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Many new bloggers who are not too familiar with internet technologies might have a question – “what is SEO and how it can help me drive traffic to my blog?”. Well, I will try to give an answer to this question in this article and show you, how you can learn SEO technologies by yourself in no time.
What is SEO?
SEO “Search Engine Optimization” is a technology that helps you get visitors to your website from search engines like Google, Bing, or Yahoo.
The idea behind this is to optimize your site with social media presence using links, from other sites, to obtain links from search engines.
These links are called – rankings, they are the ones promoting your site and showing it to as many people as possible. The more people will see your link, the more will click on it and visit your site, isn’t it?
How do search engines work?
When you type any request in a Google search box, you get a list with links to different websites related to your search query. But do you know how they make their lists and why one site is ranked higher, but other sites lower?
Well, the answer is because Google tries to rank sites by the relevancy and quality against your search query. But because its ranked by a machine, Google uses special rules, called – ranking factors, to determine which page is more relevant to your question and most likely will answer it in the best way, and which ones are less relevant and need to be shown in lower positions.
When you go through results of your search you probably have realized, the highest results not always mean they have the best answer to your question, they just have the best technical optimization for their site related to your query.
Learning Search Engine Optimization.
First you need to know the rules of the game, right? Please read about actual Google ranking factors in 2019, which will give you better understanding. I consistently update this list to keep it genuine as much as possible. It is a good idea to check it out for updates time to time.
White Hat SEO
Black Hat SEO
Grey Hat SEO
Grey Hat SEO are mix of White Hat and Black Hat technologies. Like in life, no one is only good or bad all the times.
This technology mostly uses White Hat methods, but time by time add some Black Hat as well to do things faster. These methods mostly are done for SEO Pros because you need to know how much you can use Black Hat to avoid being cached from Google and that involves a very deep understanding of Google algorithms and timeframe for Google updates.
What’s under the Hat?
Off-page SEO instead is a system of methods to optimize your rankings outside your site. It can involve link building, social media marketing, and branding.
This part can become harder because if you will make a mistake, (post a link or publish a post in another blog), you might not be able to correct it, due to restricted access. The best way how to avoid this is to create a step by step plan for your off-page SEO and stick with it.
In his blog NeilPatel.com, he writes:
“Let’s say you have a house with a garden in the front yard and a little pathway that leads through your front yard to your home.
Imagine these two scenarios:
Scenario #1: Your house is super clean on the inside, but your front yard is a mess.
What happens in this scenario?
Well, even if you have the cleanest Mary Poppins-style house on the inside, if your garden looks like the forest from Sleeping Beauty, no one will come into your home in the first place.
It’s the same if you haven’t optimized your page around on-page SEO. It may have great content and look stunning, but no one will ever see your beautiful masterpiece because you won’t get any traffic.
What about the other way around?
Scenario #2: You have neatly trimmed your lawn, but the inside of your house is a mess.
Turn things around, and they look similar: Having a beautiful lawn will attract plenty of people to come to visit your house, but if your living room reminds your guests of a war zone, they’ll leave quicker than you can pronounce SEO.”
Ready to go deeper?
Best resources where to learn SEO in deep.
SEO forums.
Best SEO related blogs
Very useful source about different topics in Search Engine Optimization.
If you like that article or think it can help someone to rank their sites better, please share it.
Or if you have some questions, please drop a line into comment box below. I will personally answer to all relevant comments.
