We live in a digital era where global presence matters a lot. It’s not just necessary, but also compulsorily adaptive to stand out in the market. And, what it demands is- “digital SEO.” So in this article, we’ll cover every essential detail for you which can help you strengthen your business’s digital presence.
Google is the most used search engine globally. More than 90% of the users search their queries on Google. This platform has not just saved a name in the list of ‘top 10 search engines’ but is also the most sought platform for business listings. The platform’s Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) system makes use of complex algorithms to analyze and index results for users.
It is important to deduce the functioning of the search engine so as to know what you’re dealing with. This article has covered major algorithms of Google and its possible consequences that have an impact on your website’s ranking. Give this article a read to not miss out on the technicalities of digital SEO.
SEO Digital Marketing
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a technique to get your website or webpage indexed and rank higher on the Search Engine Results Page (SERPs) and make it more visible because your business will grow only if people get to know about it.
Search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, Baidu, Ask.com, etc., use complex algorithms in order to provide the most relevant results to a user’s query. These algorithms keep on updating so quickly that if you miss out on upgrading your techniques, you lose the game. It makes it essential to grasp the search engine’s working system to utilize it to its full potential.
The Working Of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)- Decoded
Getting your website rank successfully on a search engine isn’t a walk of roses. It is a complicated task that requires you to get your foot right on the parameters of the search engine’s algorithms. This is why you need to be aware of the way these dynamic algorithms of search engines operate.
When we talk about the functioning of search engines, there are three basic tasks that it performs to put together everything to deliver the best results to the user’s query: crawling, indexing, and ranking.
Crawling:
This is the first and foremost step that a search engine takes towards your website. The search engine sends its robots, also known as bots or crawlers or spiders, to your website, which checks the quality and relevance of the content and its linking. There is a reason they are called spiders. This is so because these bots act as a spider does. The only difference is an actual spider catches its prey, whereas the search engine’s spider catches the relevance of the links and content of a website.
Indexing:
In this process, the search engine stores the crawled data in its database. Think of how you store notes of a particular topic in one place so that it would be easy to pick out from them as and when needed. Indexing is just like that.
If the search engine has not found the data useful and relevant while crawling or if a page couldn’t get crawled at all due to any reason, it won’t be indexed by any chance, which means your webpage or website is totally out of the race.
Ranking:
Now, this is the final step where a search engine analyzes and positions the data on the Search Engine Results Page (SERPs) per the user’s query. The ranking goes from the most relevant results (placed or positioned on the top) to the least relevant results.
Major Techniques Of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
There are certain sets of practices under the new age digital SEO that can be broadly categorized into three groups: On-Page SEO, Off-Page SEO, and Technical SEO.
All these techniques are highly differentiated in several aspects yet interdependent. It won’t be wrong to say that all three techniques go hand-in-hand to make an SEO strategy effective. Continue reading to understand the most integral part of the SEO digital marketing approach.
ON-PAGE SEO:
On-Page SEO techniques work on the content of your webpage or website. It considers the quality and distinctiveness of the website content, which makes the content unique together with the efficient placement of keywords, not just in the visible content, but also in the meta-tags, titles, URLs, and anchor text. This is done to make it easy for search engines to crawl the website or webpage.
It is worth mentioning that ‘image alt tags’ also play a crucial role in optimizing the content. This is so because search engines do not read images; they crawl relevant content. Understand it this way, what if you come across something written in a language that is alien to you? Obviously, you need to get it translated into a language you are familiar with. Similarly, search engine algorithms understand the content by considering a number of factors and translating it so that search engines can analyze it to pick out the most relevant answers to the user’s query.
Google Panda Algorithm And Its Effect On Your SEO Digital Marketing Technique
Google Panda is one such major update in the history of theGoogle Algorithm, which contracts the presence of the least relevant, duplicate, and non-authoritative websites or web pages. This was done to deliver the most relevant, qualitative, and authentic results to the user’s query. The ranking of websites that do not stand up to Panda’s set criteria is negatively affected. It’ll not only result in a lower website ranking, but your website will also pass away from the sight of potential customers.
OFF-PAGE SEO:
Any activity done on any other website rather than yours to achieve a higher rank for your website on a SERP is an off-page activity. Link building is a major area that gets worked upon in this particular technique, but it is not limited to it. Off-page SEO digital marketing technique comprises other activities such as forum submission, blog submission, article submission, citations, social bookmarking, guest posting, podcasts, among others.
To understand how digital SEO techniques help in getting a higher SERP rank, you need to understand the working of SEO. But before we proceed, let’s talk about another major Google Algorithm that affects the SEO strategy of your website: the Google Penguin Algorithm.
How Does The Google Penguin Algorithm Affect Your SEO Digital Marketing Technique?
Google Penguin was rolled out to bring down the online presence of the least relevant websites that have tried to acquire top rankings by perplexing Google by creating backlinks that are low in quality and aren’t authorized. These crafty and misleading links manage to get the attention of the search engine in order to increase their Click Through Rate (CTR).
