If you are a business owner and aren’t doing digital marketing yet, you are missing out. Digital marketing allows brands to have the exposure they need from their target audience. The best part of it is that you can get the most out of digital marketing for free.

Search Engine Optimization, more commonly termed SEO, is a vital aspect of digital marketing. It is the process of optimizing a website, a web page, or a piece of content based on search engine algorithms. While there might be different types of SEO, optimization, in general, includes link building, fast website speed, content creation, promotion, and digital marketing.

But do you really need to practice SEO for your website to gain more traffic? The short answer is yes.

This article gives you an overall insight into what SEO is, it’s importance, it’s types and additional view on white hat SEO and black hat SEO.

SEO in Digital Marketing: How Important Is It?

Search Engine Optimization might feel like something you can do overnight, but SEO is not as simple as it sounds. It includes a set of practices outlined to improve the positioning or ranking of your content in organic search results. In SEO, the term “organic” simply means that you did not pay to have your content rendered on the first page of the search engine results page (SERP). This way of organically marketing your website or service falls under the broad spectrum of white hat SEO.

To explain SEO in much simpler terms, it is the act of optimizing your content based on what search engines like. Doing this will allow your content to have a high chance of ranking on top of the SERP.

For instance, you are selling dog food online. When your potential customer types in “dog food” in the search bar, let’s say Google Search, you would want your website to be on the top part of the results page. Only then will your content be seen by users that are interested in your products which can, later on, turn into customers.

2 Major Types of SEO: Which One’s for You?

As we have stated earlier, there are different types of SEO. Each type focuses on a specific aspect on which you can improve either your brand’s content, website, or marketing. Listed below are some important SEO.

a.    On-Page SEO

On-page SEO is the process of optimizing everything that has to do with your website’s performance. This includes optimizing website speed, fixing bugs and broken links, resizing images, and practicing internal linking.

Additionally, on-page SEO directly affects how the user interacts with your website. This is what provides them with the user experience that can make or break their perception of your brand. Listed below are some points regarding on-page SEO that you might want to take note of:

• The user’s attention span lasts for less than 10 seconds, thus, they will not bother to wait for a web page that takes forever to load when there are a ton of other websites that provide similar content.
• Fixing bugs and optimizing image resolutions in your content would be of great help if you want to lessen your site’s loading speed.
• Broken links or resource links that are not working in your content will do you more harm than good. These links might be flagged as spammy, making search engines trust your website less. This could also destroy your conversion rates on top of giving you a higher bounce rate.
• Internal linking allows you to redirect the reader to other content that you own, providing traffic to more published content on your site. This, later on, leads to a significant increase in your overall website traffic.

In business and marketing, it is a no-brainer that customers decide whether or not your company will survive. Thus, taking care of your loyal customers and providing them with the best possible experience is essential. This is especially true given that competitors are everywhere but instead, they patronized you. The same logic can be applied to on-page optimization.

b.    Off-Page SEO

Contrary to on-page SEO, off-page SEO is the act of optimizing everything that is outside your website to make your content rank higher in the SERP. Off-page SEO includes social media marketing, advertising, listings, joining online forums, and link building.

Link Building: What Does it Entail?

Link building is a part of off-page search engine optimization. In this technique, the main objective is to acquire hyperlinks from an external reputable website back to your own. This allows search engine algorithms to slowly trust your website, increasing your chances of placing higher on the SERPs. However, this is only applicable if you have provided a good link.

Link building is not an easy process and just like any other technique, there are wrong and right ways of building links.

White Hat SEO

White Hat SEO is the collection of techniques that comply with the terms and conditions of search engines. Thus, it is often referred to as “good SEO”. This strategy is the way to go for the long-term viability and performance of your website.

Search engines constantly update their policies and guidelines to offer a better user experience, to ensure that you do not lose your SERPs ranking, white hat link building is the best approach to take.

Although it takes a much longer time to see results in white hat SEO, it is the strategy preferred by most search engines like Google due to the organic links it produces. The most popular way to maximize white hat SEO is through guest posting and getting SEO link-building services.

Black Hat SEO

Black hat SEO, as the name suggests, is the complete contradiction of white hat SEO. Instead of slowly building trust through organic links, the techniques in this type of SEO are purely unethical.

In black hat SEO, content is spammed with irrelevant or invisible links and is stuffed with keywords. Although it can boost your SERP rankings, it will not last for long as it only takes a little time before search engines figure this out.

Google strongly disapproves of this strategy to the point that your website can get hit by a manual penalty when proven that you have violated their rules. In the end, even if you ranked higher in SERPs, you can lose the other ranking content you worked so hard for.

Thereby, white hat seo techniques are always preferred over black hat seo techniques.

Why Link Building is Crucial for SEO?

Not every link is built the same; some links are bad and some are good. But how would you know if your link is good or bad? Well, it’s up to the search engine algorithm to decide.

If the decision was never ours and the exact algorithms were never known, why is link building still vital in SEO? Let’s find out.

1.    High-Quality Backlinks Give Your Site Credibility

In the past couple of updates in the Google Search Engine, it is evident that the algorithm tends to favor links from a site with many high-quality backlinks. This is because Google focuses on providing users with the most relevant results. Thus, the more high-quality backlinks you have, the more credible you are.

2.    Leads to Higher Site Metrics

Search engines have different metrics for classifying the site rankings. These metrics include but are not limited to the following:

• Domain Authority (DA) – ranking of how successful or authoritative your overall site is
• Domain Ranking (DR) – determines the strength of a website’s backlink profile.
• Page Rank – determines the placement of your web pages for ranking in SERP.

Your score for these metrics can increase or decrease depending on your site’s performance. However, the practice of proper link building alongside other white hat SEO techniques can increase your website’s score for these metrics.

3.    Google Uses Backlinks to Determine Rankings

To be labeled as an authoritative site which Google favors in deciding the rankings, you must have tons of citations from other trusted sites. Hence, the importance of link building.

4.    Increased Visibility and Reach

Link building is not purely intended to increase search engine rankings. It can also help in digital marketing, generating credible leads. Building links will expose your site to people who do not follow your content. It can also be a great way to reach people from a new location far from yours.

5.    Significantly Higher Web Traffic

If you want to attract people that might be interested in your content, building links to sites with a relevant audience or following is the way to go.

For instance, if you are a website that sells sports equipment, it is only right for you to reach out to a website that has a relevant niche to yours. For instance, you can reach out to a sports news outlet to build backlinks.

6.    More Opportunities for Revenue and Sales

Getting a higher score in the metrics paired with more traffic equates to better opportunities to generate revenue and increase sales. As your site will rank higher in SERP and become more visible to users, it will most likely lead to a higher number of potential customers visiting your site.

This boost in website traffic can, later on, translate to more sales. It can also allow you to generate new outlets for revenue.

7.     Generates Referral Traffic

Once you embed your link on an authoritative website, there will be a high possibility that your site will get regular traffic from it.

Conclusion

Over the years, link building has proven its importance to SEO. Link building, properly done alongside other strategies, is the best strategy you can build in search engine optimization. However, it is also important to note that results may take a long time and vary.

Although fast results are available, do not be tempted. Trusting the process of organic link building and white hat SEO can do your site wonders in the long run.