What is SEO and how to do search engine optimization? Explained for begginers.

This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Shivashish Yadav

Introduction

What is SEO, and why is it important for a blog? The simple answer is SEO is the life of blogging. Because if you want to write any good article, if your article is not ranked properly, then the chances of getting traffic in it are negligible. In such a situation, all the hard work of the writers goes into the water.

In today's digital age, if you have to come in front of people, then online is the only way where you can be present in front of crores of people simultaneously.

Here you can be present through the video itself, or you can reach out to the people through your written content. But to do this, you have to come to the first pages of Search Engines because these are the pages which visitors like and trust more.

But reaching here is not that straightforward task because for this you have to do SEO of your articles properly. Meaning that they have to be optimized properly so that they can rank in the search engine. And its process is called SEO. Whereas in today's article, we will get information about what is called SEO and how to do it.

What is SEO

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is a technique by which we bring our post or page to the top on any search engine, or rank it. We all know what a search engine is. When it comes to search engines, then for your information, let me tell you that Google is the most popular search engine in the entire world, apart from this there are other search engines like Bing, Yahoo. With the help of SEO, we can keep our blog at No.1 position on all search engines.

For example, if we go to Google and search by typing any keyword, then Google shows you all the contents related to that keyword. All these contents that we see come from different blogs.

The result which we see at the top is on No.1 rank in Google, only then it has maintained its place at the top. On No.1 it means that SEO has been used very well in that blog so that it gets more visitors and that is why that blog has become famous.

SEO helps to bring our blog to No.1 rank in Google. This is a technique that increases the number of visitors to your website by placing it at the top of the search result of the search engine.

If your website is at the top of the search result, then internet users will first visit your site, which increases the chances of getting more and more traffic in your site and your income also starts getting good. It is very important to use SEO to increase organic traffic to your website.

What is the full form of SEO?

The full form of SEO is "Search Engine Optimization".

Why SEO is Important for Blog?

You have learned what SEO is, let us now know why it is important for the blog. We use SEO to make our website accessible to people.

Suppose I have created a website and have published good quality content in it, but if I do not use SEO, then my website cannot reach people and there will be no use of making my website.

If we does not use SEO, then whenever a user searches for a keyword, then even if there is any content related to that keyword in your website, the user cannot access your website.

This is because the search engine cannot find your site, nor will it be able to store the content of your website on its database. Due to which, it will be very difficult to have traffic in your website. That is why it is very significant to do SEO properly in your site.

Understanding SEO is not so difficult, if you learn it, then you can make your blog much better and increase its value in the search engine.

After learning SEO, when you use it for your blog, you will not see its result immediately, for this you will have to be patient and keep doing your work. Because the fruit of patience is sweet, and you will definitely see the color of your hard work.

Like I have already said that how it becomes necessary to do SEO for ranking and for traffic.

Why is SEO (Search Engine Optimization) so important?

Most users use Search Engines on the Internet to get answers to their questions. In such a situation, they pay more attention to the top results shown by the search engine. So if you also want to come in front of people, then you also have to take the help of SEO to rank the blog. That is, youYou have to come to the first page of the Google search result. SEO is not just for search engines, but having good SEO practices helps in increasing the user experience and also increases the usability of your website. Users mostly trust only the top results and this increases the trust of that website. That is why it is very significant to know in SEO, as well as keep yourself updated. SEO is also very essential for the social promotion of your website or blog. Because people who see your site in search engines like google, then most of them share them in social media like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest. SEO plays an important role in increasing the traffic of any site. SEO definitely helps you to stay ahead in any competition. For example, if two websites are selling similar things, then the website which is SEO optimized attracts more customers to itself and their sales also increase while others cannot do that much.

Types of SEO

There are two types of SEO, one is On-page SEO, and the other is Off-page SEO. The work of these two is completely different, let us also know about them.

• On-Page SEO
• Off-Page SEO
• Local SEO

1. What is On-Page SEO

On-page SEO work is done in your blog. This means to design your website properly which is SEO friendly.

Using the template in your website by following the rule of SEO. Writing good content and using good keywords in them which are most searched in the search engine.

Using keywords in the right place in the page like title, meta description, using keywords in the content makes it easy for Google to know on whom your content is written and helps to rank your website on Google page quickly. Due to which the traffic of your blog increases.

How to do On-Page SEO

Here we will learn about some such techniques, with the help of which we will do On-Page SEO on our blog or website in a good way.

