What is search engine optimization or SEO?

 SEO is an abbreviation for Search Engine Optimization. Simply put, it is the process of improving or optimizing a website to increase its visibility in search engines.

SEO is an abbreviation for Search Engine Optimization. Simply put, it is the process of improving or optimizing a website to increase its visibility in search engines.

Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a trending topic these days. Basically, SEO is a part of digital marketing where a website is optimized to bring visitors or traffic from search engines.

SEO involves following certain methods through which a webpage can be ranked on the first page of various search engines (such as Google, Bing, Yahoo) for a keyword. That is, the method or process of ranking a website on the search engine result page (between 1-10) for one or more keywords is called SEO.

There is a huge demand for SEO related work in the free seo digtal markating freelancing marketplace. Again, if you develop this skill, you can earn by creating your own e-commerce or blog site. Again, you can work in various companies inside and outside Bangladesh. Therefore, it is quite a demandable career.

In this article, I have tried to give you a clear and complete idea about SEO. I have also given a short guideline on its types and how to do it. 

What is search engine optimization or SEO?

SEO stands for "search engine optimization." Simply put, it's the process of increasing your site's visibility when someone searches for products or services related to your business on Google, Bing, and other search engines.

Needless to say, to increase your site's visibility in search results, it needs to be ranked on the first page. The higher the visibility, the more free (organic) visitors you get. And, no matter how beautiful a website is without visitors, it is essentially worthless. 

SEO Tip #1: To get organic visitors to a page, it must be on the first page of search results for specific keywords.

SM Lutfar Rahman, LutfarPro

So let's start with a story,

Kamal Saheb is a small entrepreneur who manufactures electric fans using indigenous technology. He has a website where he provides details of all the models of fans he manufactures, along with their prices. 

On the other hand, Jamal Saheb needs a ceiling fan. But, due to his busy office work, he is unable to go to the market and buy a fan. So, he relies on buying products online and getting them delivered to his home. These two characters complement each other in the story. Now, Jamal Saheb typed "ceiling fan" on Google and searched. As usual, 10 results came up. 

But, how will Kamal Saheb sell his product to Jamal Saheb? To sell, his website has to be among the top 10 results after Jamal Saheb's search. Right? Because thousands of people like Kamal Saheb are selling their made or stockpiled ceiling fans online. 

And, the best solution in this situation is SEO or search engine optimization.  

I have used some acronyms and terms in this post. So, if you are having trouble, you can read the SEO acronym and term list post.

We also visit some site constantly. For example: You are visiting my site now. You are a visitor to my site. Maybe, you found my blog by searching Google. But, if my writing does not reach any audience, then writing this blog or article is in vain.  That is why we have to learn and practice SEO.

How many types of SEO are there?

SEO can be fundamentally divided into two parts of work. On-page SEO and off-page SEO. However, nowadays, it is divided into three parts, giving equal importance to technical SEO. Earlier, it was considered part of on-page SEO.

The target location can be divided into several parts. 

• Local SEO - where a specific area is targeted for keyword rankings.  
• Global SEO- Ranking is done worldwide rather than by any specific region.

 Again, based on SEO practice, it can be divided into three parts. 

• White Hat SEO - Where work is done ethically and according to rules
• Black Hat SEO - No rules or ethics are followed.
• Gray Hat SEO - Works as a mixture of White and Black Hat.  

How to learn search engine optimization

To understand or learn SEO, you need to understand 5 things, 

1. What is a search engine? Or what is a search engine called ?
2. How search engines work ,
3. What is the function of SEO? Or how does it work,
4. What are the types of SEO?
5. How to get a webpage to the first page for a keyword.
6. Where and how to learn SEO?

What is a search engine?

What is a search engine? In this chapter, we will explain how it works.

One of the most important inventions in the world of the web is the search engine. A search engine is a software system that is designed to search the web, that is, find information online. These search engines check and sort all the information scattered online. And when I want to know something, they display  links to some webpages on the results page.

When you search for information using Google, Bing, Yahoo, or any other search engine, we type it into the search bar and search. 

