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In this blog, we will start our Digital Marketing series. Here we will be learning about, ‘What is SEO?’, ‘Understanding SEO‘, ‘Importance of metadata in SEO‘ and ‘Types of SEO‘.
I am Lalit Adhikari and we are LTY. Let’s get started.
Table of Contents
What is SEO
To define SEO, we must start with an example, suppose a situation in which you searched, ‘What is SEO‘ on Google. It showed a lot of results and one page was at top and other below. Have you ever thought, ‘How Google decides to show a website at first place and other places’. This is SEO.
Decades ago, if you want to get noticed, it meant renting a billboard or an advertisement in a local newspaper.
But in this era, with large search engines being the go-to encyclopaedia for most of us (even if it’s an individual, company or organization), to make ourselves heard we have been seeking ways to climb to the top of the search results using a process called SEO.
Related Topics:
- How to rank higher in Search Results
- Create high quality content for Blog
- How To Increase Website Authority
Understanding SEO
Giant search engines like Google use algorithms to push relevant results to the top of the page. So, when a user types in “Calligraphy Pen” they will get links to buy popular brands of Calligraphy pen rather than some nonsensical information.
Now, how exactly these algorithms work is usually closely guarded secrets. But there is still enough public knowledge for webmasters to attempt to tune their pages to boost their positions in the search results.
In fact, Google even puts out a ‘Search Engine Optimization Starter’s guide’ to help website owners improve their chances of earning the visible top results.
Importance of Metadata in SEO
For starters, who are getting into this zone for the first time, it’s a good idea to optimize your page’s ‘Metadata’.
“Meta data” is all the information other than the actual content that people cannot see in their browser window.
Accurate metadata will be things like descriptive page titles or embedding a short explanation of what on the page into your HTML which you can often end up seeing underneath the Google result can push your sight up to the top.
More recent developments are making URLs themselves more informative. Some of the example you might have probably seen on several websites sites which have started to use filenames that indicate what the article is about.
For Example: I name images that I use in my blog as, What-is-SEO, which is a lot more helpful for a search engine than just assigning some random numbers.
Another thing that you can do with your page is nested it in some sort of sensible directory structure organized by things like topic and dates.
Now-a-days, most modern search engine focuses on how often a page is linked to as a key metric of its importance providing descriptive text links in the body of a web page to other pages on your site can also be very helpful.
Search engines are also aware of topic headers and alt text for images to help categorize the site. The key as with any metadata as to keep these as short but also as informative and descriptive as possible to make it easier for a search engine to determine that your site is relevant to a particular topic.
Types of SEO
Decades ago, SEO used to be categorized in two ways:
- On-page SEO
- Off-page SEO
On-page SEO
On-page SEO, in lay-man language, could be defined as ‘What your web page or website, says about your webpage or website.’ It is done through adding special tags in ‘head’ section of the webpage.
Off-page SEO
Off-page SEO, in lay-man language, could be defined as ‘What other websites or webpages, say about your website or web page’. It is done via, backlinks, sponsored links etc.
Very well explained to be understand for anyone.
Good points in differentiating between white hat and black hat SEO. I am just starting with my blog, will stay clear of the black hat techniques.
As a Newbie, I am continuously browsing online for articles that can benefit me in SEO of my blog. Thank you!