35 Different Types of SEO Marketing

There are 4 main broad categories or types of SEO:

1. On-Page
2. Off-Page
3. Technical
4. Local

These essentially cover all the SEO services you could get for your website.

However, there are many more subcategories of SEO, as well SEO strategies, tactics, specialisms, and discrete blocks of SEO work. I think this is the most complete list of the different types of SEO online.

​Types of SEO:

1. AMP SEO – Using AMP to improve ranking in search results. Using AMP can make pages load faster as they are a stripped-down (lighter) version of web pages.
2. App Store SEO – Working to get more downloads for an App in App Stores.
3. B2B SEO – focuses on maximizing SERP real estate and the importance of being on comparison websites like Capterra, etc. Also, rankings on the category pages within those sites
4. Black Hat SEO – SEO techniques that are against the terms and conditions set by search engines.
5. Brand SEO – Any branding activities online. Being mentioned on other sites (with a link or not) can improve your ranking.
6. Content SEO – A form of SEO that focuses solely on content (eg blogging, guest posting etc).
7. Competitor SEO – A focus on searches that include the word “vs” or “alternative” as they are so common. Example: McDonalds might write an article titled “Big Mac vs Whopper” so that when people search for that term, their article is found. By doing this McDonalds can influence how people view the two products.
8. eCommerce SEO – SEO specifically used for increasing the likelihood of purchases online. This is different from regular SEO as there many unique factors on eCommerce sites (such as product descriptions and reviews).
9. Digital PR – Getting links in the press or on news sites, as well as reputation management.
10. Enterprise SEO – SEO for very large websites. Large sites have different problems and resources than smaller sites and so SEO work is very different than when working on smaller sites.
11. Grey Hat SEO – SEO techniques that are not against the rules but which are still obviously dodgy (and likely to be made against the rules in the future).
12. Image SEO – Optimizing images to appear higher in image search results, and bring searchers to your webpage.
13. Internal SEO – Focussing on internal linking, site structure, and internal search results.
14. International SEO – SEO for sites that operate in multiple countries. This can mean localization of content, links etc, and creating multiple versions of a page in different languages.
15. JavaScript SEO – Optimizing sites built using JavaScript. Search Engines generally find JavaScript more difficult to read, so extra care is needed to ensure they are indexed properly.
16. Local SEO – SEO for a business that operates in a specific location (such as a shop, or local delivery service). This is different to other types of SEO in that it is about a business, rather than a webpage. Local SEO is about making sure all mapping sites know about the business (as well as any sites which talk about that location).
17. Mobile SEO – A focus on mobile related different types of SEO issues (such as mobile usability).
18. National SEO – Optimizing for searches within one country (or with the country of operation in mind). National SEO is similar to Local SEO but has a focus on branding.
19. Negative SEO – An attack on a site in an attempt to decrease the ranking of that site in search. This generally involves using Black Hat techniques aimed at your site with the hope of being caught.
20. Non-Competitive SEO – Where your SEO efforts are focussed on helping your sector or an ecosystem of businesses.* Example: You sell a product but don’t repair it. You create content to boost your business, but actively avoid any keywords related to repairing the product so that repair businesses can rank higher for them. Having a product that is easily repaired makes it easier to sell your product.
21. Off-Page SEO – Any SEO activity you do without editing the page you are working on (such as link building).
22. On-Page SEO – Any SEO activity you do on a webpage (such as improving content structure).
23. Parasite SEO – Exploit the high domain authority of sites that allow you to create pages on them (Think BuzzFeed, Wikipedia, Medium, YouTube etc) and utilize this authority to both rank and use links lower authority sites wouldn’t succeed with. First coined in the early 2000s by Eli from the Blue Hat SEO community.
24. Programmatic SEO – A method that addresses the growing amount of search traffic by publishing landing pages on a large scale. As an example, Tripadvisor has a page for almost everything travel-related. Yelp has a page for all business searches.
25. PWA SEO – Using Progressive Web Apps to improve search ranking and performance.
26. SaaS SEO – A set of optimization considerations for software as a service websites. Common SaaS SEO strategies include creating key landing pages, rich content integration, and finding blog opportunities. The most common challenges in SaaS SEO include competition from aggregator sites and limited search volume.
27. Semantic SEO – SEO for real-world objects or entities made up of people, places, and things (such as ideas and concepts).
28. SERP Feature SEO – The process of mining rich snippets and PAA (People Also Asked) for opportunities to enhance your current pages display on SERP results themselves (e.g. FAQ markup, product schema, etc).
29. Social SEO – Using Social Media to affect search rankings. While social signals may not affect search ranking directly, posts from some social networks do appear in search results, as do profiles. Social media can also be used to generate 2nd order links.
30. Technical SEO – SEO efforts that don’t revolve around content (such as improving page speed and information architecture).
31. Video SEO – Optimizing videos and related meta details to gain more (and better) traffic from video hosting platforms.
32. Voice SEO – Optimizing pages for voice search. Voice search is generally more question and answer based than text search and requires a specific technical markup.
33. White Hat SEO – SEO techniques that aim to follow terms and conditions set by search engines.​
34. Platform-specific types of SEO, where you try to improve results on that platform. Some of the more common examples are:
35. Amazon SEO, eBay SEO, Etsy SEO, Pinterest SEO, Spotify SEO, YouTube SEO (Social SEO)

