SEO —Search Engine Optimization Guide

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of increasing the visibility of a website in Google and other search engines. The goal of SEO is to get more customers, sales, and website traffic by ranking higher on Google SERP.

SEO is one of the most effective marketing channels to get high-quality, ready-to-buy users on your website without paying any per-click costs.

Before diving deep, you should know How Search Engines Like Google Work!

How does Google Search work?

here is a simple explanation of the functioning of Google search;

Google has programs (robots) called crawlers to explore the internet to find new and updated pages.

After that, Google reviews those pages to understand their content, quality, and relevancy and stores them in its database (Google Index). This process is known as Indexing.

Then Google shows the relevant pages from its database when users search for relevant queries

How long until I See Improvements In Search Results?

To see significant results from SEO results, you need at least 60 days. Google takes time to find and process the changes you’ve made on your website. Some changes may take effect in hours, but for others, Google requires some weeks to process and update its database by recalculating ranking scores for your website after considering Google ranking factors.

Why is SEO important?

SEO is important for increasing website visibility and driving organic traffic. It ensures businesses can effectively reach their target audience while building trust and credibility over time.

Here are some major benefits of SEO;

1. Boosts Online Visibility

SEO increases your visibility by ranking your website on top of search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Improved visibility means higher chances of reaching potential customers, especially when:

• 70% of users click only on results from the first page of search engine results.
• Optimizing for keywords relevant to your niche allows you to stand out in a competitive market.

2. Drives Targeted Traffic

By focusing on user intent and the right keywords, SEO attracts visitors who are actively searching for your products or services. For instance:

• E-commerce websites selling shoes get customers searching for “best running shoes under $100.”
• Informational content gets traffic through queries like “How to clean shoes.”

3. Improves Credibility and Trust

Users trust websites that appear at the top of search results. Companies like Buffer, Hubspot, etc., are real examples of how SEO helps to increase trust, credibility, and popularity.

4. Delivers Long-Term Results

Unlike paid advertising, SEO investments yield long-term benefits. Once your website secures top rankings:

• Traffic continues to flow without ongoing costs like CPC, CPA, CPS, etc.
• Updates to maintain relevance are less resource-intensive than doing from scratch.

5. Cost-Effective Marketing

SEO is one of the most cost-efficient ways to market your business because:

• It leverages organic traffic instead of paid campaigns.
• Leads generated through SEO have a 14.6% close rate, compared to 1.7% for outbound marketing.

6. Supports Brand Awareness

High rankings help establish your brand in the minds of consumers. Regular appearances in search results:

• Enhance recognition, even among users who don’t click your link.
• Create opportunities for retargeting and engagement in the future.

7. Optimized User Experience (UX)

SEO improves website performance, benefiting both users and search engines. Practices like:

• Enhancing page load speed.
• Ensuring mobile responsiveness.
• Simplifying navigation. Not only satisfies search engine algorithms but also makes the site more user-friendly.

8. Outrank Competitors

In competitive markets, SEO gives you a competitive edge. Consider:

• Companies that rank higher for local searches, like “plumber near me,” often get the majority of leads.
• Continuous SEO efforts prevent competitors from overtaking your rankings.

9. Facilitates Data-Driven Decisions

SEO provides insights through tools like Google Analytics and Search Console. These include:

• User demographics and behavior.
• Keyword performance.
• Conversion tracking.

Businesses use this data to refine marketing strategies and optimize for better results.

10. Adapts to Consumer Behavior

As customer behavior changes, SEO keeps your content aligned with changing preferences. For example:

• Video content optimization for platforms like YouTube.
• Voice search optimization for queries like “Where is the nearest coffee shop?”

What Are The Different Types Of SEO?

SEO can be categorized into different types on the basis of SEO efforts, platforms, industries, and content.

Here are three main types of SEO;

1. Technical SEO — It includes all technical aspects of SEO including Server optimizations, fixing sitemap issues, code issues, crawl budget management, etc.
   
2. On-Page SEO — It includes optimizing website pages individually by optimizing the SEO elements like Page Title, content, H Tags, etc.
   
3. Off-Page SEO — It includes aspects of building a website’s reputation and authority through activities outside the website itself.

