Google and Bing account for 85% of all searches on the internet. With this kind of power, they rule over content exposure.
The wide-use of search engines is the reason why so many companies are taking advantage of SEO (search engine optimization). By using SEO, businesses can appear closer to the top of a search engine’s list for certain keywords.
There are many different types of SEO that companies can use to bring their website to the top. Keep reading to learn about these different types of SEO and get inspiration for your SEO strategy.
On-Page SEO
The first kind of search engine optimization that companies should learn about is on-page SEO. As the name implies, this SEO strategy focuses on the information that is present on the website page that you’re trying to optimize.
This kind of optimization is important for every single page of your website. Search engines look at the page that you’re trying to list, but they also look at other pages on your website.
Therefore, to completely take advantage of search engine optimization, you should be sure to craft every page on your website according to SEO guidelines.
Following On-Page SEO Guidelines
There are many guidelines that you can follow to optimize your website pages to search engine guidelines. We’ll list a few examples of SEO guidelines for on-page displays for you to use with your marketing team:
Put keywords in your page titles. When you’re potential viewers are searching on sites like Google, the page titles are the first thing they’ll see.
You want to make sure that your page titles accurately represent what your website page is about while also being interesting. Placing keywords in your page titles will help to drive your pages higher in the search rankings.
Put keywords in your headings. Throughout your articles, you should have headings to divide content. Those headings should contain the same keyword (or keywords) that you’re targeting in your title and throughout your article.
Don’t forget about images. Make sure that any pictures that you include throughout your articles are optimized as well. By changing the file names to your chosen keywords, you can push your pages higher in the ranks.
Making everything come together. As you’re looking over your web pages, they should appear cohesive and clean. Too many pop-ups, advertisements, and other deterrents could push you lower in the rankings.
Search engines like Bing, Google, and Yahoo can view the overall look and feel of your website pages without human assistance. Make sure to work on how everything looks while you’re editing your content to include keywords. Looks matter in the rankings too.
Off-Page SEO
Just as there is on-page SEO, there is off-page SEO. Off-page SEO focuses on the details of your website that aren’t actually on your website. Basically, off-page SEO focuses on how you promote your website.
Website promotion is important because of the traffic that more promotion gives your website. Websites that get more traffic rank higher on search engines.
Following Off-Page SEO Guidelines
If you’re looking to raise your search engine ranking, you have to pay attention to your website traffic. There are many ways that your business can go about taking advantage of off-page SEO:
Promote your brand. If you work on promoting your brand through your social media channels and other means, you can work on growing your business’ name. Not only is this good for revenue growth, but it’s also good for your off-page SEO techniques.
Search engines promote popular websites because this shows that people like those websites. Search engines want to promote websites that people already like. Therefore, views on your site are important for optimization.
Take advantage of link building. Link building refers to the process of adding links to your website pages. These links are there to build trust and authority.
When you’re adding links, you should be sure to reference highly ranked sites. You should also include some internal links to your own site so that viewers can read more of your content.
These off-page guidelines are important and shouldn’t be skipped simply because they aren’t visual. Off-page SEO is just as important as on-page SEO. This is how you can use optimization techniques to prove your website’s authority and improve all of your page rankings.
Technical SEO
Another kind of search engine optimization focuses on the technical aspects of your website. This is referred to as technical SEO.
Technical SEO looks at if your website is easily navigatable. The nicer your website looks and the more easily visitors can navigate it, the better your search engine rankings will be.
If you have a messy website, you might want to get that fixed sooner rather than later. A disorganized website will lower your ranking and turn-off potential customers.
Following Technical SEO Guidelines
Following technical SEO guidelines is more complicated than the kinds of search engine optimization strategies that we’ve covered so far. You may have to enlist outside help to get fully take advantage of technical SEO.
Verify your website. You should add and verify your website using Google Search Console. While there, you can work on your website specifications and preferences, which includes your preferred domain.
Create versatile content. By this, we mean that you should be creating content that can work well on mobile devices and computers. A clean look on all kinds of devices would raise your website in the search rankings.
Make your website load faster. If you can, you should make sure that your website has the ability to load quickly. If you follow an SEO-friendly web design, you should experience faster loading times and a possible rise in the search engine ranks.
Check your access. Make sure to double-check your robots.txt for proper accessibility.
These search engines should be able to access your website. If not, you could find yourself lower in the rankings.
