SEO is essential for the success of any online business.

If you want to learn about the various types of SEO that help boost search traffic, this article has got you covered. Let’s get started!

 

What are the types of SEO? 11 types of SEO explained!

 

What is SEO?

SEO (search engine optimisation) is the process of improving the ranking of your website and its pages in search results.

SEO offers many benefits, including:

• Provides excellent return on investment
• Generates quality traffic
• Improves the overall sales of your website
• Increase your organic visibility
• Improve your brand, and the list goes on.

SEO is one of the most powerful digital marketing strategies brands and businesses use to generate profits. When done correctly, SEO can provide 24/7 promotion for your business for FREE.

For example, here are some top results for the query “digital marketing course “.

If you want to do a digital marketing course, you can optimize your website to rank high on search engine results pages (SERPs).

But… It’s NOT that easy to rank for such competitive keywords.

This is why most companies implement different types of SEO to get their website pages to rank higher in Google search results.

SEO consists of many tactics.

There are different types of search engine optimization tactics used by most people.

Common types of SEO include:

1. On-page SEO: Optimising the content and elements of your web pages, such as titles and keywords, to improve search engine rankings.
2. Off-page SEO: Activities outside of your website, such as building backlinks, to improve your online presence and authority.
3. Technical SEO: Technical improvements to your site, such as fixing broken links and improving site speed, for better visibility in search engines.
4. Local SEO: Strategies to improve your business’s visibility in local search results, which is essential for local businesses.
5. SEO for Business: Optimizing large websites for competitive keywords and high traffic.
6. White hat SEO: Ethical and legal SEO practices that follow search engine guidelines and focus on quality content and natural link building.
7. Black Hat SEO: Unethical SEO tactics that break the rules, often resulting in penalties.
8. Grey hat SEO: A combination of white hat and black hat techniques that poses certain risks to SEO results.
9. Negative SEO: Malicious tactics used by competitors to damage your site’s search engine rankings.
10. YouTube SEO: Optimizing YouTube video content to improve visibility and reach on the platform.
11. Voice Search SEO: Optimizing Content for Voice Search.

Let’s take a closer look at these different types of SEO strategies so you can understand which one to use to increase search traffic.

1. On-page SEO

 

On-page SEO (also known as on-site SEO) is one of the most common types of SEO used by millions of websites to improve their organic search engine rankings.

What is On-Page SEO?

On-page SEO is the process of optimizing your web pages to improve their ranking in search results. On-page SEO is any site optimization that you control and include on your site.

Here are some of the widely used on-page SEO techniques:

• Optimize title tags and meta descriptions
• Use a short, clear URL that includes your main keyword.
• Publish quality content
• Target at least one or two keywords in each blog post.
• Include appropriate ALT tags for the images you use.
• Internal links are very important (so always link to relevant articles when publishing new content).
• Try to distribute relevant long-tail keywords where necessary for better ranking.

Is it worth implementing on-site SEO on your website?

Yes, of course. On-page optimization will help you get more traffic from search engines like Google. But do NOT overdo it (like adding keywords).

2. Off-Page SEO

 

 

Off-page SEO (also known as off-page SEO) is another popular SEO technique used by webmasters around the world to build links, grow their brand, and generally improve their online presence.

What is Off-Page SEO?

Off-page SEO refers to tactics used outside of your website to achieve higher rankings in search results. Unlike on-page SEO, off-page optimization concerns everything that does not happen directly on your site.

Here are some of the most popular off-page SEO methods:

• Try to improve your online brand to attract a lot of mentions about it.
• Comments on the blog
• Posting on the forum
• Working with Influencers
• Guest posting
• Creating broken links
• Social media
• Social SEO
• Write helpful answers on platforms like Quora to build links.

Should you implement off-page SEO on your website?

Off-page SEO is extremely important because it tells search engines like Google that your site is important to other Internet users. If you want to improve your site’s trust signals, off-page SEO is key.

3. Technical SEO

Proper technical SEO helps search engine crawlers crawl and index your site faster and more efficiently. If you want to rank higher, you need to improve your site’s technical SEO.

What is technical SEO?

Technical SEO is all about optimizing your site for crawling and indexing. It will also help you find and fix any technical issues that are preventing your site from ranking higher.

What should you do when doing technical SEO on your website?

