What is SEO in Digital Marketing?

What is SEO in digital marketing? SEO (search engine optimization) is a technique of making a website easy to discover, easy to navigate, and easy to classify. It’s all about helping your potential customers find you among millions of other businesses. SEO is a critical component of any successful digital marketing plan. It can help your business become highly visible online, bringing you new customers, increasing sales, and ultimately, increasing profits.

SEO and Digital Marketing

Apparently, it seemed there is no such difference between SEO and digital marketing approaches; both execute the same functions and possess the same skills. Only for marketing needs, different titles are resorted. To understand this, we need to pay a thorough look on these concepts. The below figure will clearly show how SEO is based as a subset of digital marketing.

The SEO people are engaged in bringing the organic hits, while the digital marketers aim at total online existence (of a company) that goes beyond SEO. In practice, an SEO consultant generally looks after other areas of digital marketing. And the whole SEO digital marketing service package may be named all under SEO Packages since customers basically comprehend this more easily.

The contemporary trend includes some more services along with optimizing a website and search engine marketing. For example, there are some factors that actually take help of SEO in the sense of selecting the right keywords, such as blogging with SEO content, contextual marketing, behavioural marketing, mobile advertising, Alt-texts in banner advertising, social media marketing, RSS, viral marketing,, and video content advertising. And for that a solid digital marketing and SEO strategy should be in place.

SEO – Integrated Digital Marketing

And after coming a long way an SEO is called integrated digital marketing by some marketing experts. Let’s give some light on this.

More and more, the use of SEO is becoming important for the overall success of digital marketing. And we would get a very good idea if we carefully watch the changing paradigm of SEO over years.

In mid 90’s when very first SEO came into picture, manual submission, the Meta keywords tag, and keyword stuffing were all usual techniques necessary to rank well in the SERP. Then in 2004, for getting web traffic, anchor text associated link bombing, link buying from automated blog comment spam injectors, and creation of inter-linking websites took place. Then in 2011, the social media marketing and vertical search inclusion became the mainstream methods of conducting SEO. The search engine algorithms get updated time after time for the sake of bringing traffic. The tactics used in 2004 are all outdated now as the new call is something else.

Today, so many new memes totally change the way an SEO consultant once worked though the basic understanding remains the same, such as title tags, H1 tags, and everyone’s preferred subject, thanks to Google, links. But many applications that previously were remote to what we used to judge SEO no more are.

• Social Media: Social media marketing is gaining importance because of the increased usage of viral marketing approach through Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Yammer, and Google+. These social networking sites must be in line with the SEO best practices to entirely control SEO potential.
• The more links with a view to ranking higher is not today’s approach: The personal reputation has become a crucial aspect. Old school of link building has some improvisations. The common belief of ranking high in the search results is changing – the content strategies are not the main means, but generating the quality inbound links that stay as a much important SEO element to affect the ranking. The concept of ‘link’ is changing in that respect. The main idea behind the traditional link building to measure all the do-follow links that a website can generate and totally ignore all no-follow links. The practice was to build as many links as possible. That system had drawbacks what some black-hat marketers banked on, and finally Google changed its algorithms, which totally ended the practice of traditional link building practice. This was known as spamming. Even guest-blogging with a sole motive to generate links is also burned down. Guest-blogging really works well if it is to generate new audiences, present yourself as an expert, and engage with your targeted community.
• The implied links factored in:

It is called implied linking as there is basically no link to go back to the source site. Brand mentions and online citation must be handled carefully and well-incorporated into the site content; this is done in several forms. In the content, the brand mentions are generally connected to the products or services, and how those are connected to the content is explained. It can be in the comments what is finally implicitly integrated well into the content also. So long as the brand or website name is used, a brand name or citation is created.