SEO types according to techniques:

• White-hat SEO
• Black-Hat SEO
• Gray-Hat SEO
• Blue-Hat SEO

SEO types according to platforms:

• Google SEO
• Bing SEO
• YouTube SEO
• Amazon SEO
• TikTok SEO
• Mobile SEO
• Generative Engine Optimization

SEO types according to CMS:

• WordPress SEO
• Shopify SEO
• Wix SEO
• WooCommerce SEO
• BigCommerce SEO
• Webflow SEO
• Weebly SEO
• Squarespace SEO

SEO types according to Content:

• Image SEO
• Video SEO
• PDF SEO
• Text SEO
• Product SEO

SEO types according to Industries:

• eCommerce SEO
• Blog SEO
• SaaS SEO
• D2C SEO
• B2B SEO
• Lawyers SEO
• Plumbers SEO
• Doctors SEO
• Fashion SEO
• B2C SEO

SEO types according to Company types:

• Small Business SEO
• Startup SEO
• Enterprise SEO
• Corporate SEO

SEO types according to targeting geo:

• Local SEO
• National SEO
• Global SEO
• Multilingual SEO

How To Do SEO?

Check if Google can see your page the same way a user does

ideally, Google sees the page the same way as users while crawling a page. For this, Google access the same resources like CSS and JavaScript as the user’s browser. If your site has issues, Google might not be able to understand your pages, which means they might not show up in search results or rank well for the terms you’re targeting.

for pages targeting different location, make sure you’re providing the information that Google sees from its crawler’s location, which is generally the US.

To check your page, use the URL Inspection Tool in Search Console.

Organize your site

• Use descriptive URLs
• Group topically similar pages in directories
• Reduce duplicate content
• Make your site interesting and useful
• Expect your readers’ search terms
• Avoid distracting advertisements
• Link to relevant resources
• Write good link text
• Link when you need to

Influence how your site looks in Google Search

• Influence your title links
• Control your snippets
• Add images to your site, and optimize them
• Add high-quality images near relevant text
• Add descriptive alt text to the image
• Optimize your videos

People publish more than 30 Million blog posts every day. Only WordPress Webmasters and Bloggers publish more than 2 Million posts on the Internet Every day and almost 25 posts every second.

Can you imagine…?

Google shows almost 10 results only on each page of SERP (Search Engine Results Page). People make more than 100 billion searches every month on Google. And 99.9% of users visit those 10 results to find their answers.

The study shows that almost 33% of traffic users click on the first position in Google SERP and 60% of users on Top 5 results. Top 9th & 10th results get only 2%-5% Clicks for that Keyword. No or negligible people visit on the 2nd page of the Google SERP. You can Hide Black Money on the 2nd or 3rd page of Google. No one finds that…

Websites that are showing on Google SERP’s first page results in getting all the traffic without any cost. This free traffic is also known as “Organic Traffic”. Those websites don’t pay any Dollar to get that traffic. These websites are getting that traffic due to their Positions on the First Page of Google. And In the Online World, more Traffic means more conversions/leads, which means more money.

You can solve your 90% problems as a webmaster if you have more traffic. More traffic increases the chances of more awareness about your website sales, and in a result of you will get more revenue.

But if you have no traffic it means no income from your website…

Imagine, if you’re ranking on the first page of Google and users visit your website and you are making dollars and dollars…!

WOW! It’s Amazing… 😛

Do you like that…?

If yes then you can make it a reality… 🙂 Simple! Just hit the first page of Google and get a Position in Google Top 10 results.

But How?

The Answer is SEO…! It can be possible with SEO.

There are many other methods to drive traffic to your website. You can buy traffic from ad networks, social media, Google Adwords or any other options. But organic traffic is high-quality and free of charge.

You just have to need to improve your keywords rankings in Google.  That is possible with SEO.

What Is SEO?

SEO is the process of techniques to improve keywords ranking in Google & get Free Organic Traffic.

Learn more: What Is SEO?

How Search Engine Works   

 A search engine is the Combination of the Algorithms that filter the web & shows relative results to the user’s query.

But How a Search engine filter & find Useful data on the Internet & How rank them on SERP…?

