SEO (Search engine optimization)
What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It covers all the techniques and strategies used to optimize web pages with the sole goal of reaching the highest possible position in search results (the results search engines return for users’ search intent).
1. SEO and SEM
Newcomers to digital marketing often don’t know the differences between SEO and SEM very well, even though the two approaches are opposites.
- SEO. This is organic positioning, and it refers to the actions and strategies carried out on or off the website itself to optimize its ranking in search engines organically, that is, without paying. In an SEO strategy, we don’t pay Google or any other search engine to gain positions in the SERPs (search results based on content). That is, only the quality of the content and its value earn it a higher place in the search results.
- SEM. This is paid positioning, and it refers to strategies that use paid ads to appear in search results; without payment, it can’t be called SEM. To carry out an SEM strategy, you create an advertising campaign in the search engines so that when a user runs a search, our website appears before the organic results. The result is displayed as an ad, as long as it matches the search intent the user has shown.
2. On-site SEO and off-site SEO
For proper positioning, you need to work on both on-site SEO, which focuses on the relevance of the content internally, and off-site SEO, which focuses on the external factors that improve SEO.
- On-site SEO. This is the SEO that focuses on relevance and aims to have the website optimized so that search engines can index it correctly. This includes code optimization, keyword selection, ease of use, loading time, and so on.
- Off-site SEO. This is the SEO that focuses on factors external to the website itself that contribute to proper positioning. Some of the most important factors in off-site SEO are the number of links pointing to us and their quality, relevance on social media, the prominence of the places where we are mentioned, the time visitors stay on our website, the number of pages users visit, and so on.
3. Black Hat SEO and White Hat SEO
There are, so to speak, two approaches depending on the type of techniques applied when doing SEO. On the one hand, there is Black Hat SEO, which uses techniques that search algorithms don’t allow, and on the other, White Hat SEO, which follows the guidelines search engines permit.
- Black Hat SEO. This is the use of unethical techniques, or techniques prohibited by search engine rules, to improve the search engine ranking of one or more web pages. Black hat SEO includes actions such as Cloaking, placing spam in forums and blog comments, spinning, or keyword stuffing. This can help us achieve results in the very short term, but its use is not recommended, since we will be penalized if we are discovered and may be excluded from search results.
- White Hat SEO. These are the actions that, while focusing on improving our site’s web positioning, are ethically sound and comply with the guidelines set by search engines for ranking a web page. They are therefore all the techniques or actions that aim to give pages greater relevance for users, so as to respond properly to users’ search intent and obtain higher positions.
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