1. Better judgement in brand authority: Google does not give that much importance to the former practice of traditional link building. A new brand authority will rule in the form of brand mentions.
2. There is no manipulation at all: The Anchor texts and links cannot be manipulated now. The black-hat practice of linking to a site that is totally irrelevant to the source site is replaced by the brand mentions or online citations. Once a brand is flawlessly woven in site content, the implied link should point to sites that must be relevant to the source site.
3. Influencing the social signals through brand mentions: Brand mentions or online citation is reckoned as an important factor to leverage the social signals for SEO. The links that got generated through social media are no-follow links that do not affect the SERP rankings. But when any source content is shared, commented, tweeted, or cited socially with or even without these implied links, it must funnel to highest rankings. This entire process of back-linking through social media is called social media optimization.
4. Online citation is an important factor for local SEO: Local SEO targets potential customers of the small and medium sized enterprises. Citations are always good for local SEO. Here, the use of name, address, and contact number are taken into consideration by Google for a bigger picture.

• Balance between traditional linking and brand mentions: You should not develop a wrong notion that only brand mentions do exist now-a-days, and the traditional linking has become obsolete. There needs to be a balance between these two. An equal importance must be given. Below is a balanced link building strategy between implied and express links:
  • Just avoid having a higher ratio in the express links to your brand mention to escape the possible danger of getting spammed that can affect your brand.
  • Google likes the practice of visual content that go viral as it is the right way to keep a good ratio of express links to brand mention.
  • Guest-blogging can be used to promote the brand.
  • Link building strategy needs to be as fair and usual as possible.
  • Use every possible avenue to inculcate the brand mentions – social media, guest-blogging, comments, and RSS feeds that can go viral.
  • Last but not the least prepare your website thinking about your target audience – what they deserve. Relevant and valuable content must flow in.
• Social media optimization has a new entrant, video optimization: Today’s SEO expert knows how to optimize video content, effectively distribute it, and measure its efficacies in meaningful ways.
• Paid search redefined: A co-optimization plan needs to follow the paid search initiatives with a high degree of group effort with the organic search team for utmost outcomes on both sides of the aisle.
• Use of data: The capability to understand, mine, and use data efficiently to steer strategy and sharing of resources within a restricted budget for highest ROI (return on investment) is another important parameter.
• Miscellaneous factors of modern SEO: The bounce rate, site speed, and very recently, content above the fold are known to be significant factors in the algorithms of the most important search engines. Also, display advertising, including behavioural targeting or retargeted marketing and contextual advertising use the targeted keywords generated in the organic search practices. Most of all, you all need to have a thorough idea on the marketing campaigns and business model, so that you can work in evocative ways.

Create an SEO strategy

Google Analytics To have a sound SEO system you must have a good SEO strategy in place. Below are some points you need ask yourself while setting SEO strategy:

• Your target market: SEO is not meant to garner as many web traffic as you can to sell your items. Some geographic conditions and the customer demographics are very much important as to where and how you will get your customers. Fine tuning on these parts will make you confident and successful going forward.  will help you in your investigations on these factors.
• Concentrate on mobile-friendly approaches: Your website should be able to properly fit into mobile and give equal satisfactions to your customers the way they access your site in their personal computers. One thing is clear, mobile overtakes the desktop. So, be sure to open that lane by checking how your website performs on mobile applications. Test your website URL in Google’s Mobile-Friendly test for this.
• More options in Search Engines: Your website should not only perform well in Google, but in every other search engines like Yahoo, MSN, AOL, and DuckDuckGo. Each search engine has different search algorithms that you need to know and accordingly make your website compatible for these searches. Your users may come from any roads.
• Keywords to correspond with your ROI: Spend time on fixing relevant keywords. Focus on Long Tail keyword as those define users’ behaviours. Meticulously think about you can frame long tail qualities into your key phrases. The success of keywords should be measured in terms of your ROI (return on investments).
• Clear website and quality content: A user-friendly website, clear navigation, SEO keywords, optimized Meta tags, title tags, and balanced keyword density in the qualitative, relevant, and consistent content are the main aims. Each page should be built around the keyword themes, with unique and non-plagiarised content. There should be no keyword stuffing as well. “Content is a commitment, not a campaign.”
• Quality and relevant linking and Social media: You must pay good attention at building quality and relevant links through which you can get a good number of web traffic. And in line with SEO, you need to set up an exhaustive and up-to-date social media platform. You should remember a good number of traffic is generated through social presence of your business.