If you think about it, search engines like Google don’t want to promote websites that can’t open to anything when users click on them.
Content SEO
Content search engine optimization focus on analyzing a website’s content quality. This is arguably the most important factor of optimization.
The key to optimizing your content is making web pages and articles that search engines can read and users can enjoy. By finding this balance, your website will find itself climbing in the rankings.
Following Content SEO Guidelines
There are several ways to optimize your website content. The balancing act between making search engine compatible content and making enjoyable content isn’t as difficult as you’d think.
It’s all about the keywords. If you can find one keyword to apply to different pages of your website, you can focus on this keyword. Be sure to add this primary keyword in the title, headings, and throughout the text.
You should also have some secondary keywords to sprinkle throughout your web pages. These should still be related to the primary keyword so that your web page is consistent.
As you’re using your keywords, beware of keyword-stuffing. If you place too many keywords throughout your articles, search engines may pick up on it and place you lower in the rankings.
Write long articles. Longer pieces are favored by search engines. If you want to grab a higher spot on the search rankings, you should look towards creating longer posts on your website.
Make sure that you’re writing articles that are easy-to-read and easy-to-follow. Remember that search engines are looking at the construct and content of your web pages to determine your search engine ranking.
Use those links we talked about. Link building is (yet again) an extremely good way to raise your search engine ranking.
Remember to use both internal and external links while building your website’s content. You’re using these links to build trust among your audience and authority among search engines.
Local SEO
Local search engine optimization refers to the kind of SEO that local businesses should be taking advantage of. If your business, company, store, or other establishment is trying to get local customers to visit, you should focus primarily on local search engine optimization.
This doesn’t mean that you should ignore the other kinds of search engine optimization we discussed. You should still use all of these strategies that we’ve talked about so far. However, you should also add some local SEO strategies so that your business can be discovered by locals.
Following Local SEO Guidelines
When you’re following local search engine optimization guidelines, you should keep personalization in mind. Your website should include information that can attach it to your location. This is so that people that live locally can identify you as a local business near them.
Put your business information on your website. If you’re trying to work towards optimizing your business for locals, you need to make sure that your viewers know who you are and where you’re located. Make sure that your business name, address, contact number, contact email, and other information is available for your viewers.
Take advantage of Google My Business. Making an account with Google My Business will make sure that Google recognizes your business’ website as one that is local to a certain area.
Register your business with various directories. Directories like Yelp and Yahoo Small Business can help with promoting your business if you register with them. This will help boost your online presence and see your business as a locally-recognized establishment.
Work on building your online presence through local means. Many local newspapers and news stations have websites. If you can network and get featured, you can build your online presence (and promote your website).
eCommerce SEO
Search engine optimization for ecommerce is complex. Because ecommerce is such a huge industry, it takes a lot to stick out on search engines. It doesn’t help that ecommerce websites tend to be complex with multiple pages and items.
As we discussed earlier, one of the most important things about SEO is to make sure to optimize your entire website. This means optimizing every single page. Since ecommerce websites have a notorious amount of pages, this task is nowhere near easy.
However, there are many steps that your business can take to optimize your website if you’re in the ecommerce industry.
Following eCommerce SEO Guidelines
eCommerce search engine optimization may have some more annoying tasks to complete, but there are some simple ones as well. We’ll break down how you should tackle your ecommerce site.
Start with your homepage and category pages. Before you start optimizing your product pages, you should start with these broader pages. You can use the techniques that we’ve discussed previously in this article.
Now, move onto your product pages. Make sure that your product pages are optimized to keyword searches. This will make navigating your website and finding desired answers much easier for viewers.
Don’t forget about your media. Be sure to optimize your photos and videos. You should save the file names as keywords and have an optimized file size.
Promote your store. As we suggested with other SEO types, you should promote your business on social media. Spreading the word will make your website more popular which will push it higher up in the rankings.
Start blogging. You could start a blog about your products and discuss how different products can solve different problems. By doing this, you open your ecommerce site to an entirely new world of SEO.
With these additional pages, you can draw in a bigger crowd and optimize your content much easier.
Implement All Different Types of SEO
After exploring the different types of SEO, you may be at a loss for words. We’re sure that you’re excited to take advantage of search engine optimization and what it can do for your business.
However, we also know that learning all of these techniques can be difficult. Applying them is even harder.
If you’re looking for help with your online strategy, feel free to contact us. At Riserr, we have a multitude of services to help you get your business on top.
