What Are the 4 Main Types of SEO?

SEO is as crucial as ever.

After all, when was the last time you didn't use a search engine when you jumped online?

Knowing the different categories of SEO can help optimize your website for a superior user experience and greater visibility in search engines. It can also help you build a more robust SEO strategy and health check your site for potential areas of improvement. 

This blog looks at the four fundamental types of SEO, how they interact to improve rankings, and a top marketing agency ready to take charge of your SEO performance to help you generate more leads. 

What Are the Primary SEO Types?

Searching engine optimization (SEO) is more than a one-off approach to helping search engines find your content. To fully understand SEO and how to apply it to your website, it's crucial to dig into the four main types, which are:

• On-page SEO

• Off-page SEO

• Technical SEO

• Local SEO

These four aspects of SEO should not be considered separate entities but pieces of the same puzzle that overlap and interconnect to impact your website's rankability.  

1. On-page SEO

On-page SEO refers to optimizing the pages on your website to rank higher in search engines. 

While it is considered a content-focused exercise, pages don't rank for a single factor but rather for several features that the Google algorithm considers. 

Some factors to consider in on-page SEO include: 

• Use of keywords (after relevant keyword research)

• User intent and satisfying the user needs in the piece 

• The creation and optimization of HTML titles and meta descriptions

• Length of the content

• Titles

• Subheadings

• Internal and external linking

• Scannability and readability of the content 

• How helpful the content is 

• SEO optimized images 

• Maintaining a steady stream of content 

Remember that on-page SEO is not about keyword stuffing or using as many relevant keywords as you can in one block of text. Instead, it's about creating the best content possible while considering the above SEO tactics as a whole.

2. Off-Page SEO

Yep, you guessed it—off-page SEO refers to the techniques you can employ externally to help boost the ranking of your website. 

This could mean creating content for other sites that link back to your page, building backlinks, or promoting your business on other pages such as social media, YouTube, etc. This means your outreach and social media optimization must be spot on.  

This is achieved through websites linking to your site or promotional campaigns such as guest blogging for external web pages. Anything that creates a buzz around your business online is considered quality off-page SEO. 

When creating a backlink strategy, remember that buying backlinks is generally frowned upon and can lead to penalization from Google. Instead, invest time and effort into building your off-page SEO on quality pages from reputable sources. 

3. Technical SEO

Technical SEO refers to the factors in the 'backend' of your page that impact SEO performance. 

Search engines give preferential treatment to pages that are well maintained and host positive technical characteristics such as page speed that improve the user experience (UX). 

If it's a factor that impacts ease and navigation of use, then it will probably relate to the off-page SEO friendliness of your website. Technical SEO may require advanced SEO techniques or an SEO audit due to the complexity of some of the processes. 

Some of these considerations include the following: 

• Speed of your website

• Structure of the coding

• Up-to-date links with no broken links 

• Secure connection—make sure you're using an SSL 

• No duplicate content

• Mobile-friendliness 

Building procedures and maintaining a consistent auditing schedule will help ensure your technical SEO is up to date. 

4. Local SEO

Local SEO is essential for brick-and-mortar business owners or local independent workers such as tradespeople who rely on in-person customers to maintain their businesses.  

After considering the points above, local businesses must also optimize their local SEO for greater visibility in their community searches. 

Best practices for local SEO performance include: 

• Creating a fully optimized Google My Business account (GMB) 

• Regular posting on GMB 

• Responding to reviews, positive and negative, on GMB

• Adding images to your listing on GMB

• Uploading your business to online directories with high traffic, such as Yelp

• PR (public relations) and outreach to local web pages such as local papers  

• Geo-targeted content 

Local SEO practices should be considered an add-on to the general SEO practices outlined above. 

Why Focus on The Four SEO Types?

While one component of your website SEO may require some love and care, this doesn't mean you should neglect the others. On the contrary, due to the overlap and interconnectedness of the SEO types, a solid strategy is to consider each SEO type as part of a larger machine. 

For example, poor traffic and a high bounce rate may mean that your off-page SEO needs to be doing better to bring people to your page, and those that land there are displeased with your on-page offering. 

Some ways to determine areas for improvement include:

• Content audit

• Technical audit

• Competitor analysis (such as examining keywords and density) 

• Keyword analysis 

A holistic approach to your SEO health will ensure better performance, higher rankings in search results, and greater synergy within the various moving parts. 

Boost Your SEO Performance With Advanced SEO Techniques

What we've covered above is a brief introduction to the world of SEO and some of our best SEO tips. If you want more traffic to your pages to convert to dedicated customers, you need the best SEO performance. Therefore, many small businesses find that advanced SEO performance requires advanced SEO partners!

Geekly Media has SEO experts ready to take charge of your website performance and optimize your page for more organic traffic. Reach out and Speak to a Geek to learn how we can help!