If you’re new to search engine optimization (SEO), you might have questions as to how you can best utilize SEO practices for internet marketing. You might be asking what all those acronyms are and what is a SERP? Use this guide to find answers to that question as well as three others relating to SEO.

1. What Are the Types of SEO?

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When it comes to SEO, you have two main types: on-page and off-page. On-page SEO refers to activities you perform on your site to improve your ranking. Some common examples include the following:

  • Optimizing content: Any information you publish on your website is considered content. You can better optimize content by inserting keywords and matching user search data.
  • Optimizing meta tags: Although users won’t see meta tags, they’re vital to your website. Meta tags are pieces of text that describe your page. Search engines will scan through your page’s coding to read the meta tags.
  • Optimizing your page’s speed: A slow load time can affect your SEO ranking because users don’t want to wait for the data to load.

Off-page SEO involves any action that you don’t take specifically on your site but ends up helping your SEO rankings. Sharing your blog on social media sites doesn’t involve making changes to your site, but it can improve traffic. Another way is to provide backlinks on other websites so visitors click on the link and are routed back to your site.

2. What Is a SERP?

When you perform a search on Google, you usually get a variety of paid and organic listings. All these listings are part of a search engine results page (SERP). When you’re working on SEO, you should look at the SERP of your keywords. Find out what type of content these other sites are posting so they achieve a higher ranking.

3. What Affects Your SEO Ranking?

If you’re going to use SEO the right way, you want to know what factors affect your SERP. Again, a slow loading time can affect your rankings because your audience doesn’t want to wait for your page to load. If it takes too long, visitors will leave and seek out information from a faster site. Keywords can also help your rankings, and selecting relevant keywords will ensure that you appear higher on SERP. Content creation is another common factor since it can help drive traffic to your site, so offer your knowledge and expertise on your website.

4. What Types of Links Should You Offer?

Linking is a crucial part of SEO, since it affects your site’s ranking. Inbound links come from another page and direct the user to your site. For instance, if you write content about a topic and another site decides to link its article to yours, that’s an inbound link, or backlink. Outbound links go from your site to another page. These provide additional information for your readers.

It’s important to have an understanding of how SEO can benefit your site. Knowing the best SEO practices can increase traffic to your site and keep readers interested in your content.