Actually, every search engine has robots that are known as Bots or Crawlers. These crawlers always finding new or updated content on the web. For this, crawlers continuously reach the websites or pages to find new published or updated content. Crawlers get information about that web page or website from the Meta tags of that site.

Means, Crawlers can read and understand Meta Tags like- Title, Meta Description.  And when a user searches something in Google then Google filters that crawled data to find the best sources related to the user’s query.

How Google Provide Rankings to Sites on SERP?

Google uses very complex algorithms and looks for more than 250 ranking factors to rank a website or page on Google. Google Continuously changes its algorithms to stop spamming & to provide more accurate results to its users.

Google always looks for quality. More quality means higher rankings.  Google looks upon two factors to rank a site;

• Quality
• Trust/Popularity

According to these factors, Google has three types:

1. White Hat SEO (High-Quality SEO techniques) – recommend to everyone by Google
2. Black Hat SEO (low-quality SEO techniques) – Google considers these as spam
3. Grey Hat SEO – (mix up White Hat & Black Hat SEO)

And SEO can be divided into two parts:

1. On-page SEO
2. Off-Page SEO

How to Do SEO?

On-page SEO is the first part of SEO, which is done on the webpage of your site. Means, on-page SEO, is the process of optimization that is done on the webpage of a site.

Keyword Research

Keyword research is the first step towards SEO. Your SEO efforts, Time, Results everything depends on the Keyword Research.  Right keywords can reduce your SEO efforts and boost your rankings & traffic. But Wrong keywords can increase SEO efforts & waste your time with little to no results.

You should always take seriously to select keywords for your Site. You can Read this Complete Guide to do Keyword Research to find the right keywords for your site & Business.

Always find keywords according to your business requirements, Audience, and the Competitive Power of your Domain. the Competitive Power of a Domain is dependent upon the Domain age, Content, Backlink Profile, Domain Presence, Social Activeness, etc. more Competitive Power means Can be rank on higher Competitive Keyword Terms.

Also, focus on user intent when you’re doing keyword research. If you want to sell something then use Commercial keywords & Longtail Keywords. But if you are want to write something informational then you should focus on Informational Keywords. But if you are looking for Traffic only Then you can Use seed Keywords.

Tips:

Don’t Use Keywords for those Google Shows Direct Answers. Like as Donald Trump Age, What is my IP, ______ meaning, etc. Google Shows Direct answers for these type Search terms. That’s why no one clicks on the SERP results.

Content

Content is the base of Digital Marketing. Without Content, You can’t grow in Digital World. But Without Good content, no one can be Successful.

Your Content Must Be High-Quality Content without any Spelling, grammatical mistakes as well as unique without any duplicity or copyright.  For SEO, Your Content should be Search Engines Friendly. That is known as SEO Content, SEO Copywriting, and SEO Writing.

We need SEO Content to:

1. Engage Users (Interesting)
2. Solve/ Share Something (Informative)
3. Ranks Higher On Google (SEO Optimized)

SEO Content must be written for users and Optimized for Search Engines.

Any content can be changed to SEO-friendly content by making some changes and Updates. To make Content SEO friendly, Add Keywords their LSI Keywords (related Keyword terms), Related topic to that keyword.

Your Content Must be detailed, Unique, Fresh and easily understandable.

Tips:

Don’t Use a keyword too much time in the content. Because keyword stuffing can hurt you & your Site. And Google Can Penalize your Site.

Title Tags

Titles are an important part of SEO. Your page title must be attractive, short & sweet. Users should be attracted to your webpage and click on that after reading your content. If more users are doing clicks on your title In SERP, then it will increase your CTR (Click through Rate) that give a rapid boost to your rankings.

But No Clicks = No CTR= Ranking Loss.

That’s why you should use the right title tags for your web pages. The title tag should not be longer than 65 characters (with spaces).

Tips:

Use terms likes as; numbers, How to, Why, free, Discount, locations, etc. in your Title. But use According to Web page Content. For example; if you want to sell something then add Terms like as- discount, offer, etc. but if you want to write a guide or simple blog post then use terms like How, Why, etc.

Meta Description

Google uses Meta Tags to know about your webpage. So it is also an important part of On-page SEO. You should tell about your content in the Meta description. You can write Meta Description up to 350 characters long. It means you can more explain your content in the Meta description.

