Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) by Rusty Blogger
I know you want to increase your website traffic through SEO. You are at right place. Rusty Blogger brings a complete overview of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This SEO guide is enough to crack the fresher’s interview for an SEO job. It has answers to all the questions asked in the SEO Interview.
This post is for my friends who want to get an overview of Search Engine Optimisation in precise and in an organizational way. This small Search Engine Optimization Guide will help you to crack SEO Interview in any company as a fresher. I have covered all the basics to understand what SEO is all about. A newbie can start SEO after reading this post. I am sure at the end of this post you will be confident to face SEO interview questions if you are a fresher. So let us begin the SEO journey.
What is search engine optimization or SEO?
SEO is a combination of two phrases: Search Engine + Optimization. Search Engine in simple words is a program that finds relevant results from a database when you enter a particular keyword or search term. I can bet you know many search engines. Some of these are Google, Yahoo, Bing, Facebook Search Bar, Youtube Search console and many more. This blog also has its search engine that helps you to find the topic you need.
Optimization is the process or method of changing or developing the current program, design or system to make it fully functional and perfect. In simple words, we can say that it is the process of removing the flaws and making it perfect.
Search Engine Optimization clubbed together is defined as the process of changing or optimizing our website according to the Search Engine norms so that we should rank higher in Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). When we type any search term in Google, it shows a list of results. But we open only the top results. The aim of Search Engine Optimisation is to bring our website to those top results.
It can be done in two ways or we can say SEO is done in two parts. These both are equally important. Let us move to the types.
These are On-Page SEO and Off-Page SEO Techniques
On-Page SEO:
On page, SEO is like embedding the soul into the website. It covers all the aspects of a website before the development of a website to post development of website. In on page SEO, we make changes in the website layout, coding, design, load time, keywords, content, and HTML to make the website search engine friendly.
Here are the On Page factors without which it will be very difficult to rank your keywords in the search engine:
Keyword Research:
Good keywords are the soul of any SEO campaign. It can only be achieved by extensive keyword research. You need to find out great keywords related to your niche. Search for LSI keywords (Latent Semantic Indexing). LSI keywords are the related keywords to the exact search term you want to target. I will reveal my keyword research strategy soon. You must read this Long Tail Keyword Research formula to research keywords which can be easily ranked in search engine.
Use SEO Optimized Permalink:
You must develop simple permalinks for your posts which must include your keyword. This will be a lot more easy to understand by the user as well as the search engine. Now when the search engine finds a particular keyword in article body, title, meta and permalink. It will get a clear idea that what the page is all about. So it is important to have a keyword and SEO optimized permalink.
Optimize title with Keyword H1 and subheadings with H2 and H3 tags:
Title is the main attraction of an article. Learn how to write a beautiful and unique title for your posts. Make sure that you cleverly embed your keyword in the title. Now grate your title with H1 tag. You should have a minimum of 2 to 3 H2 and H3 tags containing the relative terms of keywords. This will provide you a better place in search engine results.
Post Quality and Long Content:
If your blog is your castle then content is the king. Obviously, in this context, Google is GOD who monitors everything. Your post should be original, qualitative and vast enough so that Google bots spend some time on it. Without genuine content forget to rank keywords in search engine. You should focus on these 20 Types of Content that will help you to diversify your content and get huge traffic.
Put your keyword in first 100 words:
Now it is the time of keyword insertion in the content. First hundred words of your post should contain the keyword you are working for. Also, you need to put in keywords in the body content with a keyword density of approximately up to 2%. Do not always use the same keyword phrases. Use LSI terms as well to avoid penalty.
Insert a great meta description:
Meta tags are those tags that are only visible to the search engines. They are not visible to the end users. This is what search engine tracks and matches with the site content and index pages. You should write a beautiful meta description for your web page including the main keyword. It should not be more than 156 characters.
Use of Canonical Tag:
Canonical tag implementation is very important to save your content from devaluing by content thieves. It tells search engines about the original page source of the content.