SEO Tip 2: These words/phrases given to us in our search are called keywords in SEO parlance. 

SM Lutfar Rahman, LutfarPro

Any search results in a results page, which is where we actually visit the web pages, right?

The second page is not visited much. That is, if you are not on the first page, a lot of your other work is in vain. This is the reality. So there is no alternative to ranking on the first page. 

How search engines work

Search Engine Basics - Search Engines are basically created to help us find the right information and data. Now what if a search engine gives you wrong or unwanted results?

You may not use that search engine at all. So to maintain popularity ( in SERP ) you have to give the most accurate result. And Google is the best in that regard.

I have described how Google works here because by any standard, Google is the king of the search world and controls 75-80% of all searches.

One thing we all agree on is that in almost all cases, we get accurate information from search engines. Right? 

To find information, you first need to know where it is. That's why search engines index or store important parts of all online documents, websites, and texts in their databases.

But, first you have to find them, right? Then you have to show the best answers or results matching the search terms. We know that there can be millions or billions of webpages on a topic online. They use some algorithms to understand or figure out which ones to give first and which ones to give last.

The list of results we see through Google search consists of 3 steps. 

• Crawl : This is basically a software program that moves from link to link or page to page on the web.
• Indexing : The second step is indexing. In this step, a search engine decides whether to use the crawled content. If a crawled web page is considered eligible, it will add it to its index or index it. 
• Ranking : When we type something in the search engine and press the enter button, then all the relevant documents on their server are analyzed with various ranking algorithms or factors. And for these ranking factors, some sites come first and some come later. And for this, Google regularly updates the algorithm. So that, the results of the SERP page are better and more informative. 

How search engines work in a nutshell

As we already know, search engines like Google and Bing use bots to crawl webpages, move from site to site, collect information about those pages, and index them. (Whew!)

Then, algorithms analyze the indexed pages, considering hundreds of ranking factors or signals, to determine which ones appear in what order in search results for a given query. This is much like a librarian who has read every book in the library and can tell you which one will answer your question.

Popular search engines

Let's find out which are the popular search engines. The table below shows their popularity in order of importance -

No	Search Engine	Details
1	Google	It has a 90%+ search market share. On average, 70,000 searches are performed per second.
2	Bing	It has a 33%+ US market share, but is not widely used outside the US.
3	Baidu	Chinese search engine. Google is banned in China.
4	Yahoo!	Popularity is decreasing day by day. Search results are pulled from Bing. 3% market share.
5	Yandex	Russian, 65%+ Russians use it.
6	Ask.com	0.35% of search traffic uses it.
7	DuckDuckGo	This search engine doesn't track anyone. In 2018, there were an average of 26,754,932 searches per day, which is steadily increasing.

What is the function of SEO?

By now, you may have realized that SEO is essential to increase website traffic, sales, or revenue. That's why learning SEO is important.

Now, the million-dollar question is to rank the website and bring visitors - what to do or how to work? 

There are 8 steps to follow for SEO,

1. Step 1  : Keyword research or finding.
2. Step 2  : Include keywords in the page title or heading.
3. Step 3  : Put keywords in the page URL.
4. Step 4  : Put keywords in the meta description.
5. Step 5  : Place keywords in the H1 text.
6. Step 6  : Use keywords within the content.
7. Step 7  : Create website backlinks.
8. Step 8  : Check the ranking.

How to start search engine optimization

New SEO experts often get confused at the beginning because they don't know where to start. And learning SEO takes time to master . So, you have to make time for learning and practice.

Let's see (step by step) how to get started with SEO. 

1. Most of the traffic comes from searching various keywords in search engines. So to rank a website or page, first of all, you have to select keywords (Keyword Research). Then, you have to optimize it properly (On-page Optimization) by following the rules of search engines.
2. The second step is to index or register the site/specific page.
3. The third step is to do off-page optimization . In this case, first, you need to promote social sharing and link building or backlink creation.

1. How to do keyword research

Keywords are words or phrases that search engine users use. It is important to note that the name you search for or know something by may not be known or searched for by others.

