If you are reading this then you are definitely seeking knowledge about Digital Marketing. If you have read just one blog also that was related to online marketing or as popularly known as “digital marketing” you have definitely come across the term “SEO” or “Search Engine Optimization”.
Your curiosity has got you to the right place. By the end of this blog you will know exactly what SEO is and feel positive enough to begin search engine optimization of your website if you are a digital marketing enthusiast.
Table of Contents
What is SEO?
SEO or Search Engine Optimization can be referred to as an activity or rather a process which is performed on websites of products, services or information to optimize that particular website according to the algorithms of search engine. This process leads to ranking of the website on the search engine result page.
SEO shows unpaid, organic, earned or natural results. SEO practice takes place because the websites have the desire to be displayed on top of the result page.
Here’s a basic Framework of SEO by Mr. Shahbaz Hassan Jaffery, renowned Digital Marketer with vast experience this field.
Explanation:
If you look into the framework and read the below given explanation. This will tell you process of SEO.
1. Business: let us consider this to be a website since we are talking of digital marketing. Business could be of products, services or information. A business depends entirely on the user. Notice how the arrow moves from business to the user. Why? Because a business needs user. If there is no user to use the information, products or service of the business what is what point of it all? Thus, the business moves to its users to sell. Business needs user.
2. User: User could also be referred to as buyer, audience, consumer, customer etc. User is in need. User needs products, services and information and thus is dependent on business to fulfil its needs. However a rational user today, makes proper query and search about the product or service that he wants to purchase. Now notice the arrow moving to Search Engine. That is where user goes and makes queries related to the product, service or information he is in search of.
3. Search Engine: Search Engine plays the most indispensable role here, as SEO is all about optimization according to the Search Engine! There are many search engines today in the market like, Google, Bing, Yahoo, Yandex, DuckDuckGo, Baidu etc. Here, let’s talk of Google as it is the most popular one. Once the query is entered in the Google search engine, the search engine provides results. Remember, the query is entered in the form of “Keyword”. Once, it is entered Google displays results. User clicks on the result and get’s redirected to the website that is most relevant according to his query. Note: 80% of the users click on the result that appears on top or the first that is what makes SEO essential for your website, to help it rank. Make note of the point that User’s journey ends once he is redirected to the website according to his result.
4. Keywords: Keywords can be defined as important words. The words which make the query important or give meaning to it. Keywords mark the beginning of Business’s journey. There are certain keywords which are used by maximum number of people. For example, “mobile under 10,000” is a commonly used keyword for people looking for phones under ten thousand rupees.
Further explanation: –
The business or the websites take look for keywords that are of their niche. The most important thing is “SEARCH VOLUME”. Search volume refers to the number of times the keyword has been searched for. Thus, the businesses take up the keywords with maximum search volume and insert it in their websites.
Look at the right side of the framework. This shows the three ways through which we can put the keywords into the website: –
a) Content: this means that we take the keywords with maximum search volume and insert it in the content of the website.
b) HTML: this is the HTML optimization is part of on page SEO. It requires optimization of website’s HTML element according to the keyword.
c) Architecture: this refers to optimization of URL of the website according to the keyword with maximum search volume.
Once these three aspects are used and the keyword has been inserted into the website then begins the off page promotion of the website. The off page promotions include:
a) Local Citation: mentioning of name, location, address, phone number, of a business online is local citation.
b) Social Media Promotion: as the name suggests, this includes promotion on social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram etc.
c) Link building: this is the process of getting links from other websites to your own website.
This marks the end of the framework. Once these promotions are done the Google checks the relevancy and of the website according to the queries and thus begins to give ranking to the optimized website.
But how does a search engine work exactly?
The search engine works in 4 major steps:
1) Crawling: This is the first step in which a robot of the search engine goes through or crawls through the website and takes snapshots and stores it in Google’s database.
2) Indexing: The snapshots which are taken by the crawler are indexed in the sense labelled and arranged accordingly.
3) Retrieval: In this process the best matched results according to the query are calculated and processed and then given forward.
4) Ranking: This involves deciding the position of the webpage on the search engine result page.
On page and off page SEO:
| On Page SEO | Off Page SEO |
| This refers to the activities that are performed within the boundaries of the website to get higher ranking and drive a large traffic from search engines to the website.On page SEO includes optimization content of the website according to the keyword that has maximum search volume. It also includes optimization of HTML aspect, and architecture of the website. | However, Off Page is about other aspects that influence traffic on the website and it’s ranking on SERP (Search Engine Result Page). It involves promotional activities like link building, social media promotion and local citation. |
White hat and black hat SEO:
| White Hat SEO | Black Hat SEO |
 This the SEO practice that helps to increase the ranking of your website and maintains the integrity by following various Google’s algorithms. White hat SEO must be used if you want your rankings to last long term. This is also known as ethical SEO. |  This is basically SEO of website but does not follow the algorithms. The term “black hat” originated in Western movies to distinguish the “bad guys” from the “good guys,” who wore white hats. It’s also called disapproved practice which does not help and has chances of getting website penalized. |
What is Grey Hat SEO?
This is not as wrong is black hat SEO but neither is it as ethical as white hat SEO. This has technically legal methods but they are ethically doubtful. They even hold chances of becoming black hat one day.
Conclusion:
If you want to market product, service or information through an online medium SEO is an indispensable tool for you. No matter how great your content or how unique your products are they would be pointless if they go unnoticed. The journey of getting distinguished, accepted, discovered and appreciated is what SEO could be described as. Thus, Search Engine Optimization is advantageous and a vital tool for growth of your business.
Author Bio:
Saniya Tauseef
Digital Marketer, with core expertise in Search Engine Optimization. A web content marketer, content writer and copywriter, blogger.
Contact: saniyatauseef10@gmail.com
This is really very awesome presentation, helpful to me.. Thank you
thank you for your comment.
Thank you so much Shyamli