Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
The first search engines started working in the early 1990s. Some of the most popular search engines at that time were Alta Vista, Yahoo, etc. In the early days, search engines were not unlike an alphabetical list, and sites were ranked alphabetically. As technology improved and the Internet grew, newer search engines emerged that used more sophisticated algorithms to rank sites. Algorithms such as the density of the number of keywords used to measure sites in the ranking, which assigned a rank to that site based on the number of times a keyword was repeated in a content of the site.
Today, search engine algorithms are much more complicated than the above; For example, the Google search engine ranking algorithm has more than 200 criteria for ranking a site, and accordingly, the methods used by SEO engineers have become much more difficult and advanced and require a lot of knowledge, background science, and patience. In fact, SEO is a set of methods for strategically changing websites to get a better ranking in search engine rankings. Search engines are unpredictable by constantly changing their ranking algorithms; Therefore, it is the duty of SEO engineers to keep their information updated in this field.
In fact, SEO helps you both to get a higher position in the natural search results and to connect the user with the maximum number of results related to the searched keywords. As a result, the search engine achieves higher credibility in the eyes of users with the results provided. In general, the uses of SEO can be summarized in a few sentences as follows:
It causes the website to rank higher on the search engine results page.
It has a significant effect on the rate of visits and increasing website traffic.
It will increase sales of products or requests for services.
It creates recognition and awareness about the brand.
Designing and implementing search engine optimization (SEO) procedures is essential, along with other optimization measures. You can access this very important service easily and in the shortest possible time and benefit from its benefits. To find out about the optimization services provided by the ITHMA team, you can visit click here.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
The first search engines (SE: Search Engines) such as Yahoo, Alta Vista, etc. started in the early 1990s. Those early search engines were like lists of sites arranged alphabetically. With the advancement of technology and the growth of the Internet, newer search engines entered the field that used more complex algorithms to rank sites. These algorithms examined factors such as the density of the number of keywords as a site ranking criterion. In fact, based on the number of times a keyword was repeated in a site’s content, a rank was assigned to that site. In the space where this relative progress of the ranking algorithms had confused and confused the site owners, SEO started its activity to make the sites more visible. SEO engineers kept pace with the progress and changes of algorithms, changing their knowledge and methods to influence search engines in the ranking of sites. The more this knowledge and methods were compatible with search engine algorithms, the more the feedback and audience attraction of the site would be.
Today, search engine algorithms are much more complex than you might think; For example, Google’s search engine ranking algorithm checks more than 200 criteria to rank each site. As a result of this complexity, the methods used by SEO engineers have become more difficult and advanced and require a lot of knowledge, background knowledge and more patience. In fact, SEO is a set of methods for changing and strategically optimizing sites to get a better rank in search engine rankings. Search engines are unpredictable by constantly changing their ranking algorithms; Therefore, it is the duty of SEO engineers to keep their information updated in this field.
In fact, SEO helps you both to get a higher position in the natural search results and to connect the user with the maximum number of results related to the searched keywords. In fact, the more correct the ranking is, the easier it is for the user to find search results related to the keywords of his search term. As a result, the search engine achieves higher credibility in the eyes of users by providing the most relevant results. With the increase in the number of online businesses in the digital world, the competition between websites for more visibility is also growing. Meanwhile, SEO is the savior of our digital businesses.
Some people think that site SEO is an easy task and it is possible to do it with a superficial knowledge, but we must say that in search engines, many factors are considered for the ranking of sites, and fulfilling all of them is beyond superficial knowledge. Some of the factors that affect the ranking of the site include the texts used, the speed of the site, the incoming and outgoing links, the proper layout of the site structure, etc.; According to these factors, they are the weapons of SEOs against the complex algorithm of search engines.
Why should we SEO our site?
According to the previous content, the main goal of optimizing the site is to get top rankings from the search engine and display it in the first search results. But depending on your business, you may have a unique purpose for this top ranking. For example, you may have a store site that offers different products, here one of your goals may be SEO and getting top rankings in search results, increasing visits to your site and as a result increasing sales and finally increasing profitability and return on your investment.
