SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and is the process of improving your website so it ranks higher in search engine results for specific keywords, aiming to deliver the most relevant results to users. It involves both content quality and technical factors to help search engines understand and rank the site.

What are the three main types of SEO?

White Hat SEO – follows Google’s guidelines, focusing on legitimate techniques like proper content and ethical link-building. Gray Hat SEO – lies between white and black hat, with techniques that may be questionable. Black Hat SEO – unethical, aimed at manipulating search rankings quickly, such as spamming or buying links.

On-page SEO refers to optimizing elements on the website itself, such as page titles, headings, image metadata, URLs, content quality, internal linking, and user experience, to improve visibility in search results.

Home SWS Blog What is SEO?

What is SEO?

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the process or technique of improving your website/blog so that it ranks higher in Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) on Search Engines (SE) like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc., for certain keywords. Typically, people focus on appearing in Google, but there is also Bing and the up-and-comer Yandex. We know that search engines love good content, and every search engine, whether it’s Google or Bing, wants to deliver the best User Experience (UX) by displaying the most relevant result as per the asked query.

It is all about getting users to visit your site without directly paying for advertising.

You need to remember that Google’s function is to provide the right answers to searchers; it basically has three rules:

Rule 1: Google is for answering people’s questions
Rule 2: Google knows more than we and SEO experts
Rule 3: Google wants answers, not ranking tricks

How Many Types of SEO are there?

There are three main types of SEO:

White Hat SEO – This type of SEO simply means doing exactly what Google says you should do (Following Google Webmaster Guidelines). Most especially, not acquiring links. This includes genuine link-building techniques such as guest blogging, broken link building, and infographic submission. This is a secure link-building technique that won’t harm your blog in any way.

Gray Hat SEO: These techniques fall between White Hat and Black Hat. They include fake stories to get coverage on big sites, buying relevant, spam-free expired domains and building sites on them, using spin articles on blogs, and many other techniques.

Black Hat SEO: This is the most dangerous and quickest-win SEO technique. In this technique, you just trick Google’s SEO algorithm and get a quick ranking for any keywords. This included buying links from sites, inserting spammy links in sites by hacking them, doing 301 redirects with expired domains, doing bulk commenting, creating bulk profiles, acquiring backlinks that are suspicious but powerful, such as PBNs (private blog network), spamming other websites with your content in hopes of getting a link back, and many other unethical activities.

There is also what some call negative SEO, which is the practice of using black hat techniques on someone else’s website with the intent of causing harm. This is usually used to harm a competitor so you can move up the search results. It can be illegal in some cases and is most definitely unethical by any standard.

The biggest difference between Black and White is how they go about creating backlinks.

The significance of the colors is from the western movies, and everyone knows that the good guys wear white hats and the bad guys wear black hats.

So, what is SEO, and what is involved in SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and it involves much more than most people think. I’m going to go over a very high-level view of what is involved in SEO. These bullets are not in any particular order, nor it is 100% inclusive:

On-page SEO – The most important on-page SEO is optimizing your page titles, H1 Tag, headings, images, and page formatting. It refers to the actual optimization of the website and its pages.

Page Title Tag – working, optimized, unique, relevant, and correct length
Description Tag – working, optimized, unique, and correct length, and good keyword-rich content
Keywords – working, optimized, not spammy, density
URL – Page names are good and descriptive
Content optimization (Readable/Freshness/Duplication/Keywords/Length/Unique)
Image Meta tags (Alt/Title/description)
URL Structure
Image compression
Broken links
Inbound and outbound links and Anchor Text
Header Tags H1, H2, H3 …
Spelling
Canonical Tags
Breadcrumbs
User experience analysis
Permalinks
301 redirects / 404 error pages
Favicon
CSS & JavaScript optimization and minification
Schema
Easy Navigation
and more

Off-page SEO – This is probably the most important and most forgotten part of SEO. It refers to all the activities you and others do off your website to improve a page’s ranking in search engines.

Backlinks (Link building)
Keyword research
Domain authority
Social Media Presence
Domain name
Press releases
Written articles
local citations
social bookmarking
Submission (Search Engines/Blogs/Forums)
Page Ranking
Niche and competitor analysis
and more

Technical SEO – The main goal is to ensure search engine crawlers can crawl and index a website without issues. Technical SEO is all about making sure your site loads properly and is visible to Google.

XML Sitemaps
Robots.txt
.htaccess
SSL Certificate
Broken links
Hosting speed
Loading Speed
Mobile-Friendly (Optimized/Accelerated Mobile Pages)
Voice Search
Banning (Check to ensure the site is not banned)
Bug fixing
Crawl Rates
and more

A good SEO person will have a strong working knowledge and understanding of the Google algorithm (past, present, and future). It is best to select an SEO person with whom you can build a lasting relationship. SEO is not a simple set-and-forget-it thing. SEO is always ongoing and changing. SEO is a marathon, not a sprint.

Once you start SEO, you need to commit to being in it for the long haul. When being done right, it is not just a few hours here and there; it can and is a long process, and most SEO people have a process they follow that works for them and should work for you. As much of SEO is learned from experience, it is often referred to as “trade secrets” because of exactly what it does and how it does it. There are many small details involved in good-quality SEO. Anyone can do local citations, but a good SEO will be able to squeeze a little more out of each one to help your website.

Some SEO Terms You May Hear

PBN (private blog network) backlinks are links built from a network of connected websites and blogs. These sites are commonly owned by the same person, who’s using them all to build links to their money site.
CTR – click-through rate
CTA – call to action
CRO – conversion rate optimization

If you want to start learning about SEO, the first stop should be Neil Patel, who is basically the SEO Guru. Neil is one of the most successful digital marketers around. You can start learning SEO on Neil’s main website and his YouTube channel.

Another great place to learn about SEO is from Matt Cutts. Matt once worked for Google as the head of a team that protected the quality of Google’s web search results. Matt has several web assets worth checking out, including his blog, and he is a frequent guest on Search Engine Watch.

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