Suppose, a website sells or makes electric XYZ brand fans. So, the keyword for that website would be "XYZ brand fan" or "XYZ fan". But, the question here is, do people actually search by typing these two keywords?

That is, we need to see how many people search for XYZ brand fan or whether people actually search.

If no one searches for it, what's the point of ranking it? It won't sell. Because there won't be any traffic to the site. And will it sell?

We all know the answer is no. If no one is searching, there will be no visitors. That means no sales.

There are two important terms when it comes to keyword research. They are:

Search Volume or average monthly number of searches:

How many searches are there per month on average against a keyword.

Keyword Difficulty Index or competition for keyword ranking

It is calculated on a 0-100 or 0-10 or 0-1 metric depending on the tool. The lower the Keyword Difficulty, the easier it will be to get to the first page. However, manually checking the competition is the best way.

Keyword research tools:

We use various tools and extensions for keyword research. From these tools we can find out Keyword Difficulty (KD) and Search Volume (SV).

Some of the most popular paid and free keyword research tools are given below.

1. Ashraf (Ahraf.com) - Paid,
2. SEMRush (SEMRush.com) - Free (with limitations) and Paid,
3. Keyword Surfer (Surferseo.com) - Free Google Chrome Extension,
4. WMS everywhere - Free Google Chrome extension,
5. Google AdWords - Free (but has some limitations).

Read the Keyword Research Guide for more details on this topic .

2. How to do On-page Optimization

The first step in on-page optimization is to optimize the content well with the previously selected keywords. A webpage or article needs to be optimized to rank for a specific keyword. However, you can also target some related keywords. 

In short, this process:

• The title must contain keywords.
• Using keywords in the link or anchor (Post link / post anchor).
• Using keywords in the text, description, or post content.
• The keyword must be used naturally within the content. Keyword stuffing cannot be done in any way.
• You should use keywords related to that topic and synonyms or supporting words for the keywords.
• Helpful pictures and videos should be used.
• You must use keywords in the alt tag of the image / or use LSI keywords.

3. How to do off-page optimization

Off-page optimization refers to backlink building . However, there are also other relevant practices such as:

• Sharing on social media (although this is unlikely to improve rankings, it is an effective way to get indexing and traffic).
• Creating backlinks to relevant sites.
• Avoid bad and low-quality websites when building links.
• No spamming, by any means.
• Creating good quality contextual (contractual) links.
• For example, creating Web 2.0 backlinks is an off-page SEO task.

How to Rank a Web Page on the First Page

The job of an SEO expert is to optimize a website for all of these search engine ranking factors. 

Google has 200+ ranking factors, not all of which are equally important. However, in this post, we will highlight the most important factors. 

Important ranking factors 

• Website Crawlability and Structure, HTTPS, User Experience
• Unique informative, quality optimized content,
• Search intent, content length, 
• Title tag, URL, domain age, canonical tag
• Image optimization,
• Keyword prominence and posting, 
• Mobile friendliness, 
•  Relevance Links, Total Referring Domains
• Page speed, 
• Topical Authority, 
• EAT 
• Social signals, etc. 

Where and how to learn SEO?

To develop yourself as an SEO expert, you need to learn the ins and outs of SEO well.

There are many videos and articles on this topic on YouTube and Google. In addition, various training institutions, both online and offline, offer courses on this topic.

You can take any of the above 2 options. But my suggestion would be to learn online first and then take a course.

I have a separate post on how to become an SEO expert yourself . I hope you read it.

Two words about search engine optimization

Search Engine Optimization or SEO is not magic, it cannot be learned in a day. Again, it is not possible to rank a site in a day.

It may take 3-5 months to learn SEO , but here you have to keep yourself up to date constantly. Because like all other technologies, SEO is changing rapidly. Again, there is a matter of acquiring new topics or skills, so you have to learn throughout your career.

Again, after a site is ranked, it needs to be maintained. Because, the ROI in SEO is higher than all other online marketing mediums. And so all businesses want to increase their visitors and sales by ranking.

Hopefully, I have been able to fulfill your need to know about SEO. If so, then share the post. And comment for more details. Thank you.