The 4 Types of SEO: How to Boost Your Website Traffic?

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is a technique to rank your website on top of the search results. To many, this may seem like a simple tactic. However, there are many layers to the entire concept. It is an effective application of all the SEO strategies that ensure a significant improvement in a brand’s online traction.

Not only that, but even SEO has also more than one type, and each has its own strategy. Newbies often get confused about which SEO type they must employ to boost their website’s chances. It is only with extensive SEO practice that one can identify the various forms of SEO and explore their potential.

Let us have a look at four main types of SEO and how you can use it to make your website succeed.

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

Let me first explain the concept of SEO. This technique helps companies improve their website so it figures on top of search engine results pages. Normally these results come up when a customer searches for:

Products you are selling
Services you are providing
Insightful information on the topics of your expertise

The better visibility you receive in the search results, the more your chances of getting customers to convert. In the end, the goal of SEO is to attract customers, clients, or readers to your website.

This is followed by them moving ahead in the purchase cycle and choosing a product. Not only that, but they would also keep coming back for further purchases, ensuring brand loyalty.

Some typical strategies that help in improving a brand’s SEO are:

Optimizing existing content on your site
Structure relevant content and add the right keywords
Get backlinks from high-authority websites
Optimize images for image SEO
Track all the metrics with Google Analytics
Check if the website is responsive
Improvement of the Local SEO
SEO involves reducing load times

Why is SEO important for Your Website?

In simple words, SEO helps multiply your online visibility. More people reach your website, and some may convert. In digital marketing, this means increased sales and revenue. Apart from that, SEO also helps in establishing your brand as trustworthy and gets customers that stay for the long term. Some other reasons why SEO is important are:

Visibility And Rankings: When a user searches for a product, he would most likely be one of the top 5 search results. With SEO, you are able to get your website search rankings up and generate high visibility as well.
Web Traffic: That you are on top of the search results is more than just a benefit to the visibility. If the search engines give you a high position, it builds the customer’s trust in you.
User Experience: An SEO-optimized website shows what the main product or service is. It shows how to obtain the product and answers any other queries. When you work on the website, you make it easy for customers to navigate around. With an easy-to-use interface, the chances of them coming back remains high.
Growth: The higher rank you receive, the more organic web traffic you are going to receive. This traffic to your site converts and garners the valuable sales required. Once sales increase, the growth of the brand remains on an upward trajectory.

4 Types of SEO Your Website Needs to Drive Traffic And Leads

SEO is one, not a simple, practice that you can employ and receive results. It is multi-layered, and various types of SEO services boost your visibility in different ways. Moving on, we will now study the different types of SEO plans and good SEO practices.

On-page SEO

As the name itself indicates is the procedure of optimizing parts of the web pages. This type of SEO is done to rank high in search engines and draw organic traffic to the website. Search engines look at the keywords and other on-page tactics you have used to see if your page matches what the customer is looking for.

Once the search engine realizes your intent, it will figure your website on top of the results. Basically, Google pays attention to the on-page SEO signs when ranking the pages. Google modifies its algorithm regularly. Even then, the main focus is to improve user experience and prioritize content that is meaningful.

By using on-page SEO tactics, you ensure your website appears trustworthy, authoritative, and worth going to. Though Google pays attention to your keywords, you cannot repeat them. Focus on writing content that perfectly answers the search query. Neither can you forcefully insert them in places, thus spoiling the site ranking.

Off-page SEO

Off-page SEO, on the other side, includes efforts you make off the main website. This includes creating backlinks, guest posting, etc. The overall aim of this type of SEO is to build a website’s reputation. Off-page, SEO tells Google what people think of your website. For instance, if you have nurtured links on high DA websites that draw people to your website, it implies you have content that would impress.

People tend to share content if they feel it is useful. Google pays a lot of attention to external links, and if you do not have any links, the website is redundant for it. Usually, in off-page SEO, there are three main types of links that Google notices.

Organic Links: These are links given without the website owner’s knowledge. For instance, a travel influencer talks about a resort and links its website as part of content marketing.
Manually built: The manual links are deliberate efforts to get links like influencers linking to your website.
Self-created Links: The self-created links are when you add a backlink in a forum, directory, or any other resource. An anchor text is used to nurture the link further.

Data is taken from SEO Statistics 2023

Technical SEO

Technical SEO is multi-faceted. It includes optimizing the website for search engines. Alongside technical SEO focuses on indulging in activities that improve user experience. A page ranks on top only when it is easy to load and navigate through. The slow speed of website loading deters a lot of users from coming back to it.

Apart from that mobile-friendliness of a website is integral to getting search results to notice you. A majority of users search through their mobiles. If your website is unable to adapt to the same, chances are the users would lose interest.

