Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Overview

SEO works by improving aspects of a website that help search engines understand the content and context of a site, and by improving the website's visibility in search engine rankings. SEO targets unpaid traffic rather than direct traffic or paid traffic, meaning that the traffic comes from users who found your website after using a search engine.

The primary goals of SEO are to draw more traffic to a website, improve the quality of traffic, and to increase the visibility of the website or webpage in a search engine's unpaid results. SEO may target different types of searches, including image search, local search, video search, academic search, news search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.

Usage Types

There are several types of SEO strategies used by digital marketers, which include:

On-Page SEO

On-Page SEO focuses on optimizing parts of your website that are within your control. This can involve various elements such as the content (text, images, etc.), HTML source code, and page metadata. The goal is to make the site as search-engine friendly as possible.

Off-Page SEO

Off-Page SEO involves improving your site's reputation and authority by earning both quality and quantity of backlinks. These are links to your website from other sites, and they act like votes of confidence in your content. The more high-quality, relevant backlinks you have, the more authoritative search engines believe your site to be.

Technical SEO

Technical SEO involves optimizing your site for the crawling and indexing phase. This is where search engines send out a team of robots (known as spiders or crawlers) to find new and updated content. The goal is to make your site easy for search engines to find and understand.

Local SEO

Local SEO is a strategy that businesses with physical locations use to reach their local customers. It involves optimizing your online presence so that your business appears in local searches. This includes managing online ratings and reviews, claiming local directory listings, and optimizing your site for 'near me' searches.

Mobile SEO

With the ever-increasing use of mobile devices to access the web, Mobile SEO has become essential. It involves optimizing websites to ensure that they are mobile-friendly, which includes designing sites to be responsive, ensuring the site loads quickly, and making the site easy to use on mobile devices.