the total number of words in the page.
If you use a keyword or keyword phrase 10 times and your total word in a web page is 500, then keyword density is = {(10/500)*100} % =2%
The keyword density should be 2 – 5%. If you use a keyword or keyword phrase too many times, then you are penalized for “Spamming” or “Keyword Stuffing”.
7) Robots.txt:
Robots.txt is a text file that is used to tell the search engine that which page we want to crawl and which page want to not crawl.
Check Robots.txt-
https://www.mywebsite.com/robots.txt
Code Sample:
User-agent: *
Disallow:/wp-admin/
Disallow:/wp-includes/
8) Sitemap:
The sitemap is an XML or HTML file that contains URL of all web pages of a website. It is to be uploaded for tells the Search Engine to crawl that web pages.
Check Sitemap.xml-
https://wwwmywebsite.com/sitemap_index.xml
URL Images Last Mod.
https://www.mywebsite.com/ 0
https://www.mywebsite.com/drupal/ 0 2016-05-26 02:05 +00:00
https://www.mywebsite.com/joomla/ 0 2016-05-26 02:12 +00:00
https://www.mywebsite.com/placement/ 0 2016-05-26 02:13 +00:00
https://www.mywebsite.com/magento/ 2 2016-05-26 02:16 +00:00
9) Canonicals:
A Canonical Tag is used to tell the Search Engine that which version of URL we want to display on Search Results.
Let I have a website www.mywebsite.com
If someone searches on of following-
- mywebsite.com
- http://mywebsite.com
- https://mywebsite.com
- http://www.mywebsite.com
- https://mywebsite.com
On all of the above search, only one URL should open. If your website opens all of separate URL, even though all open your home page, Search Engine may penalize you for Copyright.
Code Sample:
<link rel=”canonical” href=”https://www.mywebsite.com”>
10) Internal or External Link:
An internal or external link is a type of hyperlink on a page to another page, it may be the same or another website. If the destination is within the same website then the link is internal link otherwise external link.
11) Do follow and No follow Link:
Do follow links will pass Page Rank. It is extremely recommended by Search Engines.
Code Sample:
<a href=”https://www.mywebsite.com”>Text of link</a>
No follow links will not pass Page Rank. It isn’t recommended by Search Engines. But to get balanced you have to give No follow links.
Code Sample:
<a href=”https://www.mywebsite.com” rel=”nofollow”> Text of link</a>
What is off-Page SEO?
Off page SEO refers to techniques you can use to improve the position of a web site in the search engine results page (SERPs). ... In general, off Page SEO has to do with promotion methods – beyond website design
It goes deeper than that. For example, brand mentions (your site URL or brand name mentioned on another site without a hyperlink) are an integral aspect of off-page search signals.
But we don’t stop there. Because, to a large extent, the things that matter to Google often happen away from your web site.
Depending on your marketing goals, the time you spend on off-page search engine optimization will vary. Dr. Pete Meyers from Moz observed that many web site owners spend about 30% of their time on off-page factors, and 70% on on-page factors. For other web site owners, those percentages are reversed.
Off-page SEO simply tells Google what others think about your site. For example, if you’ve got a lot of valuable links pointing to your pages, search engines will assume that you’ve got great content – the type that provides value for users.
Some toolof off page SEO
Social Media Engagement – One of the most critical of all off page optimization techniques for 2017 is social media engagement. You need to interact with people on several of the best-known social media platforms. Not only will this help grow your business, but it will also increase the opportunity for more high-quality back links.
Submission of Videos – More than ever, videos are critical for achieving online success. For excellent back links, choose video submission sites in high demand. However, before submitting your videos, be sure they have proper titles, tags, reference links, and descriptions.
Submission to Blog Directories – For improved and long-term results in building excellent back links, select quality directories for submitting your blogs.
Bookmarking Sites – To increase the volume of traffic to your online blog or web page, it is important to use several of the most popular bookmarking sites.
Submission to Online Forums – Get involved with different search forums as a way of connecting to your community. However, make sure that you choose online forums relevant to your business or website.
Q&A – By joining excellent PR Q&A websites relevant to your business, website, or blog, you can provide people with clear answers that improve online visibility and increase traffic.
Submission of Articles – Submitting articles to top directories is another one of the essential off page SEO factors for this year. Just be sure that your articles have superior quality and unique content.
Submission of Images – Submitting your images to submission sites is another powerful method for building quality back links but only if they have a proper title, tags, and description.
Sharing Documents – For 2017, sharing documents with unique and interesting content via ppt or pdf formats is imperative.
Submission of Infographics – With increasing popularity, submitting infographics with reference links to your blog or website gets incredible results.
How Search Engines Work?
Now that we’ve answered the question “what is SEO?”, it’s time to learn how search engines like Google actually work.
When you search for something in Google (or any other search engine), an algorithm works in real-time to bring you what that search engine considers the “best” result.
Specifically, Google scans its index of “hundreds of billions” of pages in order to find a set of results that will best answer your search.
How does Google determine the “best” result?
Even though Google doesn’t make the inner workings of its algorithm public, based on filed patents and statements from Google, we know that websites and web pages are ranked based on:
Relevancy
If you search for “chocolate chip cookie recipes”, you don’t want to see web pages about truck tires.
That’s why Google looks first-and-foremost for pages that are closely-related to your keyword.
However, Google doesn’t simply rank “the most relevant pages at the top”. That’s because there are thousands (or even millions) of relevant pages for every search term.
For example, the keyword “cookie recipes” brings up 349 million results in Google:
So to put the results in an order that bubbles the best to the top, they rely on three other elements of their algorithm:
Authority
Authority is just like it sounds: it’s Google’s way of determining if the content is accurate and trustworthy.
The question is: how does Google know if a page is authoritative?
They look at the number of other pages that link to that page:
(Links from other pages are known as “backlinks”)
In general, the more links a page has, the higher it will rank:
(In fact, Google’s ability to measure authority via links is what separates it from search engines, like Yahoo, that came before it).
Usefulness
Content can be relevant and authoritative. But if it’s not useful, Google won’t want to position that content at the top of the search results.
In fact, Google has publicly said that there’s a distinction between “higher quality content” and “useful” content.
For example, let’s say that you search for “Paleo Diet”.
The first result you click on (“Result A”) is written by the world’s foremost expert on Paleo. And because the page has so much quality content on it, lots of people have linked to it.
However, the content is completely unorganized. And it’s full of jargon that most people don’t understand.
Contrast that with another result (“Result B”).
It’s written by someone relatively new to the Paleo Diet. And their website doesn’t have nearly as many links pointing to it.
However, their content is organized into distinct sections. And it’s written in a way that anyone can understand:
Well, that page is going to rank highly on the “usefulness scale”. Even though Result B doesn’t have as much trust or authority as Result A, it will still perform well in Google.
(In fact, it may even rank HIGHER than Result A)
Google measures usefulness largely based on “User Experience Signals”.
In other words: how users interact with the search results. If Google sees that people really like a particular search result, it will get a significant ranking boost:
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ReplyDeleteQuality SEO yields long-term results, SEO is the key way to drive organic traffic. Thanks for sharing your valuable knowledge and expertise about SEO solutions. As an Web Design, glad to come across this. Great blog.
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