Definitive guide to SEO
History of SEO
Before studying about anything Webmasters and content providers began optimizing websites for search engines in the mid-1990s, as the first search engines were keeping a check the early stages of the internet. Initially, all webmasters needed only to submit the address of a page or URL, to the various engines which would send a "spider" to "crawl" that page, extract links from and to other pages from it, and return information found on the page to be indexed.
At the beginning of search engine optimization the web users were needed to give their information to the search engine such as keyword searched, title tags and Meta data in order to provide a pathway to each individual’s website’s content but this method proved to be less reliable since the user’s choice of keywords used would be different than the actual content provided in the website and hence that would be a misrepresentation of what the website actually is about.
SEO has gone through a lot of changes since Google was introduced and got into play. Google is the brain child of Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page. Google was founded in 1998 by Larry and Sergey while they were Ph.D. students at Stanford University in California. While conventional search engines ranked results by counting how many times the search terms appeared on the page, the two theorized about a better system that analysed the relationships among websites. They called this new technology PageRank it determined a website's relevance by the number of pages that linked back to the original site.
Introduction to Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the method of affecting the online persona of a website or a web page on an internet's search engine's results—often referred to as "organic" results. Simply put, the earlier and more frequently a website appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will invite from the search engine's users these visitors can then be converted into Search engine optimization (SEO) is the method of affecting the online persona of a website.
All search engines have primary search results that are ranked based on what the search engine considers most relevant to users. We call these organic results, because they are free and not driven by paid advertisements.
But by our own definition SEO means “optimizing a website by using tools and collecting data and implementing new, innovative strategies to climb the ranking ladder on search engines.”
SEO may target a vast field of searches, including image search, video search, educational search, news search, sports or even Hollywood. SEO differs from local search engine optimization in that the latter is focused on optimizing a business' online presence so that its web pages will be displayed by search engines when a user enters a local search for its products or services. The former instead is more focused on national or international searches.
Now National SEO is again consisting of a subtype of SEO called ‘Local SEO’ i.e. Local Search Engine Optimization.
Local search engine optimization (Local SEO) is similar to National SEO in that it is also a process affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a web search engine's unpaid results (SERP- search engine results page) often referred to as organic results as mentioned above. In general, the higher ranked on the search results page and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users; these visitors can then be converted into customers. Local SEO, however, differs in that it is focused on optimizing a business's online persona so that its web pages will be displayed by search engines when users enter local searches for its products or services. Ranking for local search involves a similar process to general SEO but includes some specific elements to rank a business for local search.
SEO is further categorised in two types, that is:
- White-hat SEO
- Black-hat SEO
White hat SEO
In white hat SEO webmasters use tactics, strategies and tools to appeal to human audience rather than google while practicing white hat search engine optimization webmasters genuinely follow search engine rules and policies set forth by the respective search engine.
The greatest advantage of white hat SEO is that it allows people to create their own content. In this way they have their own freedom and flexibility so they can approach their user base in any way they want.
Black hat SEO
In a way black hat search engine optimization is similar to white hat search engine optimization. Black hat SEO is a technique used to manipulate the SERPs directly affecting the capability of the search engine to deliver related search results.
It’s main advantage of following this technique is that it allows for faster results as compared to the more ethical technique what we call as white hat search engine optimization. A lot of companies and website owners use this method to climb the ranking ladder but while doing just that you also come in between the crosshairs of the search engine you are using e.g. Google. Which can possibly get you blacklisted and banned.