1. Website Speed

Website speed is a very important link from the point of view of SEO. It has been found from a survey that any visitor stays on a blog or website for 5 to 6 seconds.

If it does not open within this time, then it leaves it and migrates to another. And this also applies for Google because if your blog does not open soon then a negative signal reaches Google this blog is not that good, or it is not quick. So keep your site speed as good as possible.

Here I have given some important tips by which you can speed up your blog or website:

• Use simple and attractive themes
• Don't use too many plugins
• Keep the image size to a minimum
• Use W3 Total cache and WP super cache plugins

2. Navigation of the Website

It should be easy to move around in your blog or website so that no visitor and Google have any problem in going from one page to another. The more smooth the navigation of the website, the more ease any search engine will have to navigate the site.

3. Title Tag

Make the title tag very good in your website so that if any visitor reads it, then click on your title as soon as possible, this will also increase your CTR.

How to make good title tag: Do not use over 65 words in your title because Google does not show title tag in google searches after 65 words.

4. How to Write the URL of the Post

Always keep the URL of your post simple and as short.

5. Internal Link

This is a great way to rank your post. With this, you can be interlinking your related pages with each other. With this, all your interlinked pages can be ranked easily.

6. Alt Tag

Use images in the post of your website. Because you can get a lot of traffic from images, so while using the image, do not forget to put ALT TAG in it.

7. Content, Heading and Keyword

As we all know about the content that this is a very important link. Because Content is also called King and the better your content, the better the site's valuation will be. Therefore, write content of over 800 words at least.

With this you can also give complete information, and it is also good for SEO. Never steal or copy content from anyone else.

Heading: Special care should be taken of the headings of your article as it has a great impact on SEO. The title of the article is H1 and after this you can nominate the subheadings with H2, H3, etc. With this, you must use the focus keyword.

Keyword: Use LSI Keyword while writing your article. With this, you can easily link people's searches. With this, BOLD significant keywords so that Google and visitors know that these are important keywords, and it will attract their attention towards it.

These were some points about some information about On-Page SEO.

2. What is Off-Page SEO

All the work of Off-Page SEO is done outside the blog. In Off-page SEO, we have to promote our blog, like visiting many popular blogs, commenting on their article and submitting the link of our website, we call it backlink. The website benefits a lot from backlinks.

Make an attractive page of your website on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Quora and increase your followers, this has the chances of increasing more visitors to your website.

In big blogs which are very popular, submit guest post on their blog, this will allow visitors to their blog to know you and traffic will start coming to your website.

How to do Off-Page SEO

Here I will tell you about some Off-Page SEO Techniques which will prove very useful for you later.

1. Search Engine Submission

Your website should be submitted properly in all search engines.

2. Bookmarking

The page and post of your blog or website should be submitted on the website with Bookmarking.

3. Directory Submission

Your blog or website should be submitted to a directory with a popular, high PR.

4. Social Media

Create a profile on your blog or website page and social media and add a link to your website like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn

5. Classified Submission

Advertise your website for free by going to the Free Classified Website.

6. Q & A site

You can ask any question by going to the question-and-answer website, and you can put a link to your site.

7. Blog Commenting

By visiting the blog related to your blog, you can comment in their posts and put a link to your website (the link should be placed where the website is written).

8. Pin

You can post the image of your website on Pinterest, this is an excellent way to increase traffic.

9. Guest Post

You can guest post by visiting the blog related to your website, this is the best from where you can take a do-follow link and that too in the right way.

3. What is Local SEO

Often people ask what is Local SEO? If I believe, then the answer lies in the question itself.

If you do Local SEO, then this is the summation of two words, Local + SEO. SEO done keeping in mind a local audience is called Local SEO.

This is a technique in which your website or blog is specially optimized so that it ranks better on the search engine for a local audience.

By the way, with the help of a website, you can target the entire internet, whereas if you want to target only one particular locality, then for this you have to use Local SEO.

In this, optimize the name of your city, while its address details will also have to be optimized together. To say it briefly, then you have to optimize your site in such a way that people can know you not only online but also offline.

Example of Local SEO

If you have a local business, such as a shop, where people often visit you, then if you optimize your website in such a way that people can easily reach you in real life too.

If here, you only target your own local area and SEO optimized your site accordingly. Then this type of SEO is called "local SEO".

What is the difference between SEO and Internet Marketing?

Many people have many doubts about SEO and Internet Marketing. They think that these two are often the same. But in response to this, I want to say that SEO is a type of tool, it can also be called a part of Internet Marketing. By using it, it becomes very easy to do Internet Marketing.

