Types of SEO: 10 Different Types of Search Engine Optimization Techniques
Search Engine Optimization techniques are both technical and observational. Web pages that rank in the top today have no doubt spent on leveraging various SEO types. If you ever wondered how many types of SEO are there and wanted to understand SEO methods, this post is for you. At the end of this comprehensive post that explains search engine optimization techniques, you will gain clarity on the types of SEO techniques and what SEO type suits your business. You will also understand SEO best practices and the probable SEO methods that search engines discourage.
Why do there exist so many SEO types?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a deep subject that has a lot beyond searching for keywords. The ultimate goal of SEO is to bring more visibility to your business on search engines through various technical approaches. The SEO industry is a thriving one; reports indicate a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.7%.
Since its evolution around the mid-1990s, search engine optimization techniques have gained importance. Of late, companies are investing in SEO for obvious reasons to enjoy more traffic and attract more customers online.
Accordingly, to meet the customer’s expectations and business requirements, techniques of SEO evolved with time. As of 2021, there are 10 types of SEO. Move ahead to learn in detail about these types of SEO techniques.
Here we present different types of SEO to help you craft your content and digital strategy to rank via organic and paid techniques.
1. White hat SEO
Here is all you need to know about white hat SEO- one of the trusted and most used SEO types.
White Hat SEO definition
White hat SEO is the implementation of techniques of SEO that abide by search engine rules in improving a website’s Search Engine Result Page (SERP) rankings.
White Hat SEO Strategy
White hat incorporates all the SEO best practices to bring your website to the top in search engine results. Accordingly, the following aspects play a crucial role in white hat SEO strategy:
- Keyword Research: Performing intensive research for keywords that align with your business needs and help you rank faster.
- Content quality: Preparing content-rich in quality.
- Website and Page attributes: There are various areas on a website and its pages that need scrutiny when focusing on ranking. For instance, – site speed, navigation, UI, loading time, coding assistance as and where necessary. An SEO specialist can identify and optimize all such website and page attributes.
- Link building: Link building is a careful approach. It involves bringing in authority links to your website in such a way that they lift your website to the top in search engine results. Link building should be done such that the impact on a website’s position is minimal even with search engine algorithm updates. Any malpractice in link building can notably penalize your website and brand. A trusted SEO consultant will know the dos and don’ts of white hat link-building rules.
White Hat SEO pros and cons
White hat SEO enjoys its reputation for the primary reason that it is the best and ethical one amongst all types of SEO. Ask any SEO expert who has mastered types of SEO techniques; they would suggest you pick white hat SEO for your business.
2. Black Hat SEO
Here is all you need to know about black hat SEO – one amongst SEO methods that are highly risky.
Black Hat SEO definition
To put it simply, understand that black hat SEO includes exploiting the loopholes in the search engine algorithms.
Black Hat SEO Strategy
The approach in black hat SEO includes unethical practices to rank a website as fast as possible. Unfortunately, they result in negative value addition to the user as well as to a brand. Black hat techniques of SEO involve:
- Keyword stuffing
- Confusing bots and humans by displaying different content to each (termed as cloaking)
- Adding spammy backlinks
- Content automation
- Creating doorway pages
Black Hat SEO pros and cons
By now, it must be clear that the black hat is one of the types of SEO that does no good to a brand or a website. Instead, it can lead to the blacklisting of those who adopt such SEO techniques.
3. Grey Hat SEO
This term might sound familiar if you have ever approached an SEO agency or an SEO Freelancer Consultant with intensive agency experience.
Grey Hat SEO definition
Technically, Grey Hat SEO methods adopt both white and black hat SEO techniques. Interestingly, grey hat SEO though not forbidden by search engines, is not advisable. You might consider a grey hat as a supplement to boost your white hat SEO results under SEO expert guidance.
Grey hat SEO Strategy
The SEO techniques used in the grey hat are a blend of both white hat and black hat. A carefully planned grey hat strategy includes the correct way to leverage:
- Bookmarking sites
- Extending the already published content
- Web directories
- Social media approaches
- Web 2.0 submissions
- Keyword density
Grey hat SEO pros and cons
Grey hat SEO on its own is an underhanded approach. If not done in the right way, grey hat SEO can cripple your SEO results along with your brand reputation. Take the guidance of an expert SEO consultant who will guide you.
4. Negative SEO
Negative SEO definition
Negative SEO includes the implementation of unethical practices to tarnish a competitor’s reputation. It is yet another unethical practice from among SEO methods.
Negative SEO Strategy
In this one of the malicious SEO types, various practices have been involved that include:
- Hacking a website
- Creating spammy and toxic backlinks to the target website
- Sharing negative propaganda about a target website’s services through comments on discussion forums
- Deleting target website’s backlinks by masquerading as the webmaster
Negative SEO pros and cons
Forget about the pros, industry experts suggest that negative SEO can land the practitioners in legal trouble.
5. Technical SEO
One of the most indispensable types of SEO is technical SEO.
Technical SEO definition
Technical SEO involves implementing practices such that a website is crawlable and indexable for search engines.
