Top 10 Types of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
You maintain 100% control over the content and technical optimizations. That’s not always true with off-site (you can’t control links from other sites or if platforms you rely on end up shutting down or making a major change), but those activities are still a key part of this SEO trinity of success.
Imagine SEO as a sports team. You need both a strong offense and defense to win – and you need fans (a.k.a., an audience). Think of technical optimization as your defense, content optimization as your offense, and off-site optimization as ways to attract, engage and retain a loyal fanbase.
Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a complex process that has a number of different types. All SEO types have the same goal: To optimize a website for greater visibility in search engines.
In this post, you will learn the different types of SEO and what SEO techniques are applicable to each type.
What Is SEO / Search Engine Optimization?
SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” In simple terms, SEO means the process of improving your website to increase its visibility in Google, Microsoft Bing, and other search engines whenever people search for:
- Products you sell.
- Services you provide.
- Information on topics in which you have deep expertise and/or experience.
The better visibility your pages have in search results, the more likely you are to be found and clicked on. Ultimately, the goal of search engine optimization is to help attract website visitors who will become customers, clients, or an audience that keeps coming back.
What Are the Different Types of SEO?
The term SEO, Search Engine Optimization, refers to improving your site’s visibility in Google search results for relevant keywords or search phrases. SEO helps in generating site traffic naturally. Online consumers are more likely to select one of the first 5 results from a search engine while looking for a service or product. These 5 results are preferred because they are well-written and thoroughly optimized using SEO. There are about 6 different types of SEO that help websites to rank better on search engine result pages.
1. Technical SEO
Technical SEO is exactly what the name implies i.e. technical parameters that affect the visibility of a website in search engines.
The main goal of technical SEO is to ensure that search engine crawlers can crawl and index a website without any problems.
The most important technical SEO guidelines are:
- Check and optimize your robots.txt to make sure that search engines can correctly access your website.
- Add and verify your website with Google Search Console and specify your preferred domain.
- Use the COVERAGE report to find and fix crawl errors.
- Create an XML Sitemap and submit it to all major search engines.
- Optimize your site structure and URL structure.
- Follow SEO Friendly web design
- Create websites that load fast on both desktop and mobile devices.
2. White-Hat SEO
When you hear someone say white-hat SEO, that means the SEO practices that are in line with the terms and conditions of the major search engines, including Google. White-hat SEO improves your search engine ranking on the SERPs while regulating the integrity of your website with the search engine’s terms of service.
White-hat SEO practices are the best way to create a successful website. Here are a few white-SEO practices that you must follow strictly:
- Use keyword-rich, descriptive meta-tags
- Provide quality services and content to the website’s visitors
- Make your website easy to navigate
3. Off-site optimization
There are several activities that may not be “SEO” in the strictest sense, but nonetheless can align with and help contribute indirectly to SEO success.
Link building (the process of acquiring links to a website) is the activity most associated with off-site SEO. There can be great benefits (e.g., rankings, traffic) from getting a diverse number of links pointing at your website from relevant, authoritative, trusted websites. Link quality beats link quantity – and a large quantity of quality links is the goal.
- Brand building and brand marketing: Techniques designed to boost recognition and reputation.
- PR: Public relations techniques designed to earn editorially-given links.
- Content marketing: Some popular forms include creating videos, ebooks, research studies, podcasts (or being a guest on other podcasts), and guest posting (or guest blogging).
4. Local SEO
Local SEO is a type of SEO suited for local businesses only.
In other words, if you have a website and your goal is to get clients visiting your local store, then you should optimize your website for local SEO.
Everything that is mentioned above is valid for Local SEO, with the addition of the following guidelines:
Make sure that you have your business name, address, and contact details on all pages of your website.
- Add the Local Business schema on your homepage
- Create a Google My Business Account
- Register your business with trusted directories such as Yelp, Yahoo small business, Foursquare, and others.
- Promote your website on local directories and websites
5. International SEO
International SEO improves your website’s organic traffic from different areas and languages. If you want to succeed at international SEO, you must cater to your target market’s cultural context and allow them to make transactions in their currency and language. Use the right format for dates and times based on the place they are listed. If they have any worries, converse in their native tongue. International SEO aims to create a good online experience for your target audience.
6. Content optimization
In SEO, your content needs to be optimized for two primary audiences: people and search engines. What this means is that you optimize the content your audience will see (what’s actually on the page) as well as what search engines will see (the code).
The goal, always, is to publish helpful, high-quality content. You can do this through a combination of understanding your audience’s wants and needs, data and guidance provided by Google.
When optimizing content for people, you should make sure it:
- Covers relevant topics with which you have experience or expertise.
- Includes keywords people would use to find the content.
- Is unique or original?
7. Black-Hat SEO
Black-hat SEO exploits weaknesses in Google’s search algorithm to rank higher in its search results. Spammy or paid link-building strategies, keyword stuffing, cloaking, etc., are used to get ahead in search engine results. These practices give instant results, but they can impact your website negatively if detected by Google. Hence, it is advised to avoid black hat SEO.
8. On-Page SEO
On-Page SEO has to do with the page itself and how to make it friendlier to search engines and users.
It should be noted that while search engines look at a website as a whole, ranking is performed on a page-level basis.
That’s why it’s important to pay attention to the optimization of each and every page on your website.
The most important on-page SEO guidelines are:
Optimize your page titles. This is a critical SEO factor. Page titles are shown in the search results and should be interesting for users to click on. The title of a page should also give search engine bots enough clues on what the page content is all about.
Optimize your H1 Tag. While the page title is shown in the SERPS, the H1 tag is what is shown as the top heading of a page. An optimized page has only one H1 tag and usually, it has the same values as the page title.
9. E-commerce SEO
E-commerce SEO is one of the best ways to get traffic by paid search, but the SEO costs are much less. It helps create your online store website to rank higher whenever someone searches for a product or service.
It’s important to have your website appear in the SERPs; else, you’ll lose critical access to potential and qualified e-commerce customers. If the competitors’ research, focus on homepage SEO, and website architecture is done right, then e-commerce SEO can optimize your website to bring traffic and increase search volumes.
RELATED POST: What Are the Different Types of SEO?
10. Mobile SEO
Mobile SEO is again not a different type on its own, but a subset of SEO specific for mobile devices.
It’s a fact that more than 60% of Google searches are now performed on mobile devices.
This is a huge number and a good indication that the Internet is moving away from the traditional desktop and goes to mobile devices.
This is also the reason that Google decided to create a mobile-first index and start indexing the mobile-friendly version of a website instead of the desktop version.