Local SEO

In digital marketing, a company expects some sort of response from local customers. Therefore, Local SEO is a type of SEO where efforts to make your website rank when customers search for specific locations. It includes optimizing your Google business profile, finding local keywords (e.g., a fitness trainer in Wilmington, etc.)

Did you know? 30% of mobile searches are related to the location of the person.

The local search algorithm for Google uses the following three factors to help find a suitable match:

Relevance: How close a result is your website to the keywords searched as per digital marketing norms?
Distance: How far is your business from the area searched
Prominence: How important Google perceives you in comparison to your competitors.

There are two types of search results in Local SEO.

Organic results: Normal blue links search results that appear when a customer searches a location in their keyword.
Local pack: This is a feature where top results are shown along with a map of the area.

The other types of SEO will include International SEO which will be useful if you operate an E-commerce store. In such cases use Ecommerce SEO to sell your digital products and services to a global audience.

How to Do SEO The Correct Way – Detailed Guide

SEO refers to a very wide field, and the above four types of SEO have to be continuously worked upon. Ignoring SEO is like taking away the chances of your website ever succeeding. Here are some ways to build different types of SEO.

On-page SEO Strategy

Keyword research

Keyword research is the trick of figuring out which keywords the customers search for when they are looking for your product. The insightful information you find can be used to formulate your content and SEO marketing strategy.

When people look for products or services, they tend to use keywords. Use the following techniques of on-page or on-site SEO to get noticed:

Insert similar keywords in your content
Avoid overstuffing of keywords as Google penalizes such content, and this is negative SEO
Use Google keyword planner and find the required keywords
Prioritize good keywords that have a better chance of ranking
Check monthly search volume for the keywords

Google search intent

Simply put, Google search intent is the purpose for which the search was conducted. What does the person trying to find through his search? Does he only want some informational content related to the product? Google’s algorithm tries its best to match the user’s intent with the results provided. To optimize your website and match it with Google search intent, do the following:

Optimize your pages for commercially driven intent
Create short surveys and ask the audience their intention behind looking for a product
Study SERP and find out how customers are searching for products related to your niche
Give a title and meta description to your article such that it matches the search intent

SERP and competitor gap analysis

The search engine page holds the key to your success. SERP analysis involves evaluating the top results on the search engine page. This information can help in identifying competitors’ SEO strategies and the relevance of your keyword. Use the following tricks of on-page SEO to do SERP analysis effectively:

Keyword research and identification of relevant keywords
Find out competitors’ SEO performance and look for ways to beat them
Look for details like Keyword difficulty, domain authority, page authority, citation flow, trust flow, etc.
Optimize website content for SERP features
Try and replicate competitors’ backlinks for your website

Semantic keywords

These are keywords that are related conceptually to the main keyword. Search engines use them to understand your page content. Google’s algorithm is much smarter these days. It needs more proof that your page is about the main keyword. That is why adding additional keywords is done so Google gets convinced about the quality of the piece of content. You can find semantic keywords using SEO optimization tools.

Find out keyword clusters that have a similar meaning as your original keyword.
Increase the length of content and explain the topic in an in-depth manner
Include as many synonyms and related terms as you can
Answer common questions related to that product
Use of content optimizer tools to identify semantic keywords

Competitor gap analysis is a subset of on-page SEO that helps find out the results you are getting and what you were expecting to get. Here you understand your competitor’s strengths and weaknesses and use them to boost your growth.

Internal linking

Internal links in on-page SEO are when you link one page of your website to another page through keywords. Customers use these links to move ahead in their sales process. These links lead Google to your website and identify which other pages are related to the main page. Internal linking is done for the following reasons:

Assist in website navigation
Identifies the hierarchy and architecture of a website
Distributes page authority throughout the website
Some ways to use internal linking are:
Create lots of great content, so there are always links to add to any content
Use only links that are relevant to the content written.
Add links naturally so it does not appear like a forced insertion
Use anchor text to link the page
Find out keywords that would rank high

Off-page SEO Strategy

Linking building

External link building in off-page SEO, having your online presence on other websites through keywords. The customers would click on that link and reach your website. Eventually, they may end up completing a purchase. Google bots look for your traces all over the internet. Only then would they grant a ranking to your website. By associating with high-authority websites, you increase your online credibility. This Seo includes the following tactics:

White Hat SEO – This popular off-page SEO is an ethical way to increase the site’s SERP rankings. Some standard white-hat SEO techniques that are useful in SEO services are quality content, using content-related keywords, keyword-rich page titles, metadata, inbound links, fast page loading times, etc.
Black Hat SEO – On the other hand, black-hat SEO techniques would get you rankings but are unethical. These include keyword stuffing, link farming, and publishing bad content. Black hat techniques should be avoidable for long-term business success.
Grey Hat SEO – This is a combination of both white and black hat SEO techniques, and that is why the name. Common tactics used here are careful keyword stuffing, buying old domains, having many social media accounts, buying links, etc.

