So, what exactly is SEO?
SEO helps search engines (think Google, Yahoo, Bing) determine what a site is all about. It defines the rank any website gets when competing with other sites and, those who use the available techniques the best, receive the benefit of visibility and quality traffic. Keep in mind, although each search engine has its own top secret algorithm that changes constantly, the concepts below apply to them all.What are the ranking factors?
In order to list the sites by relevance, search engines use ranking factors to establish their preferred sites. These determine which site is displayed before the rest. And no page will rank high if it doesn’t have several SEO techniques in place. Sure, the content might be amazing, but if it hasn’t been updated in ages chances are it’ll be at the bottom of the list.| Onsite | ||||
| Onsite are those that happen on the site itself and can therefore be controlled entirely. | ||||
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Commonly used techniques in detail
Keywords are the key
For any page to rank, the right keywords must be used in the content and HTML. This is how search engines can deliver web traffic to suitable pages. And we are not just talking quantity but, more importantly, quality.
Content is king

What boosts page ranking?
Having quality content,
using the right keywords,
adding more pages,
optimising your HTML code,
getting backlinks and being
an active member
of
social media sites.
Although it might sound obvious, the SEO foundation is good and
relevant content. If all other factors are in place but people are not
interested in the shared content, all efforts are in vain. By producing
quality content and adding real value, people are inclined to remain on
pages and not jump to other sites. This is what makes a site useful and
unique.
Having quality content,
using the right keywords,
adding more pages,
optimising your HTML code,
getting backlinks and being
an active member of
social media sites.
Fresh content
Content is crucial but keeping it updated is just as important. Search engines can pick up any changes made to a website. So, if these changes are frequent, involve the creation of new pages or impact important areas of the site, these are likely to improve site visibility.HTML code optimisation
Search engines read the underlying HTML code on all websites to determine the site structure . Although this is not an extensive list, here are some of them:- Title tag: Descriptive page titles are search engine favorites, specially if they are heavily related to the content of the page and the keywords.
- Header tags: When content has the right structure it is most likely to be picked up by a search engine. This is where headers (h1, h2, etc.) come in place. This helps search engines understand the key sections of a web page.
- Image alt attribute: Search engines can’t see images as we do, so the words used within this attribute should be text equivalent of what the image is trying to convey.
Breadcrumbs
Sure, breadcrumbs allow users to navigate the site easily, but they also help search engines to determine the structure of a site.XML sitemaps
These sitemaps provide the URLs of the pages the make the structure of the site. These are favourites among search engines since they are a standard machine readable format.Short page links
Most pages use friendly URLs not only to appeal to users but also because of SEO. Search engines are more likely to go for pages with shorter and descriptive URLs over other relevant results with longer and less descriptive links.Backlinks
Important people are measured by the amount of people who look up to them, right? Well, search engines apply this concept by counting the links to a website from other sites to establish the trustworthiness of it. Yet, not all links are counted equally. If a backlink comes from a respected site then it’s considered better and thus gives more points to the website getting that link back.Social media
Just as it happens with links, getting shares in social media sites improves SEO. This is why any site should consider having a Facebook page, a Twitter account, a LinkedIn profile or even better, all of them. And just as I mentioned before, freshness matters. It’s not just setting up a profile, it’s the interaction with others that improve visibility.














































































