In the techno savvy era, after exhausting all other possibilities, we are moving towards legit techniques or say organic trends in the form of White hat SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
We have seen it all from getting our hands on internet for the first time, where we were so much in awe of this new era, we thought it worked and served our commands and we didn’t bother ourselves with the back-end technology, to Google’s recent misuse of market position and Facebook’s controversial sharing of information, highlighting the fact that all is not in our control. In fact, everything is initiated by us and we intentionally (though, most of the times, unknowingly) surrender everything to the tech giants out there. Where do we stand then, if we are serving as mere puppets in the hands of the industry responsible for maintaining the integrity of the technical world?
Search Engine Optimization is one of those things which allow us some control over prospects. What is SEO or Search Engine Optimization? How does it benefit us, the client or the user?
SEO is now the most talked about term in digital marketing context and essentially the most important. We might have come across a phenomena, which is ‘The demand for a product gradually diminishes if you can’t supply the product over a long period of time’, i.e. without properly advertising your product (be it your website, blog, video), you can’t expect a wide range of audience/viewers. People tend to forget things which are not part of the media frenzy. We are oblivion to quality as we only focus on the presentation of the product offered. Thus, it becomes a dire need to be in the front row. SEO comes into play, at this very moment, it means to optimise the results of a search in the favour of your product. A newly formed website, for example, might not see the light of the day, if you do not inform the search engine about its purpose. The client has to attach his/her website to any keyword that pertains to the website’s purpose to garner more and more viewers to see his content.
Actually, typing a keyword on a search engine is just the beginning, the whole game starts afterwards. That particular keyword results in a slew of websites which are listed by the search engine based on certain criterias (each search engine has its own way of arranging these results). SEO implies to have your product on the list which appears whenever someone types a keyword on a search engine. The position nearer to the top is definitely going to attract a larger traffic or say larger viewership (imagine front row). And that’s what matters in today’s attention seeking, ever evolving world of technology. So, basically, it all comes down to being out there in the world to attract the right amount of publicity.
Now, SEO can be of two types, White hat and Black hat. White hat SEO means giving our product, say a website, in the hands of the search engine for it to handle that particular websites’ position on the list according to its own Optimization techniques, however certain strategies or tricks might help which are discussed later on in this article. Whereas in Black hat SEO, we take it upon us to try everything, exhaust every possible option to force the search engine to place our website on the top.
White hat SEO has certain techniques, as mentioned earlier, to help a website get to the top and attract organic traffic. One of these techniques is Skyscraper technique, which involves identifying the keyword that you want your website to be ranked with which implies whenever that particular keyword is typed to be searched on the search engine, it will result in displaying your website as one of the results in the list of so many websites or links. For example, an educational website having database of study materials for school children might want to be ranked with the keyword ‘study material’.
Identifying your audience, the kind of viewers you want to attract, is an integral part of this process. Observation is, thus, important as you must be aware of what kind of results come up with the keyword that you want for your website. Marking the irregularities and working on the improvisations that you might want to make in your website content is necessary. For instance, you come across many links offering media files (PDFs) to be downloaded, when you type ‘study material’ as keyword on a search engine and people usually refrain from downloading content (media) from any random website. This would lead you to develop content accordingly, like offering readable and easily accessible content which is time saving and thus user friendly. The content you are offering must be fresh and should be updated regularly according to the changing trends and requirements of your field/category. You must be aware of what it is that you are offering which makes your website worthy of attracting legit traffic. Along with that, people want attractive content which is easily understood and is easily accessible. For example, images, multimedia and visually appealing content gets more views as opposed to boring text files or media files ( as in PDFs) which are supposed to be downloaded.
Next comes promoting the content. Pre-publicise your content through the right channels like telling influential people in your field about the upcoming website of yours. Contact people who are already providing content in the said field and let them give your content a heads up, it would also result in your website being on the reader submissions list on their website, which can prove to be a breakthrough. Reaching out to any brands or products that you have mentioned in your content might prove to be beneficial as they might want to mention your website on their page and give it that needed push. Popularising through media campaigns, advertisements, teasers is also a good idea.
Such techniques or strategies are a part of White hat SEO, involving extensive research, observation, promotion and having dynamism to offer something new every time someone opens your website. So, go ahead and attract all the attention that you deserve and rule the world of search engine optimization.