Ever Used Google? Yahoo, Yandex or Bing? They are called search engines, and they rule almost everything an average internet user finds or doesn’t online. This is where search engine Optimization blends right in, for your business’ own good. it helps your business show up more and more, on the search words/phrases your business best qualifies for.

In Uganda-and most parts of the world, Google is the most famous of all, and that’s why i’ll emphasize google more in this article.

 

The Simple Definition of SEO.

Search Engine Optimization is simply the process of raising a website or one of it’s pages in a search engine’s unpaid results, for a specific search keyword/phrase.

A keyword, means a searchable single word like “Uganda”, or “psychology”, and a key phrase means a searchable set of words like “Best places to visit in Uganda” or “Restaurant near me”. Simple right?

Remember “Organic” in Social media Marketing? It’s the same concept, but now apply it to search engines like Google, Bing, yahoo, Yandex, etc.

In this kind of internet marketing, you have to understand how search engines work, then—use that understanding to shape how and when, your business’ website or web pages will appear in search engines.

The one thing to be conscious about when doing SEO, is that its a process, and not simply a flip of a button on your website. You have to understand how search engines work, or at least have the basics.

We are going to look at the two major factors search engines use to raise your business’ visibility in SERPs—Search Engine Result Pages, usually referred to as ranking. The two factors are On-page and Off-page Optimization. These are the two major factors that search engines revolve around to to decide on which website ranks higher than the other on each page for each search keyword/phrase.

 

On-Page SEO In Uganda

Let’s just call it what it is. On website optimization. Yes that is what it is. It’s every thing to do with the structure of your website. —by structure i mean what content is there and how it is placed there. On-page SEO is all about optimizing your website’s structuring for search engines to like.

Now, Did i have to include the words “In Uganda” on the heading above (On-Page SEO In Uganda)? No, That’s very unnecessary for you, right? But not for search engines. You see, i’f i didn’t include it, search engines won’t know this article is partly targeted to people searching seo in Uganda as important as i want it to.

While it is not really ethical, it helps me rank for the key phrase “On-Page SEO In Uganda” in almost any search engine you can think of, Even google. the reason is explained below,

Search engines have this thing called a “Crowler”, think of it as school a inspector who comes from the government to see if your school has all requirements needed by the government, then takes back a report of what is and isn’t available, then the government will now recommend the school or not according to what it founds in the inspector’s report. That’s kinda how crawlers work.

A Search engine sends it’s crowler to inspect every website it can find online, takes back a report, and the search engine will use it’s algorithm (Advanced calculations) against the report to calculate your position on the different search keywords/phrases your website will appears on.

A simpler way to understand what crowlers do, is to think of them as news reporters. They visit your website only to report on it to search engines.

Some of the components that search engines look for are your website pages’ titles, meta descriptions, body text, navigation structure, page loading speed, images and their attributes, etc.

And so i guess you see why i hard to include the “In Uganda”. Now when a search crowler comes to my website, it takes back a report that there is an article that contains the key words “Off-Page SEO In Uganda”

 

Off-Page SEO in Uganda

Just as in the previous factor, this is exactly what it sounds like. Its off website optimization. These are the things you do never on your website, but off your websites.

You have really less control of how your off-page seo influences your visibility in search engines, but there is also much you can do to achieve a good standing. Actually, Off-page SEO values higher in the eyes of almost any search engine on the internet, and the reason is simple, On-page seo is what you say about yourself, off-page seo is what others say about you.

You should know both the two are important, and really necessary, because a good offpage-optimization is complimented by good on-page seo and vice versa.

What i’m trying to say though, is that offpage seo takes up over 70% in convincing search engines to rank your website higher. This is the case with the industry leader Google and alot more others like Bing,Yandex, baidu and Yahoo search.

 

Understand Link-Building?

It is simply the process of acquiring hyperlinks from other websites to your own.

A hyperlink (usually referred to as a link) is a standard through which users across the internet navigate between pages either on a single website, or between different websites.

Remember Crowlers? Search engines use crawlers to inspect the web, but crowlers use links to discover other pages on your website and/or other websites linked—to from your website.

The idea is to simply, get other high ranking websites to link—to yours. Crowlers will find out, and search engines will consider the links a vote of confidence from these websites to you, hence moving you higher in ranks.
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There are several link building techniques to safely rank your business in search engines, but this also means there several unsafe techniques as well. When done right, link building can go along way to rank you high and bring you customers through search engines. Getting it wrong however could cause your business’ website a barn from search engine result pages (SERPs).

 

Let me explain;

You can choose to go white hart, black hart. Or mix both the two, i guess you can call that gray hart. What’s important is that you know what you are doing.

The three mentioned above are popular types/methods of ranking websites in search engines. And their names are derived from the nature of how they work.

Think of the three this way. White hart – follows legally recommended guidelines by search engines, black hart – uses illegal and un approved methods, while gray hart – uses both of the previous two.

So, now you know you should go white hart. Right? But, what is and when do you need black hart?

Think of black hats as low breakers in a government system. these are guys who think they can bypass the system with quick fixes and shortcuts, sometimes they do, but other times they are caught. Think of what is done to law breakers in a government system, and relate that to what a search engine could do to your website when it catches you bypassing. Not to scare you though, worst case scenario; your website will be wiped out from search engine result pages (SERPs). All of them.

Now, i’m not saying you should never go black hart, but I’m not saying you should either. Sometimes borrowing a few black hat techniques can be helpful, especially if you have competition to crush. Be careful thought, know what exactly you are doing.

 

What you want is white hart, to be on the safe side, but a few black hart techniques could be what you need in special cases. Again , be careful, because there is a very thin line between black hart and being banned.

Link building plays a bigger role in off-page SEO to convince search engines your website is worth a higher rank. It is so much that many people associate off-page SEO with link building. This is almost true if it wasn’t for the other small factors like social proof, click through rate, to mention but a few.

 

In Conclusion;

Search Engines are important for internet users, But Search Engine Optimization Is very important for your business. With the right optimizations, you can have your potential customer calling your phone every time.

SEO is one of, if not the best forms of Internet marketing, that is free, and gives unlimited exposure, some times even for as long as your presence online can last, if done right.

 

This Article was re-modeled from a book by Peter E. Bampaire, Called “Internet Marketing In Under 1 Hour“

 

Any questions/iquary? Drop all of them in the comments section, below. Thanks for reading!