Guest posting

Guest posting is publishing your content on another related website. There you can also add keywords and link your website through them. It is useful to build your brand reputation and get more followers. To do guest posting kind of SEO, you must first:

Find guest posting prospects– Sites with high authority, published guest posts, and similar niches would be helpful.
Look for websites that allow guest posting
Develop SEO factor guest post ideas
Contact the prospects with your idea and request to publish
Wait for the response
If in the positive, get the guest post published and promote and share it

Link audits

A link audit is the off-page SEO process of analyzing all the links that point to your website. This will assist in determining if that particular link is optimized enough to boost your site rankings. You can use the following resources to conduct an audit:

Google search console offers link data
Analyze the links for anchor text usage, IP address, page content, trust flow, and citation flow.
Removal of any negative or spam SEO
Start identifying better opportunities for link-building and SEO optimization.

Creating linkable assets

Lastly, you can add linkable assets to your website. These are essentially content pieces created with the objective of getting more links. Some examples of linkable assets can be:

Templates
Calculators
Quizzes
Infographic
Studies and research
Guides and tutorials
Coined terms

Technical SEO Strategy

Page speed

The loading speed of your page is a major ranking factor for both desktop and mobile SEO versions. Use Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool to get an idea of your site’s speed. Some simple techniques to keep the speed high are:

Compress the images
Minify the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files to remove any extra characters from the code.
Use a content distribution network as a technical SEO factor.

Mobile-friendliness

Nowadays, a considerable portion of users access your website on their mobile. Google also uses mobile-first indexing. This implies it will look at mobile versions of pages before ranking them. Go to the “Mobile Usability” report in the Google Search Console. This report will tell you which pages affect your mobile usability and the specific issues.

Crawlability

Crawling is how most search engines work. The search engines follow the links on your pages to find out more about the website. To boost the Crawlability, create a site architecture that makes it easy to navigate around and submit the sitemap to Google.

Indexing

Once search engines start crawling the website, they would first analyze and understand its content. Then the search engine adds that content to its search index. Therefore, the pages should be indexed to appear in all the search results. This aspect of technical SEO should not be ignored.

To check the status of your indexing, just search for your website on Google search. The results will show you how many pages have been indexed.

Security

With a huge rise in malware and hacking incidents, the security of the website remains at risk. To boost security, always use an HTTPS version instead of HTTP. The former is much more secure and protects your site passwords. Websites using HTTPS are displayed through a lock symbol in the address bar.

If you are stuck on HTTP, then you could add an SSL certificate. This certificate authenticates the credibility of the website and establishes a secure connection with the user.

Local SEO Strategy

Google Business Profile

A Google business profile would increase the business’s online visibility. It will be visible as soon as people search with related keywords. Adopt these techniques to boost Local SEO:

In your business description, add keywords and areas of operation
Choose the best categories and subcategories that define your business
Verify the profile and see if it mentions the same details as mentioned on your website and youtube SEO

Local search intent

Your customers want a service in your area; therefore, they will search with the required keywords. For instance, SEO optimization terms like SEO agency near me, Bakers in Jersey City, etc. Adding similar keywords in your content helps the search engines crawl your website when someone searches for the same.

Google identifies the location of the user. If your website has a keyword similar to the same, it will rank your website on top.

Review acquisition

Getting more reviews is the trick to building credibility in the online space. Customers who leave a positive review will get more referrals to your business.

Ask your reviews on content SEO platforms where you can
Send follow-up reminders through text and emails asking customers to provide reviews
Add a direct link to the review profile for SEO optimization. Most customers don’t write reviews as they don’t know where to post them.
Respond to the reviews so the customer knows you have acknowledged it
Interact on social media profiles to build a rapport with the customers

Conclusion

SEO is quite detailed, so understanding it completely is not possible even for an SEO expert. However, with months of analysis and studies, a person can pick up some of the most crucial tactics and learn to optimize. All the types of SEO mentioned above are important for the website to rank. Each has its separate relevance in the way they deliver results.

Expecting results too soon is naïve as Google does not take SEO lightly. Each SEO tactic has to be understood in depth before applying them to your website. Once the website ranks, it is simpler to maintain the pace and optimize all aspects.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Is more content better for SEO?

Yes, the more content on your website, the better ranking it is going to get. Google crawls the entire content, and if you optimize it by updating more to it, then it considers it a valuable source. Moreover, if the content is more, the customers would stay on the website. This would reflect on the credibility of the website.

Is it possible to do SEO on our own?

It is possible to do an SEO campaign on your own, provided you have an idea of the way it works. SEO takes time, and you have to be really patient with the e-commerce SEO results. Plus, you do not get success on the first attempt. It will take a long time before you realize which strategy works best. You can hire an SEO company to assist you.