Insertion of Google Publisher Tag Google Publisher tag specifies the author of the article and is shown where the article is displayed. It is one of the great trust factor for search engine giant Google. You can get your Google Publisher tag from your Google+ page.
See here how these meta tags are implemented
Use of Meta Robots or Robots.txt:
It is very important to have the robots set for our website. It can be a meta tag or a text file. Robots tags allow us to prevent specific web pages from indexing in the search engines.
See the structure of meta robots tag here
Google Webmasters or Search console Linking:
Now here comes the linking of our website to Google webmasters or now called as Google Search Console. It is the most important task to do before any further updates in the website. By linking to the Google Search Console you ensure the ownership of the website to Google. Go to http://google.com/webmasters to get verified your website
Linking with Google Analytics:
Google Analytics provides insights and metrics about the user acquisition. It is a tracking medium provided by Google itself. It tells us real-time tracking as well. It is essential to link your website to link with Google analytics. Go to http://google.com/analytics to access Google Analytics.
Bing and Yandex Verification:
Bing and Yandex are big search engines. They can also drive huge traffic to your website. You must get your website verified from these platforms too to take benefit of Bing and Yandex
Use Social Sharing Buttons:
One of the ranking factor and traffic factor is how much social you are. It is very important to develop your brand on social media. Your readers would like to share your post on social media if you have written a great post and for this social sharing buttons must be there. Implement Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Linkedin at least. This will give you audience that you did not even imagine.
Link to other relevant pages or Interlinking or Internal Link Building:
Ranking of keywords also depends greatly upon the interlinking of related posts in your blog. It is related to hummingbird update of Google in which relevancy is the prime factor. Suppose you write an article about “10 Social Media Optimisation tools” and you have another similar post stating the importance of social media. Then you must link these posts with each other to pass link juice to each other. Google gives preferences to the websites which have proper and relevant interlinking.
Learn How to do internal linking in SEO.
Image Optimization:
You may have read somewhere that search engines cannot read images. So what is the benefit of posting images in the blog post? SE does not read images but they read the “Alt Text” and description of the images. It becomes a ranking factor. When you search any image on Google with a particular keyword, it shows the result of the images according to the text used in the Alt Tag of that image.
You must look at these 8 Powerful Reasons that shows the Importance of Images for your Blog?
Sitemap creation and submission:
Like an index of a book, sitemap is the index of a website. It is a XML file that contains each and every link of your website. By implementing a sitemap in your website, you are helping search engines to get everything from a single page where he can check all other links of your websites. You must learn how to create a sitemap and submit it to Google.
Implementing 404 error page:
404 error is the error when you type a wrong web address. It is very important to create a specified 404 error page otherwise user will jump from your website.
See an example of well developed 404 error page:http://www.rustyblogger.com/hdvgbvdh
See an example where no 404 error page is implemented:http://www.geminy.in/jhfvbjhfbj
Mobile Friendly Website:
2015 is the era of handheld devices and most of the time they access internet on their smartphones. 74% of the people access internet only from their mobile phones. It is very important that your website must be compatible with each and every handheld device.
Off Page SEO:
Off page, SEO begins after implementing all the on page activities. In off page SEO, we tend to build trust by linking our website to other big and trustful websites. These websites provide us traffic they have. the off page activities help us build trust and reputation for our website. Search Engines like Google prefer reputed websites with super quality content.
Here are the trust building Off Page SEO activities which are damn important for ranking top in Google and other search engines:
Influence Social Media Users:
Well, we all know that social media is the biggest medium to reach millions of people. It is very important to create a brand name on social media. Public like companies and brands which are social. They like to promote you on social media if you provide them some really good service. If you can influence people on social media, then you can drive a large stream of quality visitors to your site. Search Engine also give emphasis to the website which has good social scalability.
Search Engine Submissions:
Search Engine Submissions is one of the first Off Page SEO activity which is to be done within a day of post submission. By submitting your post in different search engine submission site list, you will let the search engines know about your new post and it will index it in a very small time.