Meta description also helps you to increase your Page CTR & Rankings in Google.

Permalinks

Permalinks are the address of your Web page. Like as- loudgrowth.com/what-is-seo/ in this, What-is-SEO is the Permalink URL of this Web page.

Permalink must be short and unique for every page of the site. You can use your targeted keyword in the permalink. Try to write only 2-4 words in the URL.

Tips:

Avoid date, special symbols or characters and too many slashes from the URL.

Image Optimization

You should also optimize all the images on your website. To optimize your Images, Write Alt text for your images. Write Keyword In your Alt text. You should also give a proper name to your images that will be related to your Topic.

Alt Text Helps Google to know about your site images.

Internal & External Linking

Linking your Web pages with each other is also the best SEO strategy. It is called Internal linking.

Internal linking has many advantages. It helps you in many ways.  When you interlink your web pages with other then it will help your audience to read & know more about something. Means Users spend more time on your site. That is also a Google Ranking Factor.

Internal linking also helps you to improve your Bounce Rate as well as sends positive signals to Google about your Web page.

You can also link external sites or web pages in your content. It will also help your audience to know more about that topic as well as helps you with SEO.

Heading tags

Heading tags have been used to Highlight Headings & Subheadings of Content & setup content in a complete format. Heading tags also help to improve readability.

There are six Heading tags from H1 to H6. H1 has used for the Page Title. H2 for Subheadings and H3 for Sub Sub Headings & so on…

In WordPress, WordPress Title is H1 Tag. You have no need to use H1Tag in WordPress.

Page Speed

Page Speed is a Google Ranking Factor, Google Officially announces that. If your site takes more than 3 seconds to load then it may be a big issue for your site SEO & Rankings.

Try to keep your site load time under 2 seconds. There are many factors that can affect your site load time like as- hosting, site structure, images, other data, too many ads, scripts or CSS, etc.

You should use a simple but professional design or theme and a reliable Premium Hosting like as- Kinsta, WP Engine and Godaddy for your Site. But if you have a large Site then you can use Kinsta or WpEngine Webhosting.

Also, use compressed images & gzip Compression, CDN and Cache System on your site.

Mobile Friendly

Google gives more priority to mobile than desktop. That’s why Google Launches Mobile-First Index to provide more mobile-friendly experience to Mobile users. Now Google looks on sites for Mobile devices and gives priority Mobile-Friendly Sites on Mobile.

Make sure you have a responsive & mobile friendly Site. But if your Site is not mobile-friendly then re-design it and make mobile-friendly.

You can use Google Mobile-Friendly Tool to check your Site.

Social

Social signals also help you with SEO but indirectly. Google Officially said that they are not using social signals as a ranking factors.

But Social signal helps you with SEO. When social media users engage with content then like, share, follow that then this content also gets a boost in SEO due to more engagements of users, and activity on that page.

So make your Social media presence more strong and be active on social media. You should ask your readers to share your content on social media.

The social presence can also help you to reach more audience and customers.

Links

Backlinks are one of the major Google Ranking Factor. But there is no surety that more backlinks get higher rankings. It may be the cause of the Google penalty if your site has links from spamming or low-quality sites.

Your backlinks must be from High-Quality sites and you should focus on the quality of the backlinks than the quantity of the backlinks.

Backlinks from Big sites like Forbes, Huff Post, CNN, New York Times can rapidly increase your site rankings, popularity, and Visibility. Because these are the High Authority sites. One backlink from big sites like these will be more strong & beneficial than 1000 backlinks from low-quality sites.

Always try to get backlinks from your niche related sites those links will help you to rank higher and easily.

Conclusion

SEO is one of the best fields of Digital Marketing that gives an advantage to your business in all ways.  And anyone can start SEO easily. You have no need to be technical. Just be familiar with SEO terms & basics. You can do easily SEO for your site.

But if you are busy have no time or afraid to do it yourself then you can hire someone for SEO. But always prefer White Hat techniques for your site. Because these techniques are safer and help you in the long run.

If you want to get my Help then you can contact me for my SEO or Digital Marketing Services. But if you need any help or tips then feel free to contact us.

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