Who is this course intended for?
 
This short course in SEO is intended both for people who want to optimize their websites on their own and for beginner SEO specialists, who want to work in this sphere as professionals. Throughout the course we will mention briefly the most significant aspects and practice alone will help you master the details.

 

SEO optimization changes constantly due to the continuous complication of the website ranking algorithm of Google. These changes are oddly named after animals like Panda, Penguin, etc. and each of them is making SEO more complicated. You need to take into account more and more factors in order to prevent your website from being hit by a panda or a penguin and to avoid penalties. We will always try to reflect the current state of affairs in this course.

 

We will not dwell on the theoretical knowledge one needs to be able to fully grasp the SEO process – computer science, programming, HTML, computer networks, principles of work of search engines, etc. This course is more practice-oriented – it is focused on practical skills and includes only the absolute theoretical minimum.
 

 

What is SEO?

 

SEO is the work that is done in order for a website to rank well in the search engines around the world. The aim is to make it easy for user to find it by using different key words, related to its subject matter.

 

SEO is a complex phenomenon – it is a science, an art and a social activity at the same time. SEO has a lot in common with mathematics, linguistics, computer science. However, the skills for team work with colleagues, friend and partners are most important.

 

Perhaps this variety of skills, required during the optimization process, is what has recently made so many people interested in this discipline and what has encouraged them to become passionate optimizers. But the very development of marketing and advertising make SEO so necessary for every business.

 

SEO is an abbreviation of Search Engine Optimization. Although there are score or even hundreds of search engines around the world, the search engine primarily used in Bulgaria is Google, which is the reason why we will discuss mainly Google optimization. However, you should keep in mind that the principles for optimization for other search engines are similar or almost the same.
 

 

Types of SEO
 
On-page and Off-page SEO
 
Depending on the type of activities for website optimization, whether carried out on the pages of the website or elsewhere, SEO can be divided into internal and external.

 

Internal optimization, also called On-page SEO, is related to everything that is done on the website itself. No matter how complicated On-page SEO is, there is unanimity as to what is the most important thing, namely to publish as many texts, pictures and videos that are interesting, useful and unique.
 
External SEO is also called Off-page SEO. In fact external SEO is comprised of one main process – the creation of links from other websites to the website that is being optimized. This process is called link building. In comparison with On-page SEO, Off-page SEO is a comparatively more complicated, more time- and energy-consuming activity.
 
White-hat, gray-hat, and black-hat SEO

 

Any SEO, following closely Google's official instructions, is called White-hat SEO. It takes a lot of time for White-hat SEO to lead to positive results, since you have to rely only on the natural creation of links to your website.

 

The typical SEO does not follow closely the official instructions and is therefore called Gray-hat SEO. If it done carefully enough, Gray-hat SEO poses no risks of penalties.

 

There are a couple of techniques that are strictly prohibited by Google, such as showing different results of the work to Google and to the users. These methods are part of the so-called Black-hat SEO, which will not be discussed in this course. Black-hat SEO poses a great risk of penalties for your website and it may even lead to you website dropping out of the results, shown in Google.
 

 

Major principles of SEO
 
Rich content

 

Extremely important for the good ranking of your website are the extensive information and the well-written, interesting texts that are useful to the users. The more texts, pictures and videos the website has, the better ranking it will get in search engines. Websites with few texts are difficult to optimize, even when they have very good links.
 
Unique content

 

The whole text should be unique – any copying or combination of phrases, sentences or even whole paragraphs, taken from other sources, has a negative impact on SEO. It is strongly recommended that the pictures be unique as well.
 
Patience

 

Patience is really important for the safe and effective SEO. When you are eager to do the link building quickly, penalties are highly possibility. Link building should be a gradual process.
 
Variety of links

 

Try to get as varied links as possible – this is extremely important for the SEO of a website. This refers not only to the variety of the websites that you get links from, but also to the text of the link, the time of its occurrence, as well as other factors.

 

More contacts and partnerships

 

The more contacts you make during the process of SEO, the more skilled you will become in this art. You will get partnerships and links from various websites and the optimization will progress naturally.
 
Conclusion
 
We believe that these are the most common directions that you will have to take into consideration in the process of SEO.