Search engine optimization is a technique for improving the visibility of a website on search engines such as Google and Bing. Search engines get basic information about a web page from meta tags and use the content and other factors to determine relevance to a search query.
3 main types of SEO
There are three ways to optimize a web page for a search engine:
- SEO on page
- Off page SEO
- SEO black hat
The first two methods explain the correct ways to optimize, and the last one explains the ways to avoid.
SEO on page
On any web page, there are many elements – both visible and invisible to users in browsers. The visible part is the structure of your content. Having unique and quality structured content is the first step in SEO. This will not only help search engines, but it will also improve the readability.
Remember that SEO is always a dynamic topic, at this point even the readability of the content affects the ranking of your site. Use a heading from H1 to H6 and prioritize content. The content of the H1 tag is considered more important than the content of the H6 tag.
A lot of invisible content is available as part of a web page. You can right click and browse the web page source to find all the invisible content. In chapter ……. The page uses many tags. These are the so-called meta tags used to inform search engines about a summary of the page’s content.
Here are the details on the page that you should optimize for SEO:
Page Title
The page title is the first line displayed on search results pages. This is also displayed in the browser window. Make sure every page on your site has an eye-catching title.
This will help entice users to click on search results and click through to your content. Remember that bad headlines will ruin good content as well as the hard work behind good content.
Page URL
After the URL title, this is the second line displayed in search results. The URL must be meaningful and descriptive for all of your pages. Some experts advise removing stop words such as “and”, “like”, “with”, etc. from the title. But this should have a big impact on the ranking so that you can leave these stop words as they are. Especially when those limiting or connecting words can change the meaning or importance in the headline, keep them to the point.
If you have breadcrumbs, then Google and Bing will show the breadcrumb structure instead of the page URL. It is highly recommended to use breadcrumbs if your content management system supports it.
Meta Description
This meta tag is used to add a summary of a web page. This appears below the page title in search results. In addition to the title and URL, make sure your pages have an engaging meta description.
Currently, Google has increased the snippet length to 320 characters for the meta description in search results. This is a good way to show the summary of your page as a long paragraph with a few sentences.
Off-page SEO
While on-page SEO focuses on creating and optimizing content, off-page SEO focuses on increasing the popularity of content. Search engines give more weight to pages that have good inbound links from quality sites. When you have good content, make sure you spread the word by asking other website owners to link to your content.
There are many acceptable ways to build links to your site. For example, you can post links to your site in the appropriate forum if that helps users solve a problem. Some people believe that using social media profiles is also part of off-page SEO. Make sure your site has Facebook and Twitter pages and spread the word through your friends.
SEO black hat
Black hat SEO are techniques that should NOT be followed to improve search engine rankings. Nowadays, search engines like Google are very smart and will penalize your site if you follow black hat methods.
Below are some tricks to avoid:
- Using a small font size to hide content from users. Also use white font on a white background to hide content.
- Providing misleading information in the title and meta description that is not relevant to the content of the page.
- Creating unnatural links to your site by spamming comments and exchanging paid links.
Conclusion
It will take many years to establish a stable site. So take the time to build your site using both on-page and off-page SEO techniques. Trying to get popular quickly with black hat techniques will make your site disappear from the search results and ruin all the hard work.