What is SEO? SEO or Search Engine Optimization is one of the many methods of search engine marketing (SEM) that primarily targets the market coming from search engines. According to professionals, SEO is considered as one of the most successful forms of SEM particularly because people that use the internet typically starts off by using search engines. Commonly, people using search engines to search the web for specific information visits those sites ranked as first to tenth place. The SEO's job is take a website (or multiple websites) to the first page of search engine results (first to tenth place) by use of optimized keywords for that website. Let's take for example a website that offers SEO in the Philippines. SEO would use keywords such as "cheap SEO Philippines" or "SEO Philippines services" to target specific users that searches for cheaper SEO services in the Phiippines or those people simply looking for SEO in the Philippines. The process in which the keywords are optimized is then divided into 2 parts, on-page and off-page SEO.
On-Page SEO
On-page SEO typically involves methods used inside the website. There are several methods used to optimize a website for search engines. These involves changes in the structure of the website including codes and content (text and images). Changes within the codes are as follows:
The use of Meta Tags such as the Meta Title, Meta Description, and Meta Keywords.
The use of Alt Tags in image codes. (Example: <img src"SEOphoto1.jpg" alt"SEO Philippines">)
The use of Title Tags in links. (Example: <a href"
http://www.SEOPhil.com/services" title"SEO Philippines services">)
The use of heading tags such as <h1></h1> rather than the use of tags. This is to make it easier for search engine spiders to quickly crawl through the codes.
Optimizing the URL. This done by removing the !?@#$% symbols and replacing it with their optimized keywords.
Other than the codes, on-page SEO also involves changes within the content of the website, particularly with the Texts. The optimized keyword or keywords should be present within all the pages of a website, particularly with the headings and BOLDED letters. The word "Click Here" or "Read More" should also be replaced with those that includes their optimized keywords. Though people reading it could understand what it means, search engine spiders doesn't. Sitemaps are also important not only to make it easier for visitors to navigate through the website, but also to make it easier for search engine spiders to navigate through the website.
Off-Page SEO
Off-page optimization (off-page SEO) are strategies for search engine optimization that are done off the pages of a website to maximize its performance in the search engines for target keywords related to the page content. Examples of off-page optimization include linking, and placing keywords within link anchor text. Methods of obtaining links can also be considered off-page optimization. These include:
Press releases
Article distribution
Social networking via sites like Digg and Slashdot
Link campaigns, such as asking complementary businesses to provide links
Directory listings
Link exchanges
Three-way linking
One-way linking
Blogging
Forum posting
Multiway linking
White Hat and Black Hat SEO
SEO techniques can be classified into two broad categories: techniques that search engines recommend as part of good design, and those techniques of which search engines do not approve. The search engines attempt to minimize the effect of the latter, among them spamdexing. Some industry commentators have classified these methods, and the practitioners who employ them, as either white hat SEO, or black hat SEO.
White hats tend to produce results that last a long time, whereas black hats anticipate that their sites may eventually be banned either temporarily or permanently once the search engines discover what they are doing. Techniques mention earlier are considered as white hat. But when used abusively, which usually violates the guidelines set by search engine, it can be classified as black hat. Black hat SEO techniques involves:
Content Spam
These techniques involve altering the logical view that a search engine has over the page's contents. They all aim at variants of the vector space model for information retrieval on text collections. These techniques involves:
Keyword Stuffing: This involves the calculated placement of keywords within a page to raise the keyword count, variety, and density of the page.
Hidden or invisible unrelated text: Disguising keywords and phrases by making them the same color as the background, using a tiny font size, or hiding them within HTML code such as "no frame" sections, ALT attributes, zero-width/height DIVs, and "no script" sections.
Meta tag stuffing: Repeating keywords in the Meta tags, and using meta keywords that are unrelated to the site's content. This tactic has been ineffective since 2005.
Link Spam
Link spam takes advantage of link-based ranking algorithms, such as Google's PageRank algorithm, which gives a higher ranking to a website the more other highly ranked websites link to it. These techniques also aim at influencing other link-based ranking techniques such as the HITS algorithm. These techniques involves:
Link farms: Involves creating tightly-knit communities of pages referencing each other, also known humorously as mutual admiration societies.
Spam blogs: Spam blogs, also known as splogs, are fake blogs created solely for spamming. They are similar in nature to link farms.
Hidden Links: Putting links where visitors will not see them in order to increase link popularity. Highlighted link text can help rank a webpage higher for matching that phrase.Visit
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