In general, the goals of businesses for website SEO can be summarized as follows:
• Improving the ranking of the site in the search engine and thus becoming more reliable for the customer
• Increasing the rate of audience attraction and website traffic
• Introducing the best products and services
• Increasing the conversion rate of visitors to customers and as a result more sales
• Strong branding and reducing the cost of untargeted advertising
Interestingly, the number of users we have attracted due to the good SEO of the site and the activities they perform on our site, in a cycle, affects the SEO itself. For example, the Google search engine, which is one of the most visited, considers a score for the duration of the user’s presence and the activity and participation he does on our site, and by this means, the position of the site will increase again.
Different types of SEO
SEO is divided into two categories based on the type of activity we do to improve and optimize the site, and also depending on whether these activities comply with search engine rules or not. Depending on the type of activity, SEO can be divided into technical, on-page, and off-page SEO, and depending on the legality of the activities, we will categorize it into white hat and black hat SEO, and we will examine all of them below.
What is technical SEO?
Technical SEO is a set of activities that we do in website design and to improve the website’s structure and capabilities. For example, in the early stages of coding to create the main structure of the site, we must keep in mind that the site must be user-friendly in the first place. Or the selection of the host, uploaded images, etc., should be in such a way that we can have a site with the highest possible speed.
What is On Page SEO?
On-page SEO is a set of control activities in the field of internal site linking, written and visual content of your website; In general, everything you upload on your site is related to On Page SEO.
What is Off Page SEO?
Unlike the On Page SEO method, which directly controls the development of the site, the off-page optimization method includes all the activities that are carried out outside your website, and it can be said that it does not have a direct impact on the site itself and its structure and other factors; In Off Page SEO, we primarily focus on getting sites that can direct visitors to our site (in fact, sites that use our links in their environment to introduce us to visitors); Then we will optimize the search engine by using the methods that are done outside the site.
What is White Hat SEO?
If you use a set of techniques, methods and strategies that follow the rules and guidelines of search engines in the SEO process of your site, you have actually implemented white hat SEO. This type of SEO in no way means deceiving or manipulating search engines or users. White hat SEO is also referred to as ethical SEO.
What is Black Hat SEO?
Black hat SEO refers to a set of instructions that deceive, game and manipulate its algorithms in order to get a high ranking in the search engine. It is important to know that these methods are unethical and are not approved by any search engine, and using these methods carries the risk of being removed from the database list forever and is not recommended in any way. The results of this method is a sudden growth in the ranking, but it has consequences such as a penalty or complete removal from the search engine database list. Don’t forget about it!
How to SEO your site in the best way?
As we explained above, SEO has different types, each of which has a different scope of implementation, but for the best possible optimization, you must have knowledge of all of them and implement all of them. Next, we will examine the types of SEO and how to implement them.
1- Technical SEO
Technical SEO is the most technical part of SEO, and if you can learn its techniques and implement them correctly, or trust consultants and experts in this field, you have taken the first step in your SEO site with strength. In the following, we will examine the important factors in this type of SEO:
A) Optimizing the site structure
The structure of the site has a profound effect on the SEO of the site as well as the topic of user experience (UX), so paying basic attention to it can be very useful. The structure of our site should have a completely simple and understandable appearance and format, and in fact, the application should be able to communicate with it and use it easily. In the term, they say that the structure of the site should be user-friendly and the user can easily and quickly navigate through the pages of the site. These measures are completely aimed at meeting the needs and achieving the goals of the user.
In addition to the structural discussions and the design of the site itself, the discussion of the content structure and theme is also very important. For the best visibility of the site and the complete coordination of its structure with the contents that will be loaded later, think about your theme and content program and create the necessary categories based on that. This coordination allows the user to easily achieve the desired results.
b) Improving site speed
The speed of the site is one of the important factors in the ranking by the search engine as well as the rating of the users. Speed is so important that if all other factors are the same among two sites and only one of them has a slightly higher speed, the search engine will consider a much higher ranking for that site and users will also communicate more effectively with it. . Among the solutions that you can use to improve the speed of the site, you can mention the use of a suitable template for the site, images with a small size, high-quality hosting and optimized content.