What are negative types of SEO?

Negative SEO refers to a group of techniques that aim to lower the competitor’s rankings. It involves bombarding a website with black hat techniques and hurt the credibility of the website resulting in a drop in its search engine rankings.
The most common harmful and negative types of SEO tactics include:

• Hacking
• Building tons of spammy backlinks
• Copy the content and publishing it elsewhere to make it duplicate
• Pointing links with keywords used in porn and gambling sites
• Ruining the online reputation using fake social media profiles

How to protect your website from negative SEO

It is also worth mentioning that the term SEO is often used by people who actually do nothing which will affect search results:

1. Fake Guru SEO – People who overrepresent their SEO knowledge and success in order to sell courses or other learning materials at a premium. These are actually pretty common throughout the web unfortunately.
2. Scam SEO – Unscrupulous “SEO consultants” applying long-dead SEO techniques such as over-use of meta tags and keyword stuffing in content on unsuspecting and unsophisticated customers.

How to defend a negative SEO attack from your competitors?

Ensure the following checks and balances are in place on your website to help mitigate negative SEO.

Email alerts of Google Webmaster tools

Google sends email alerts whenever your website is attacked by malware or when there is a server connectivity issue. It also sends alerts if your pages are not getting indexed or if you receive a penalty from Google. So connect to Google Webmaster Tools and enable email notifications. Set the option to receive alerts for all issues.

Monitor your backlinks

The common technique in negative SEO is building spammy backlinks or redirects. It is important to be alert against this tactic. You can use tools like Open Site Explorer, Ahrefs, or Monitorbacklinks.com to check such actions on your website. If you notice spammy backlinks to your site take counter measures immediately.

Secure the best backlinks

Many spammers attempt to manipulate your quality backlinks. They do this by usurping your identity and contacting the website owner with a request to remove the backlink. You can take many steps to prevent this. Always use the email address in your domain while communicating to webmasters. This will discourage competitors from faking your identity. Another precaution is to track your quality backlinks and tag them. Keep a close watch on these backlinks and monitor for any status changes.

Protect the website from hackers and malware attacks

The next step is to secure your website from hackers. For a WordPress website, you can install Google Authenticator Plugin with 2-step verification. The password must be strong consisting of special characters and numbers. Install antivirus to avoid the risk of malware while users upload files to your website. There has to be a regular backup of your database to minimize the risk of corruption and data loss.

Eliminate content duplication

Spammers try to lower your rankings through content duplication. They duplicate your content in many places on the web leading to Google penalties and loss of rankings. Before you upload content check for duplication using reliable tools like Copyscape. Regularly check your website content for duplication and make the required corrections.

Monitor your website speed

If there is a sudden drop in website speed, it could be because spammers are bombarding your server with thousands of requests. Create an email alert to get a notification when your server is down. Act fast to stop the spammers by contacting the hosting support company.

Keep track of your social media mentions

Another negative SEO tactic is to create fake social media accounts in the name of your company. Monitor such activities and take immediate action by reporting these profiles as spam.

Working with Frasca Digital’s Types of SEO Services

There are many different types of SEO, and negative SEO is a reality. Achieving high rankings require months of patience and you do not want your competitors to pull you down through negative SEO tactics.

The above steps can safeguard your website to a large extent from such attacks. It is also important to take immediate preventive measures if you notice negative SEO activities on your website.

Contact us today if you would like to learn how to implement SEO for your website.