What is the difference between SEO and SEM?

The major difference between SEO and SEM is that SEO is an important part of SEM. Let me tell you about both SEO and SEM.

• SEO or Search Engine Optimization is a process by which a blogger optimizes his blog or website in such a way that he can rank the articles of the blog in the search engine and bring free traffic to his blog from there. The main purpose of SEO is that your blog/website can be optimized properly so that it can get a better ranking in the search engine.

• SEM or Search Engine Marketing is a marketing process by which you can make your blog more visible in search engines so that you can get traffic, whether it is free traffic (SEO) or paid traffic (Paid Search Advertisement). With SEM you can get more things than SEO. Because it is not only limited to free traffic but it also includes other methods such as PPC advertising, etc.

Information about SEO Terms

If you have a blog or a website, then you will know a lot about basic SEO, how it works. But I know that there are many of you who do not even have any idea about Basic SEO Terms.

That's why I thought why not give information about some very important Basic SEO Terms to you people so that you can also know about it.

Backlink

Also called its in link or simply link, it is a hyperlink to another website that points to your website. Backlinks are very important from the SEO point of view, as it directly influences the Search Ranking of any webpage.

PageRank

PageRank is an algorithm that Google uses to estimate which relative significant pages are in the web.

Anchor text

Anchor text of any backlink is a type of text which is clickable. If your Keyword is available in your Anchor Text, then it will help you a lot from the point of view of SEO as well.

Title Tag

Title Tag is mainly the title of any web page and this is a very important factor for Google's Search Algorithm.

Meta Tags

Just like Title Tag, by using Meta Tag, Search Engines get to know what is in the content in the pages.

Search Algorithm

With the help of Google's search algorithm, we can find out which web pages are relevant in the whole Internet. About 200 algorithms work in Google's Search Algorithm.

SERP

Its full form is Search Engine Results Page. It basically shows only those pages which are relevant according to Google Search Engines.

Keyword Density

This Keyword Density shows how many times any keyword has been used in the article. Keyword density is very important from the point of view of SEO.

Keyword Stuffing

Like I have already said that Keyword Density is very important from the point of view of SEO but if a Keyword is used excessively, then it is called Keyword Stuffing. This is called Negative SEO because it has a deleterious effect on your blog.

Robots.txt

This is nothing more than just a file which is kept in the domain's root. Using this, the search bots are informed about the structure of the website.

Q n A

What are Organic and Inorganic results?

There are mainly two types of listings on SERP (Search Engine Result Page) – Organic and Inorganic.

In this, we have to pay Google for Inorganic Listing. They are paid and money has to be paid in it.

Whereas organic listing is completely free, we can also come on the top page of Google without paying, but for this you have to do SEO first.

Is SEO easy to teach or do?

There is no simple answer to this. Because no one can ever achieve complete mastery over SEO, the reason for this is that there are always changes in it.

In such a situation, if you are serious about blogging, then you must keep information about SEO tutorial. By doing this, they are going to be of great use to you later. There are no such rules of SEO, rather it is based on some Google Algorithms, and it keeps on changing.

We must note one thing that if someone tells you he is a big SEO Expert, then never believe him because till date no one has been able to mastery on SEO.

This thing is like this, and it keeps changing with time and according to the need. But still there are some fundamentals of Google SEO guide which are always the same. That's why it is important that bloggers always keep themselves updated with new SEO techniques.

With this, you will know about the trends going on in the market, so that you can also bring necessary changes in your articles, which will help you to rank later.

Is SEO always changing?

Yes, SEO is always changing. This is because the search engine's algorithm is always changing, in the same way we also have to change the SEO in our site so that it appears at the top of the SERP.

What is the best SEO strategy?

No SEO strategy is the best. This is because the strategy or technique of SEO is always changing. Therefore, it would not be right to consider any one strategy as the best. It would be better that you keep doing your own research and experimentation, by this you will know about the right working things.

Does Page Speed ​​Matter in Google Ranking?

Yes, Page Speed ​​has a different importance in Google ranking. The better the page speed, the more easily you can rank on Google.

What did you learn today?

You all must have understood what is SEO. If you have any doubts about this article, or you want that there should be some improvement in it, then you can write low comments for this.

Easily now you can feel free to answer what is SEO. From these thoughts of yours, we will get a chance to learn something and improve something.

This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Shivashish Yadav