c) Making the site mobile friendly and responsive
Since mobiles are at the forefront of today’s digital and smart world and have an incredible reach around the world, you should consider the possibility that your user only has one mobile. For this reason, you should design your site environment in such a way that they are so-called mobile friendly and fall into the category of responsive sites. Search engine algorithms say that such a site is definitely more up-to-date and useful than others, and a higher rank is considered for it.
d) improving site security and maintaining user information
Site security is very important for both search engines and users. Especially store sites that request more security information from the user. One of the factors affecting site security is the use of SSL protocols. If your site is not available with the HTTPS extension, you should ask your hosting company to help you activate it.
e) Creation of robots.txt file
f) Creating a site map
2- Internal SEO (Seo On Page)
A) Optimizing site images
As mentioned earlier, site image files should be small in size and have a suitable name. Using features like alt text makes a serious difference in site optimization.
b) Internal linking
Another important factor in internal SEO is internal linking and communication between internal pages of the site.
Internal linking in addition to helping users navigate to other pages of your site; It also helps search engines to visit different pages of your site.
Remember, any page of your site that does not have an internal link is considered a dead page and may be removed from Google’s results after some time. So on each page of your website, link to other related pages.
The internal SEO of the site does not include these 3-4 items and is very broad. But we tried to check the important things that can be implemented for you.
c) Production of high-quality content
This part of the actions is so important that if done correctly, it alone will go a third of the way to optimizing your site. Since these actions are easier than others and at the same time contribute a lot to optimization, then you can easily achieve brilliant results with the simple techniques that we introduce below. A series of analysis research about some things like keywords and then producing targeted content can give you a high rank in the search engine.
Some important factors that should be considered in content creation and actually content SEO are:
• Analyze keywords and use them in your texts.
• Search engines love order! So have a regular content plan.
• Don’t be repetitive and clichéd!
• Don’t forget the heading (H) tags.
Correct and optimized URLs work wonders.
• SEO even the text.
Correct and principled selection of key words and phrases is one of the most important factors of targeted content production. Users can get to know your site by using these keywords. These words are completely related to your industry, but if you are just starting out, you should know that it is more effective to focus on low-competition keywords. For example, if you have a website that sells clothes, it’s better to focus on “buy stylish women’s dresses” instead of using “buy prom dresses”.
You can find these words in different ways and use them for your texts. One of the most exciting ways is Google’s suggestions. You can have a list of related words by typing the desired keyword and pressing the space key. In addition, you can use tools such as MOZ, Kwfinder, Keywordtool, etc.
Since search engines love order, you can satisfy them and rank well by setting up a simple schedule for producing and uploading your content. This tip will be uproarious for newly established sites. Google keeps new establishments in an environment called a sandbox to make sure they behave in accordance with the rules and also adhere to SEO. You should be able to prove yourself to Google by regularly sharing your content and get out of the sandbox.
One of the negative points of SEO from the point of view of search engines is having duplicate content. After that, avoid repetition. H heading tags indicate the value of words and have a value from 1 to 6 (H1, H2, …, H6). The value of the H1 tag is the highest and should be used only once on the site. Use the H2 tag for high-value internal page titles. You can also use the H3 tag for subheadings and proceed to the sixth tag.
Using correct urls or page addresses can be of great value in SEO. You should say not to use irrelevant words in URLs and pay more attention to its descriptive value. Your URLs should not be too long and must not be written in English.
Many plugins are used in content SEO. For example, you can use Yoast SEO plugin at the bottom of the WordPress site editor and improve content SEO. In this plugin, you can control the main keywords of the text, titles and meta descriptions (the descriptions that come after the title tag in the search engine results) for the desired page, etc.
3- External SEO (Seo Off Page)
Unlike internal SEO, where we focus our energy on the site itself and its capabilities, content, and all things related to our site, in external SEO we focus on actions that happen outside of the site. In external SEO, we try to introduce ourselves and our brand with the help of link building and getting links from other sites and send visitors to our site. In the following, we will mention some necessary measures in this field.
• Creating a strong backlink network
• Backlink purchase and ad reporting
• Activity in various social media in a targeted manner
• Interaction and communication through comments on related blogs
• Activity in forums and question and answer sites