Off-Page SEO

Off-Page SEO can make or break your online presence. With no SEO, no site will be able to appear on the first page of search results. And no one will buy from them there. Organic search results are the only way to get your business seen and found by potential customers. What is SEO in digital marketing? Off-Page SEO works on your website by improving your pagerank. This improves your ranking with search engines such as Google and Yahoo. It makes your website more visible to customers, increasing traffic. Organic search results are the way to go if you want your website to be found.

On-Page SEO

On-Page SEO works off-page, on how your keywords work within the content. SEO keywords are what guide potential customers to your site. When they do, the right links in the right place to direct them back to your website, increasing your chances of them purchasing from you. Organic search results are the way to go if you want to increase your sales.

You can use off-page seo, to improve your rankings. Do this by creating high quality content, using targeted keywords and creating links to your pages within the content. You do this through optimizing your pages and adding relevant content to article directories, blog directories and social media sites. You also have the option of using internal links within the content that point back to your website.

Organic search

How is it different from organic search? Organic search engines will look at a site’s rank and determine what ads and content will appear based on a particular keyword. The content and the ads don’t relate to each other and don’t change when the keyword is used in a different way. On the other hand, seo strategies give business owners a chance to target specific words or
phrases. The ads and content already relate to the keywords and target the right audience. This ensures that your marketing efforts will be more effective.

How long does it take to see results from SEO? Depending on the type of business you have, you could start to see results within days after investing the time. Some businesses take a while to see results, while others experience very rapid results. However, if you invest the time and effort, you should start to see noticeable results, even within hours.

What is SEO in digital marketing? It allows you to market your business effectively online without spending thousands of dollars on advertisements. Search engine optimization gives you an advantage over your competitors. It allows you to reach customers who are using the Internet to search for products and services similar to what you offer. For a small investment of time and money, you can take advantage of an online marketing system that generates results.

Benefits of seo in Digital Marketing

SEO in digital marketing provides many benefits. It can help you build a better reputation on the Internet. It will help you attract more customers. In addition, it will make it easier for you to rank high in search engines. The more traffic you get to your website, the higher your chances of making sales.

SEO in digital marketing allows you to have an edge over your competitors. You can increase your traffic and improve the ranking of your website. You will also get the opportunity to attract more potential customers. It helps business owners attract new customers to their sites. Through this method of marketing, businesses will be able to expand their market and experience
increased profits.

What is SEO in digital marketing? Business owners who want to improve the profitability of their business to spend time learning more about search engine marketing. They need to know how search engines work. This way, they will be able to produce effective campaigns for their website that will generate traffic. With effective campaigns, business owners will be able to maximize the potential of their websites.

Conclusion

Every time, the algorithms are changing giving challenges in front of you. One thing you should not forget – there is no static SEO system that is going to stay forever as “SEO is a never-ending process.”

With changing online customer behaviour, search engines, too, have developed different policies. But you are to realistically think about your target audience, their preferences and dislikes, usability of the website, and well-thought optimization plans. Some may think only about ranking in the SERP without even bothering about their users. The Spiders after indexing the content will take note of its quality and relevance.

If it finds some dishonest means are taken to rank in the search results, it will surely spam it, and in dire cases, the search engines will totally ban your website. Therefore, the main task is to think about your users first, how they navigate your site, and their satisfactions at using your website; all this would directly affect the site popularity or the time they spend in each page.

And all these considerations make SEO a great deal of work. You have to schedule daily time into your routine for the SEO attempt. Basically, while in times of building a new site the SEO plan is exercised, but if it is already built, and you are incorporating SEO tasks on it, you need to give it importance and optimize it properly. Please ensure hitting all the elements as you go.

Having incorporated all these, a digital marketing strategy with balanced SEO moves will then definitely succeed in getting noticed by the target audience.