6 Types of SEO – Ultimate Guideline
What is SEO? Most online navigation and transactions start with search engines (Google.com is widely used). As a brand or business, you’d want to draw in more leads to your landing page and website. For this, it is important that you understand the methodology of optimizing the search engine.
There are various types of SEO in organic search strategies. We will review all these different types of SEO in detail, giving you ideas on how to plan and execute suitable optimization strategies.
#1 On-page SEO
Considered as part of the starter pack, On-page SEO is a common strategy used to optimize every business’s website. When users search for anything on the Search Engine that is related to your company’s product or service, you’d want your website to be displayed at the top of the search result page. Moreover, you’d want to direct them to click on it and eventually browse through your website for conversions to happen.
The key to On-page SEO is keyword optimization. In order to rank higher and drive in relevant traffic, you need to research keywords and incorporate it into the content of your website, and provide valuable information to your audience. Other On-page SEO strategies include making all the URLs on your website sweet and short and making sure that the URLs are clearly written with the title keyword (not a random number or alphabet). It is also crucial to create internal linking and external linkings in your blog posts. Last but not least, meta descriptions are a must and should be precise and suitable. Attractive and relevant visual content also adds to improvements in On-page SEO
#2 Off-page SEO
All the work and strategy you implement outside of your own website is called Off-page SEO. No matter how useful or valuable your website may be, your website means nothing if and until Google is able to discover your website. Hence, link building plays a crucial role: Link building, which utilizes Google algorithms, makes your website trustworthy, credible, and popular.
Even better, get some other highly ranked website to point to your website’s blog as this too will help optimize your Off-page SEO.
In addition, social media platforms and influencer marketing are great ways to expose your website. When someone shares or promotes your content, it will indirectly improve the results of your Off-page SEO.
#3 Technical SEO
The broad and interesting technical SEO may not be directly related to the actual content of your website. Still, technical SEO is important in the following ways:
- Security of your website – Utilize Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) to encrypt your web browser and server.
- Faster loading speed – Websites that load quickly usually use a fast-hosting and Domain Name System (DNS) provider, and have their image files and web pages compressed.
- Mobile-friendly site – Ensure that navigation on mobile devices remain easy and friendly.
- Updated plugins – Make sure all plugins are updated and well-performing.
- Set up XML sitemap – Doing this allows search engines such as Google to navigate your site and detect isolated URLs more effectively. When Google is able to detect the important pages on your website, SEO improves and your website will rank better.
- Rich snippets – People tend to click on websites links that promise more information. That’s why you should have rich snippets of texts to achieve a higher clickthrough rate, which makes your website get more traffic and rank higher.
#4 Black Hat SEO
Black Hat SEO refers to any unethical tactic used to achieve a higher rank for a website. These tactics could be keyword stuffing, sending different links than the one initially clicked, spamming on blog comment sections or showing different, unexpected content to readers. The similarity between these tactics is that they serve audiences with unhelpful content for the sake of ranking higher, which is the opposite of what Google preaches—to provide useful quality content for users and to optimize the online user experience. That’s why if you’re involved in Black Hat SEO, there is a chance of being discovered by Google and having your website banned (not just by Google but other search engines), even if it happens much later.
#5 White Hat SEO
In direct contrast to Black Hat SEO, White Hat SEO improves your website ranking by staying within the bounds recognised and favoured by Google. Some examples of White Hat SEO include consistently providing valuable content to your audience, making sure that the web loading speed is fast and smooth, that the website is mobile-friendly, and that the keywords used are appropriate and relevant to the content. Abiding by these rules of White Hat SEO not only results in a powerful online resource for your audience but a secure, long term investment in your website.
White Hat SEO characteristics:
- Useful and Quality Content
- Fast Loading Speed
- Mobile-friendly website
- The keyword is relevant to the specific content and your website
- User-friendly and easy to navigate website
- Quality inbound and outbound links
- Well-structured website design and language
#6 Grey Hat SEO
Used when a person wants quick results without getting into trouble, Grey Hat SEO is hard to define because it lies in between White Hat SEO and Black Hat SEO. Grey Hat techniques consist of using an abandoned domain to create backlinks, putting a comment on a random post to get a backlink, buying links, and guest posting. Although some Grey Hat techniques are not considered Black Hat or White Hat at the moment, there is a risk that it may be considered a Black Hat method in the future.
Optimize your website by kickstarting it with on-page SEO. Increase the ranking of your website by proceeding with multiple types of SEO such as off-page SEO and technical SEO. Stick to the legitimate, long-lasting, penalty-free, and Google-approved White Hat SEO.
Knowing these SEO types is not the end of the story. Apply them to complete your website’s SEO and expect big wins in the future. For further SEO assistance, reach out to a certified social media marketing agency.
