Define SEO

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. SEO is a free, natural, and organic process to increase the visibility of a web page or a website on search engine result page (SERP) on certain keywords. It includes Desiging, Coding, and Links. Common search engines are Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask, DuckDuckGo, Baidu, Yandex etc. In India, 70% to 80% internet users uses Google as Search Engine.

SEO Benefits:

SEO improves the volume and quality of traffic to a website from search engines.
Cost Effectiveness: SEO is one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies because it targets users who are actively looking for your products and services online.
Long-term Impact: The results of an effective search engine optimization can be long lasting. The website can remain on top of the search engine result pages even after you stop campaigning.
Convert a local business into Global Business.
Brand Awareness, people trust Google: The more your pages and content rank in high positions in the search engines, the more chances you have for users to see your content and associate with your brand.

Search Engine Crawlers

The leading search engines, such as Google, Bing and Yahoo, use crawlers (also known as Spider) to fetch all the web pages linked to a website. Search engine crawlers may look at a number of different factors when crawling a website. Not every page is indexed by the search engines. Distance of pages from the root directory of a site may also be a factor in whether or not pages get crawled.

Indexer

Indexing is a process of creating an index of all the fetched web pages and keeping them into a giant database from where it can be retrieved. Crawler does not read sitemap in .html, .txt, or other format, it reads sitemap only in .xml format.

Ranking Algorithm

The Google Search Algorithm refers to the process to rank content. It takes hundreds of factors, including keyword mentions, usability, and backlinks.

Fig: Working of Crawler, Indexer

Types of SEO

White Hat SEO
Black Hat SEO
Grey Hat SEO

White Hat SEO: is considered as Ethical and Organic SEO. In White Hat SEO, we follow all guidelines of Search Engines. White Hat SEO is a slow process, but it provides Long-Lasting growth in ranking. Techniques that search engines recommend as part of a good design and follow the Google Webmasters guidelines. Techniques used in White Hat SEO are On-Page SEO, Off-Page SEO.

Black Hat SEO: is considered as Un-Ethical SEO. In Black Hat SEO, we do not follow guidelines of any Search Engines. Black Hat SEO provides Quick, unpredictable and Short-Lasting growth in ranking. It is recommended not to use Black Hat SEO because Search Engines may add your web site in Black List. Techniques used in Black Hat SEO are link spam, keyword stuffing, cloaking, hidden links, hidden text.

Grey Hat SEO: is a combination of White Hat SEO and Black Hat SEO. In Grey hat SEO, 95% White Hat SEO is used and 5% Black Hat SEO is used. It is recommended not to use Grey Hat SEO in initial level.

White Hat SEO features:

Follow Google webmaster guidelines.
It ensures that the content a search engine indexes, and subsequently ranks, is the same content a user will see.
It ensures good quality of the web pages.
Keywords density.
Proper unique pages title, description, keywords.

Black Hat techniques:

Redirecting users to a page that was different from the page the search engine ranked.
Keyword Stuffing: Repeating keywords in the meta tags and using keywords that are unrelated to the website content.
Calculated placement of keywords within a page to raise the keyword count, variety and density of the page.
Creating low quality web pages that contain very little content, but are instead stuffed with very similar keywords and phrases. These pages are called doorway or Gateway Pages.
Mirror website hosted on multiple websites - all with conceptually similar content, but using different URL's.
Link Spamming, Cloaking, Hidden links, Hidden text