Article Submissions:
Increase your outreach by letting people know about your website through other major websites. Contribute some value added articles to article submission websites such as Hubpages, Artipot, Buzz feed . and others to fetch quality readers. This will also get you a strong backlink. A well curated article is definitely going to improve your search engine rankings.
Guest Blogging:
Now that is something tricky as you have to convince other bloggers in your domain to allow you to write a guest post for their blog. In return, you can ask them a credit link back to your website. It will help you to create a space on Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).
Click here to Learn How to blog on Blogger (for Free)
Forum participation and Discussions:
Forums are the online communities of the experts in a particular domain in which you can ask about any of your problem or query and the experts are always ready to help you. If you know something and urge to know more, start participating in the forums and make authority there. Share your blog or website in relevant posts and you will get an appreciation on forums as well as boost in rankings as well.
Directory Submissions:
Like there is a telephone directory of each city. In the same way, there are online business directories for each genre and you should find out the online directories. Submit your business website into different business directories. It will allow people looking for same business to visit your website.
Social Bookmarking:
There was the time when after submitting our website to 100 bookmarking websites we can rank our keyword but the time has gone and the trend of bookmarking is nearly ended but there are some reputed bookmarking websites which still have great role in SEO optimization.
Here is a list of Free Do Follow Social Bookmarking Sites List 2016-2017
Get this amazing High PR Photo Sharing Sites List to create awesome backlinks.
Image or Photo Marketing and Sharing:
Photo marketing is the hottest trend. There are a lot of image sharing sites on which you can share your blog or website images. According to the study, Pinterest gives more conversions than Facebook. Images speak louder than words and it is the truth. Images sharing create brand awareness among the folks and convert better than any other form of social platform.
Read my Pinterest marketing strategy by which I have received 1300+ hits on my website from Pinterest.
PPT submissions and Marketing:
A well curated presentation can do wonders. People are not willing to invest their time to read the whole document. Instead, they need precise info and a PPT can help them to get that. Convert a ppt of your document or article and share them on different PPT submission websites. Link back the PPT with the original source post. It will increase your post reach as well as your website will get great boost in SERPs.
Video creation and Submissions:
Create small videos regarding your products, website, and blog. Share it with different video sharing sites like Youtube and Vimeo. You must read out this and learn how to create professional business videos. The video will publicize your website automatically to a wide audience. The results of video submissions appear very soon.
PDF creation and Submission:
Like video submission PDF submissions are also result oriented and show up in Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) soon. It gives our website boost up in search engines.
Get this High PR PDF Submission Sites List 2016 and enjoy PDF submission.
Blog Pinging:
You need to Ping your Blog in various Blog Pinging Sites after every update in your website. It will help you to index your website faster.
Ask Questions:
If you do not propose a girl, till then you will not judge his/her opinion towards you. It is applicable in all spheres and so in internet marketing. You need to find people who are in need of your services from various Question Answer websites like Yahoo and Quora.
Solve their queries and send them to your blog which is solving their real world problems. This will increase your traffic and will add trust to your website. Search engines counts these factors and place you higher in search engine rankings.
All these factors collectively add trust to your website. Remember, both on page and off page factors are important in SEO optimization. Keywords does not roll up in search engine overnight. It takes time to build trust and reputation for your website. SEO optimization follows slow and steady wins the race concept.
I am sure after reading this you have enough knowledge of Search Engine Optimisation. Now it is the time to go to your website and apply these On page and Off Page SEO techniques.
Note: We are regularly updating this post on the basis of latest Google updates and information we seek from different sources. So keep visiting this article to get newer updates.
Summary Article Name A Complete Overview to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Description No one is unaware of the power of Search Engine Optimisation or SEO. The concept of SEO is misunderstood by maximum. Here is the complete guide to understand the concept of SEO or Search Engine Optimization.
Author Abhishek Jain
