About SEO- A Basic Guide for Beginners
In the Era where everything is shifting online, it is necessary for everyone to focus on their online presence. If you are the one who is willing to set up your business online or want to modify your existing site as per the present need, you have landed at the right place. This write-up will discuss what is SEO and some terms related to it.
Before making a website, you must know about SEO and how it will affect your site’s presence and ranking. SEO is a way you can get people on your site and keep on it. You may have encountered the word SEO before, or it is new to you. Now, without any further delay, let’s move on to explain what SEO is?
What does SEO signify?
SEO represents ‘Search Engine Optimization.’ It is a technique for web page optimization to make them rank at a higher place in the search results of search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and others.
To put it simply, you have to work on your web page so that Google and other search engines display it on their search page result whenever anyone searches for the query related to it.
If your website and web pages are optimized for search engines, people will witness your website on the search result as Google and other search engines will rank it higher than others less optimized.
A key goal of SEO is to increase rankings in the organic search results or non-paid search results.
You must make efforts to enhance SEO to entice more people to your site.
An Example
Google displays the search result page for ‘The Earth.’
The above example depicts the search result page when someone searches the term ‘The Earth.’
Here, Wikipedia is the first search result shown by google. This suggests that it ranked #1 on the term ‘the earth.’
The concept of SEO is whenever you work to optimize your webpage to make it the best result; you can raise your search ranking and may appear higher on the search result and may become visible to the audience.
Thus, the chances of getting more clicks and traffic to your website increase.
In the above example, google displayed the organic result only; however, this does not happen always. The result may contain ads, news, or other rich results depending on the term used by the searcher.
The search result could be more different on the basis of details submitted by searchers on Google, such as the country, place, or locality the searcher belongs to.
Google’s Algorithm and Ranking
Google’s algorithm decides the ranking of results and pages. Although nobody exactly knows what exactly Google’s algorithm is. However, through deep study, we can say there are many factors Google considers to rank the search results. We can study the most important ranking factors under two classes:
- ON-Page/ ON-Site SEO
- OFF-Page/ OFF Site SEO
On-Page Optimization
On-site SEO is to optimize the pages on your website to enhance your search ranking and the user experience on your site. Whatever you do directly on your site will affect your SEO ranking.
The on-site SEO factors partly decide your page ranking. On-site factors are the things present on your site, including your site’s speed, the quality of coding on your site, the content on your site, and the structure of your website and others.
If you want to improve your on-site SEO, you must work on the on-site factors.
Off-Page Optimization
Off-site SEO is to optimize the elements outside of your website. Despite the on-site SEO factors, the off-site SEO factors also decide the search ranking of your site. These factors comprise the attention your site gets from social media, the links pointing to your site from other websites, and the other activities you do out of your site to promote your website.
All these offline factors are challenging to influence but not unattainable.
Of all the offline factors, the most important is the links directing to your site. The quality and amount of links account for the ranking of your site.
Links from high-quality, relevant websites will boost your Google ranking.
The competition related to your business niche is another off-site factor that can affect your SEO ranking. Some niches are more competitive; therefore, getting a higher rank becomes more difficult in that particular niche than in others.
The Holistic Search Engine Optimization
Holistic SEO is a method to improve everything required to rank a website higher in search results. The main aim of a website is to fulfill the need of the user in all aspects. It should provide the right information being easy and safe to use.
The website owner must strategize to get a higher ranking for their website for a longer time. The main purpose is to build and maintain the website in all possible ways, not to fool google and get ranked because you may backfire.
You must improve your pages, and work on building and maintaining a quality site that will increase the possibility of getting a higher rank. You must work to provide the best content, which is fast, user-friendly, and easy to access.
This is because Google always likes to deliver the best result as per the query of the user.
To rank higher in searches, you must have a great SEO strategy that must focus on every fine detail related to your website and have a great idea of marketing as well.
Everything should be top-notch, whether the content, site performance, or user experience.
A holistic approach is great for you and your user as well. You can get a higher ranking, and the user can quickly get what they want. This is what holistic SEO means.
To Sum-up
SEO is a way to optimize your site to get a higher position in the search engine’s search results.
Google considers different ranking factors within on-page and off-page to rank your page in its search result. A holistic SEO approach is a great way to optimize your site as it focuses on every aspect to make it the best.
You must not use any temporary SEO trick to rank higher, as Google will backfire on your site, leaving it with a negative impact.
Instead, you must work on your site, keeping the user in your mind to enjoy ranking for a long.