Here are some things you should focus on:

• Find and fix all broken links on your site (including external and internal links).
• Find and disavow all toxic links pointing to your site.
• Scan your site and check for crawl errors.
• Get rid of redundant and duplicate content
• Find and fix missing ALT tags, long meta descriptions, missing titles, etc.
• Make sure your site supports HTTPS and is mobile-friendly. Make sure your site is crawlable and indexable

Should you implement technical SEO on your website?

Yes, of course. Although technical SEO is NOT an easy task. But when you have access to the right tools like SEMRush, you can easily conduct a technical audit of your website to find and fix any technical issues.

4. Local SEO

Local SEO is a MUST for any business with a physical location and local presence. Local SEO helps generate more traffic, leads, and brand awareness through local search.

What is local SEO?

Local SEO is the process of optimizing a website so that it can be found in local search results. Local SEO helps you improve the visibility of your local business in search engines.

Here are some of the local SEO tactics:

• Find local keywords relevant to your business
• Optimize your Google My Business (GMB) profile
• Create NAP (Name, Address, Phone) listings in local directories and Google Maps.
• Always ask for “online reviews” about your website and business.
• Optimize your website for mobile devices, as most local searches are done on mobile devices.

Should you implement local SEO on your website?

If you run an offline business, agency, or store, local SEO is a MUST. Local SEO helps you connect with local search engines in your area.

5. SEO for Business

Business SEO is an SEO strategy often used by large company websites with tonnes (several thousand of pages.

What is SEO for Business?

SEO for business involves improving search engine rankings for large businesses with hundreds of thousands or even millions of pages.

Some of the SEO tactics for business include:

• Optimizing Your Content for Featured Snippets
• Target highly competitive keywords
• Compete with BIG websites and authority organizations in your industry.
• Create quality content regularly
• Use structured data
• Optimizing Your Content for Voice Search

Should You Implement Enterprise SEO on Your Website?

Even if you are not a Fortune 500 company, you may need to implement the best business SEO strategies if your website has a large number of pages. Enterprise SEO helps large websites compete for competitive keywords, generating tonnes of search traffic.

6. White SEO

White Hat SEO uses ethical strategies to achieve better rankings in search engines. All SEOs and agencies practice white hat SEO to improve their website rankings in search results.

What is White Hat SEO?

White hat SEO is a tactic that works in accordance with search engine guidelines to improve a website’s ranking in search results.

This is an extremely safe SEO tactic that is used by all SEO experts around the world to improve their search engine rankings.

Here are some of the widely used white hat SEO tactics:

• Create rich content that will be useful to your target audience.
• Build backlinks using evergreen strategies like guest blogging, working with bloggers, creating broken links, etc.
• Create different types of content such as articles, videos, podcasts, infographics, etc.
• ]Improve your website’s loading time to provide a better user experience.
• Organically create and grow your social media presence
• Update your content regularly to provide accurate and current information.

Should You Implement White Hat SEO on Your Website?

Yes, always. White Hat SEO follows Google’s guidelines. So, you can always implement white hat SEO strategies on your website to improve your search rankings.

7. Black SEO

Black hat SEO techniques are used to increase organic traffic to a website by violating search engine rules. Although they do NOT work, many people still practice black hat SEO to quickly get more traffic from Google.

What is Black Hat SEO?

Black Hat SEO involves increasing a website’s search engine rankings by using unethical tactics that often violate Google’s search engine guidelines.

Black Hat SEO is bad for your business and can result in your site being blocked or penalized in search results.

Here are some black hat SEO tactics:

• Keyword Filler
• Buy links in bulk from sites like Fiverr.
• Content automation (using content automation tools to create content)
• Creating door pages
• camouflage
• Use hidden text or links
• Leave unwanted comments
• Creating copied content

Should you implement black hat SEO on your website?

NEVER! If you don’t want your website to be excluded from Google search, don’t practice or implement black hat SEO strategies. It takes time to build and increase search traffic. Don’t expect quick results.

8. Gray SEO

Individuals and SEO agencies looking to quickly improve their search traffic often use Gray hat SEO techniques. While grey hat SEO may initially bring you search traffic, it is short-lived (due to frequent Google core updates).

What is grey SEO?

Grey hat SEO is a combination of white hat and black hat SEO techniques. It may or may not result in your site being penalized by Google (depending on how you use the tactic).

