SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” In simple terms, it means the process of improving your site to increase its visibility when people search for products or services related to your business in Google, Bing, and other search engines.
SEO helps in generating site’s traffic naturally. Online consumers are more likely to select one of the first 10 results from a search engine while looking for a service or product.
There are about 12 different types of SEO that help websites to rank better on search engine result pages.
White-Hat SEO: White hat SEO is the body of approved search engine optimization tactics designed to increase a website's position on a search engine results page (SERP).
White-hat SEO practices are the best way to create a successful website. Here are a few white-SEO practices that you must follow strictly:
Use keyword-rich, descriptive meta-tags
Provide quality services and content to the website’s visitors
Make your website easy to navigate
Fast site loading times and mobile-friendliness
Black-Hat SEO: "Black hat SEO is a practice against search engine guidelines, used to get a site ranking higher in search results. These unethical tactics don’t solve for the searcher and often end in a penalty from search engines. Black hat techniques include keyword stuffing, cloaking, and using private link networks. "The dark art of black hat SEO is the wrong way. Black hat SEO seeks to game search engine algorithms, rather than solve for the user. Instead of earning the right to rank highly on search engine results pages black hat SEO uses shady tactics to get you there. Sustained use of black hat SEO techniques is likely to damage your presence in search engines rather than improve it.
Gray-Hat SEO: Generally speaking, grey hat SEO is the practice of using techniques that are not strictly against Google’s guidelines but perhaps a little outside what would be considered best practice.
For example, getting a backlink from an authority site is something that Google encourages. However, in order to get one of these, you may have to send that website a request through their contact form and wait for them to reply. This can still be considered grey hat because you’re not sending them a link through the Google Search Console.
On-Page SEO: On-page SEO (also known as on-site SEO) refers to the practice of optimizing webpages to improve a website’s search engine rankings and earn organic traffic.
In addition to publishing relevant, high-quality content, on-page SEO includes optimizing your headlines, HTML tags (title, meta, and header), and images. It also means making sure your website has a high level of expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.
On-page SEO is important because it helps search engines understand your website and its content, as well as identify whether it is relevant to a searcher’s query.
Off-Page SEO: "Off-page SEO" (also called "off-site SEO") refers to actions taken outside of your own website to impact your rankings within search engine results pages (SERPs). Along with on-page SEO, these include several of the factors of basic SEO that help a site to rank.
In the past, many used “off-page SEO” and “link building” interchangeably, but in reality, there are many off-page SEO tactics you can use, including:
brand building
citation building
content marketing
social media, and more.
These tactics help both search engines and users better understand your website and increase your site’s authority, trust, and relevance.
Think of it like this:
Your website = on-page SEO
Another site or platform = off-page SEO
Technical SEO: Technical SEO refers to website and server optimizations that help search engine spiders crawl and index your site more effectively (to help improve organic rankings). The primary goal of technical SEO is to assist Google's bots in successfully crawling, interpreting, and indexing your website's pages. For example, creating an extensive XML sitemap and making your site mobile-friendly are only some tactics used to help web spiders filter and categorize your pages based on their content. For more information, see our post on technical SEO.
International SEO: International SEO improves your website's organic traffic from different areas and languages. If you want to succeed at international SEO, you must cater to your target market's cultural context and allow them to make transactions in their currency and language. Use the right format for dates and times based on where they are listed. If they have any worries, they will converse in their native tongue. International SEO aims to create a good online experience for your target audience.
Local SEO: Local SEO is a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy that helps your business be more visible in local search results on Google. Local SEO helps businesses reach the local audience by analyzing their behavior through trillions of searches. If you use local SEO practices, then your local business has the opportunity to rank higher in the search results and in the local map pack at the same time.
Ecommerce SEO: "Ecommerce SEO" is the process of making your online store more visible in the search engine results pages (SERPs). When people search for products that you sell, you want to rank as highly as possible so you get more traffic. It’s important to have your website appear in the SERPs; else, you’ll lose critical access to potential and qualified e-commerce customers. If the competitors' research, focus on homepage SEO, and website architect ring are done right, then ecommerce SEO can optimize your website to bring traffic and increase search volumes.
However, you don’t want to forget about static, non-product-oriented pages on your site, such as the following:
Homepage
About page
F.A.Q. page
Blog articles
Help center answers
Contact page
Content SEO: Another name in the list of types of SEO is content SEO. Content SEO refers to creating content that helps your web pages rank highly in the search engines. It includes everything to do with the writing and structuring of content on your website. Content SEO is important because search engines, such as Google, read your website, so the words you use on your site determine whether or not your site will rank in their results pages.
Mobile SEO: Mobile SEO refers to the search engine optimization of websites combined with flawless viewing on mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets. If a customer has a bad experience with a brand on their mobile phone, they may never return. If you want your clients to have the best possible experience, you need to apply this type of search engine optimization. It's important to ensure that your site's style, structure, and page speed don't make mobile users change their minds.
Negative SEO: Negative SEO is an abhorrent and unethical sort of SEO practised today. The goal of negative SEO is to lower your competitors' search rankings so that you can overtake them or gain an advantage over them. Bad SEO techniques include breaking into someone's site and creating a suspiciously large number of low-quality links to it and publishing negative feedback or reviews about them on numerous internet forums and discussion boards, etc. A person caught doing bad SEO can lead to a variety of legal issues.