Another trick that some website owners do is keyword stuffing. Placing the target keywords or phrases into a website’s content, whether visible or in meta tags or backlinks of the page in an unnatural or abnormal way, is known as keyword stuffing. This is a spam practice that can get your website penalized. That’s why it is advisable to avoid any unfair practice which can hamper your website’s presence; we’ll discuss it further in this article.
Google Penguin hits such websites by downgrading their ranking, penalizing them, or even banning them. So these corrupt tricks can no longer get you a good website ranking. In fact, the websites which use any such method are at greater risk of losing their authenticity and online presence completely.
TECHNICAL SEO:
Technical SEO takes into account the key technical aspects which make it easy for search engines to crawl, index, and rank your websites. It works around the coding and structuring of a website which is crucial to its functioning. It defines everything starting from how a website will be displayed to how it will work. To perform technical SEO of your website efficiently, you need to take care of every single aspect related to the-
- Sitemaps
- Data Structuring
- Call To Action Buttons
- Security
- Navigation
- Canonical Errors,
- Broken Links (404 error),
- Linking and
- Page Speed
Neglecting the importance of technical SEO can result in your web pages not getting crawled in the first place, which means completely ruining your SEO digital marketing strategy.
Google Page Experience Update- Know The Effect It Has On Your SEO Digital Marketing Technique
Back in June 2021, Google updated its core functionalities with the introduction of its Page Experience Update. This update spots the websites which are user-friendly on both desktop and mobile. It won’t be wrong to say that the update aims to add points to those websites which are competitive enough in terms of loading speed, webpage security, and responsiveness. These factors are of utmost importance when we think of a website that is user-friendly and SEO-friendly.
In order to increase user time on your website, it is necessary to deliver the best user experience along with engaging content; otherwise, all your efforts for enhancing your digital SEO strategy will go in vain. If your website is facing any issues in this regard, make sure to fix them.
Crucial SEO Digital Marketing Strategies to Boost Your Online Business
Search Engine Optimization is important for a digital marketing strategy and it is integral for driving customers to an online business with the help of different platforms. According to the experts of SEO digital marketing, SEO refers to the collection of the best practices and the essential tools to achieve higher website ranks in Google search results.
SEO is essential to drive a huge amount of traffic to the website and relatively more business. However, today, SEO is not confined to the insertion of keywords or search terms to promote your business website. Instead, it requires following the right strategies to boost your online business, as we have discussed in this blog post.
Strategy 1-Analysis of the Target Market
Today, digital SEO is not only grabbing a huge amount of website traffic. Instead, it involves attracting a large number of high-value visitors showing interest in your offerings. Hence, based on the demographics, you have to check the things, your target market search, and the mediums, they use for web searchers.
Simultaneously, you have to check the location of your target market. When you get specific answers, your investment in SEO becomes highly valuable. One of the best ways to start your search work is the use of Google Analytics. This step is very much essential to conduct keyword research at the most advanced level and adopt certain link building strategies.
Strategy 2-Align the SEO Content with User/Search Intent
User intent or search intent is the purpose associated with each of the search queries. Hence, you have to understand and satisfy your search intent to rank your website pages on the first page of Google. There are four different types of contents-
Informational
Informational search in SEO digital marketing occurs when a user searches for some information. This may be a simple search that gives instant results or anything complex, which needs an in-depth explanation.
Commercial
Here the search intent is commercial i.e. a user looks for a specific product, but his or her final decision is still pending. For instance, the best mixer grinders, the best professional cameras, and similar others fall in the category of commercial search.
Navigational
In navigational search, searchers look for a specific application or website. These include Amazon or Facebook login.
Transactional
A transactional search intends is to buy something. This means the searcher has already decided to purchase a particular tool or product. Common examples include buy GK books online, buy groceries online, and many more.
Effective digital SEO practice is to consider, the search intent at the time of developing website content.
Strategy 3-Meta Tags of Your Web Page should be Compelling
The Meta title and Meta description of your web page are the two important Meta tags. According to the rules and norms of SEO digital marketing–
Title Tags
Title tags refer to the clickable headlines, which display in Google search results and are crucial from the perspective of SEO. In other words, Meta titles give users a quick insight into your content of a search result and are relevant to the search query. It is also a valuable piece of information, which decides whether to click on the result.
Hence, you have to use high-quality titles for your web pages. Search engines mainly display the initial 50 characters to 60 characters of a Meta title. Google displays the title to your website until and unless you keep the tag within 60 characters. However, you have to consider a few of the additional practices while writing Title tags, such as-
- The title should match with your search intents
- The title should contain a few of the target keywords
- Strictly avoid writing plagiarized title tags
- Strictly avoid stuffing of keywords
- Make sure to keep the title concise and descriptive both
Meta Descriptions
Meta descriptions are a summary of your web page displayed below the Meta Title tag in the Search Engine Page Results. These descriptions do not influence Google and other search ranks directly, they may influence the click-through rates.