But it’s still a risky SEO practice that should be avoided if you want to protect yourself from Google penalties.

Some of the common grey SEO tactics include:

• Buy Expired Domains
• Buy exact match keyword domains
• Using PBN (Private Blog Network) to Build Links
• Buy links
• Automate Social Media and Buy Followers to Grow Your Online Presence

Should you implement Grey SEO on your website?

If you want to protect yourself from future Google algorithm updates and penalties, you should avoid using grey hat SEO techniques.

9. Negative SEO

Negative SEO is a malicious SEO practice used by your competitors to lower your site’s ranking in search engines like Google. If you are NOT careful and do not combat negative SEO, your site risks being banned or penalized by search engines.

What is Negative SEO?

Negative SEO is usually considered “black hat SEO.” But your competitors often do it to tarnish your site’s ranking in search engine results.

Here are some of the most common negative SEO tactics that most people (or your competitors) use to tarnish a website’s search engine rankings:

• Automatic creation of spam links
• Leaving negative or fake reviews about a product or website.
• Link the farms
• Removed content
• Removing backlinks by sending fake link removal requests
• Hack a website to steal links

Should You Protect Your Website From Negative SEO?

Absolutely yes. You never know how your competitors are trying to bring you down in search results. That is why it is extremely important to protect your website and always monitor its backlinks.

What is YouTube SEO?

YouTube SEO is the process of optimizing your YouTube channel videos so that they rank higher in organic YouTube search results for specific keywords or phrases.

Here are some of the popular YouTube SEO methods you can use:

• Include your main keyword in the video title and meta description.
• Use relevant thumbnails
• Find the right keywords to create your video
• Optimize YouTube Video Tags
• Increase your YouTube video watch time, as it is an important metric for YouTube ranking.
• Create YouTube playlists to drive more traffic to relevant videos

Should You Focus on Improving YouTube SEO?

Yes, why not? YouTube is the second-largest search engine after Google. YouTube numbers are growing rapidly. So, if you are looking for a powerful platform to build an audience and expand your online presence, YouTube is the best platform.

Also read: 13 Best WordPress SEO Plugins in 2025 to Dominate Rankings

11. Voice Search SEO

As smartphones become cheaper and reach billions of hands, voice search is growing rapidly. Most people now use their smartphones and voice assistants to search for anything on the Internet.

What is Voice Search SEO?

Voice Search SEO is the process of optimizing keywords for search using voice assistants. Voice search primarily uses the natural language of users and provides FAST and relevant answers.

Here are some of the most commonly used voice search SEO techniques:

• Question-based target keywords
• Focus on using conversational keywords.
• Implementation of schema markup
• Make your website mobile-friendly
• Use frequently asked questions when creating pages
• Create content that provides direct answers to voice searches.

Is Voice Search SEO Worth Implementing?

Google reports that about 27% of online users worldwide use mobile voice search. So, if you optimize your content for voice search SEO, you will get additional traffic from search engines like Google.

Frequently asked questions about different types of SEO

Here are some frequently asked questions about the various kinds of SEO and search engine optimization in general.

What is SEO?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of driving targeted traffic to a website from search engines such as Google. SEO includes many tactics, including on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO, etc.

What are the 3 common types of SEO?
Here are 3 types of SEO that every website should focus on (to improve its search engine rankings).

– On-Page SEO
– Off-Page SEO
– Technical SEO

What is the best SEO strategy?
Keyword research and quality content creation are the BEST SEO strategy, no matter what industry you are in. You should also focus on acquiring backlinks, as they are very important for improving your search engine rankings.

What are the SEO methods for 2025?
Here are some of the best SEO techniques to use in 2025 and beyond.

– Create engaging and consistent content
– Improve your organic click-through rate
– Optimize your content for search engines
– Build relevant links
– Conduct regular site audits to identify and fix SEO issues.

What is On-Page SEO?

On-page SEO is essentially any optimization that occurs directly on your website. On-page optimization is the process of optimizing individual pages to generate more search traffic for target keywords.

Final Thoughts on Types of SEO in Digital Marketing

There are many SEO techniques that you can use to improve your search rankings. Make sure that you practice the best SEO tactics, such as white hat SEO, YouTube SEO, and on-page SEO, etc., to improve your website’s search rankings.

So, what do you think about the different types of SEO? Which one do you prefer? Share your opinion in the comments.