Technical SEO strategy
Technical search engine optimization techniques incorporate the following to boost the ranking organically:
- Creation of XML site map
- Inspecting the mobile responsiveness of the website
- Content categorization
- Addition of structured data markup to ease web crawling
- Focusing on SSL and site speed
- Checking for duplicate content
- Adding a site to Google Search Console and activating webmaster tools
Technical SEO pros and cons
Technical SEO is indispensable from among search engine optimization techniques if you are eyeing organic ranking. It makes your site search engine friendly and keeps it ready for good bots to crawl and index your pages.
Technical SEO refers to website and server optimizations that help search engine spiders crawl and index your site more effectively (to help improve organic rankings). Get in touch with an SEO consultant to learn more about why businesses consider technical SEO as one of the choicest types of SEO.
6. On-Page SEO
On-page SEO is a foundation for building your SEO strategy.
On-Page SEO Definition
On-page SEO aims at giving the best reading experience to your reader.
On Page SEO strategy
The first step in on-page is inspecting the content quality. Along with it, On-page SEO techniques include:
- Making sure that the value-added content is provided to the reader.
- Right usage of meta, formatting, and headers.
- Optimizing title, URL, subheadings, images, and other multimedia content.
- Improving website navigation for better user experience
On-Page SEO pros and cons
On-page SEO is the first step to attain ranking organically. Any search engine optimization techniques often start with on-page SEO as a solid foundation. It is one of the SEO types that put readers and the user experience first and hence needs expert attention.
7. Off-Page SEO
This is probably the most heard and used SEO type to build organic ranking to a site.
Off-page SEO definition
Off-page is one of the SEO types that focuses everything behind and beyond the page.
Off-page SEO strategy
Unlike on-page SEO, off-page SEO includes what else you can do to lift a page in the search engine results. Search engine optimization techniques used in Off-page include:
- Building domain authority
- Guest posting and commenting
- Building relationships with users
- Boosting site traffic
- Careful link building with do-follow and no-follow links
- Social media marketing to build trust in your brand
Off-page SEO pros and cons
Off-page SEO plays a vital role in building brand credibility and boosting website traffic. All the off-page SEO techniques aim at providing a competitive edge to content and brand. Off-page SEO is hence one of the types of SEO that top-ranking websites vouch on.
8. YouTube SEO
Looking to boost your videos ranking? This is the SEO method you should implement.
YouTube SEO
Search engine optimization techniques implemented to improve a video’s ranking on youtube comprise YouTube SEO.
YouTube SEO strategy
To make it simple, you may translate the text content-based SEO efforts to rank a video, albeit using different techniques. YouTube SEO methods include:
- Checking video keywords that will help in ranking
- Inspecting ranking signals and aiming at improving them
- Working on off-page and on-video optimization
Youtube SEO pros and cons
YouTube is the second most visited and competitive source for traffic after Google. A business that enjoys top ranking on both SERP and YouYube can win more customers and credibility.
9. App Store Optimization
This is the SEO method aimed at increasing the ranking of an app also called App store optimization (ASO).
App store optimization definition
The techniques of SEO aimed at improving the ranking of an app in the play store comprises App store optimization (ASO).
App store optimization strategy
The types of SEO techniques used in ASO include:
- Optimizing app title, icon, description, keywords, and meta tags
- Building links that provide more authority to an app
- Implement SEO methods to drive more traffic to an app and increase the number of downloads
- Leverage reviews and feedbacks
- Inspecting app ranking and performance at regular intervals
App store optimization pros and cons
App stores today are quite competitive. Market studies indicate that there are more than 4 million apps in stores. If you want your app to rank higher and garner more downloads, App store optimization is one of the SEO types you should not miss investing in.
10. Local SEO
This is one of the most chosen SEO methods for local businesses.
Local SEO definition
Local SEO includes SEO methods to build the search engine results visibility of a business in its target location.
Local SEO strategy
The ultimate aim of local SEO is to ensure that a business is known to the maximum number of customers in the targeted locality. To attain, the SEO methods used in local SEO include:
- Research for local keywords
- Creation of Google My Business account
- Leveraging local stories and news
- Optimizing about us page for a location
- Using online business directories
- Building high-quality backlinks to your business
- Inspecting website for better UI
- Encouraging customers to share reviews and feedbacks
Local SEO pros and cons
Businesses are increasingly moving online, thanks to the unprecedented digital transformation. Thus, to assure that your business is not missing out on customers, local SEO is one of the SEO types that you just cannot ignore.
Now that’s a wrap about SEO types!
SEO primarily aims at increasing your website/service/business visibility. For beginners to SEO, all these techniques of SEO and SEO types may seem overwhelming. As a word of caution, any mistake in implementing SEO techniques can cost you in many ways.
As Phil Frost puts it – “ Successful SEO is not about tricking Google. It’s about partnering with Google to provide the best search results for its users.”
A qualified SEO consultant can detail you more into what types of SEO you should make use of. Get in touch with an SEO consultant today!
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the essential types of SEO methods?
How many types of off-page SEO are there?
What are the 2 types of SEO?
How many types of SEO techniques?
Saalim Tahir, a digital marketing specialist with 7+ years of expertise in B2B and B2C. Proficient in Google Analytics, Tag Manager, on-page SEO, off-page link building, PPC campaign optimization, and advanced technical strategies, aiming for superior results in SERPs and paid ads positions.