Meta description tags inform and develop an interest in users with a short, informative, and relevant summary of your web page. According to Google, Meta descriptions should contain 150 characters to 160 characters. Hence, you should make sure of providing a proper summary of your description contents. Other than this, you have to follow a few of the practices to write Meta descriptions-
- Make sure to write a unique Meta description for each of your web pages
- Include the target keywords
- Always use action-oriented description copy
- Match your user or search intent
- Include the target keywords
- Give the right summary of your web page in the description
Strategy 4-Optimize the Images in Your Web Pages
Images have vital roles to improve the overall experience of your website visitors. Most of the online business owners spend many hours choosing the right image to place in product pages, blog posts, and other important web pages. However, according to the experts of digital SEO, you should dedicate time to optimize the images on your web pages and website.
When you use this in the right way, your selected images will contribute to the overall SEO of your website and enhance the organic traffic. For this, you should select the best image file format i.e. JPEG or PNG, compress the selected images, lazy-load the images, and choose Alt text for each of the images.
Strategy 5-Optimize the Website Speed
If your website takes a relatively long loading time, you will have many frustrated users, which results in a significant drop in the website rank. To avoid this, you should do the following-
- Compress your selected images
- Delete any of the site’s unnecessary plugins
- Activate web browser caching
- Reduce the numbers of page redirects
- Reduce the response time of your server
- Minify JavaScript and CSS files
Strategy 6–Improve the Overall User Experience on the Website
Google always has a close observation of the behavior of your users with the contents. Hence, user experience is an important factor to improve the search ranks. Hence, you should follow some essential tips to give a good user experience to your website visitors.
- You should always use proper subheadings i.e. H1, H2, and H3 to help Google in understanding the content better and assure you to access the text easily to the readers.
- Visuals always help visitors to understand the contents better and hence, you should always use relevant videos, images, and screenshots to highlight your points.
- Popups annoy your website visitors and are bad from the perspective of digital SEO. Moreover, Google often penalizes websites, which use popups intrusively. Hence, you should always use an exit-intent type of popups and that too use it when it is essential, like to grow the email list.
Strategy 7–Your Website URLs should Contain Keywords
Many times, online business owners overlook the URL structure to conduct SEO activities. According to the experts of SEO digital marketing, a proper URL structure provides search engines and users with an idea of its destination page. Hence, you should keep the URL structure of your website as simple as possible and organize the contents to design URLs logically and intelligible to your users. You should create a properly structured URL as-
- Always create short URLs, as they often outperform long URLs present in the Search Engine Page Results.
- You should remove each of the unnecessary stop works to make the URL appear succinct and clean while removing any stop word.
- You should include the target keywords in your URL to increase the chance of your better ranking in Google search results.
Strategy 8–Aim to Get Authoritative Backlinks
Google always considers backlinks as one of the best ways to allocate ranks to different websites. In other words, it recognizes backlinks to your website as the vote of confidence. If your web page or website has more numbers of backlinks, it will increase your chance to get a high rank in search results. You should focus on creating backlinks to your website.
However, you should keep in mind that not each of the backlinks is the same. A few of them increase your rank for search queries exponentially, while others derail the ranks. Hence, you have to prioritize authoritative backlinks compared to backlinks of any other type.
You have to take steps to create a high quality of backlinks, which will improve your chance to rank higher with your targeted keywords. An effective way to get an authoritative backlink is to replicate the link building strategies of your competitors.
You should select a particular website domain present in the drop-down menu of your website to identify its link building opportunities. Here, the list should include each of the websites, which link to the domain owned by your competitors instead of yours. With this knowledge, you may easily start your campaign to get the most authoritative backlinks of your competitors.
Strategy 9–Make Sure to Publish Long-form Contents
Long-form contents always get better ranks on Google. According to SEO digital marketing, search performance and content length have a strong correlation with each other. Hence, you should always publish thoroughly research and long articles with valuable pieces of information to assist Google users. Google always wants an online business owner to focus on users’ needs. Hence, long contents with proper keywords are the most effective way to entice readers and convert them into users.
Whenever you create long-form content for your blog, you should look for target keywords, which strike a perfect balance between keyword difficulty and total search volume. However, you should choose mid-tail keywords, which have low or medium difficulty level instead of using long-tail keywords to approach the right customers and get the appropriate search volume.
Final Thoughts
So far, we’ve discussed the working procedure of Search Engine Optimization in accordance with a few major Google Algorithms. Also, keep in mind not to use any such tactics that are considered ill-practices or come under the umbrella of Black Hat SEO.
It must be clear now that executing a well-planned SEO digital marketing approach is not just important, but also benefits your website by increasing its organic traffic, enhancing the user experience, and making the website SEO friendly.
If you want your business to stand out in the cutting-edge competitive market by exercising the best SEO strategy, We are always here for you. The experienced team of professionals aims to deliver exceptional results by understanding your requirements. Mind Mingles is a well-established name in the digital marketing industry that has been thriving to deliver the best results to its clients.
Gurleen Kaur is a Content Writer at Mind Mingles. She has presented her work in International Conference On Guru Nanak Dev Ji: Life, Philosophy and Legacy held at Mata Sundri College For Women and was awarded by the title of “Best Paper Presenter” under College Student Category for the same (Dated: 27th and 28th September, 2019) Has a strong grip over creating interesting, unique and informative content pieces for a wide range of niches. Firm believer that words have an impact.
