Search engine optimization is an approach to create your website more attractive and effective, to help them rank higher on search engine result pages and gain more relevant traffic. Optimization techniques are classified into two parts i.e. On-Page SEO and Off-Page SEO. You can’t ignore any of them because each one offers its own potential for ROI and success of your online business.
Here, I’ll explain the importance and essential factors of on-page and off-page SEO that will help you better understand fundamental steps to technical seo success and make your website seo friendly. On-page and Off-page optimization strategies are totally different from each other but equally helps your website to improve search engine rankings in complementary manner.
What is On-Page SEO?
On-page optimization is a technique of optimizing each of the element on the page that affects your website’s ranking. It is important to first look into your page and make them relevant to the queries. Below are the components that should be considered for a successful on-page optimization.
#1. Seo audit
It is crucial to perform an seo audit to recognize overall issues and gaps on the website. So that you can fix them immediately and help your website rank better on SERPs. Wondering how to perform seo audit? Don’t worry friends, we have an awesome article you may refer to better understand “How to perform the ultimate SEO audit”. This will let you identify the components and much more that should be considered while performing an audit.
#2. Adding keywords to prominent places
Optimizing for right keywords with right placement requires certain points to think through. It is considered to add relevant keywords on critical sections that are mentioned below -
• Headings – This tag is used to define the page content. It is always good to use targeted keywords or phrase words in headlines because search engines gives them more importance. Remember, do not over do with keywords for the reason that it will make your site look spammy and will harm your website’s ranking instead of improving it.
• Titles – This tag is very important optimizing element and shown at the top of the web page to describe what the page is about. Give your web page brief but descriptive title with relevant keywords. When your indexed page is displayed on search engine result pages, visitors see your title as well. Hence, it is very important to provide a proper information in title.
• Descriptions – Providing description to your web page gives visitors more insights into services you provide. Make sure you are creating user-friendly meta description that is relevant to your content. It has character limit of 135 – 160.
• Images – Using keywords in “image title” and “alt tag” is considered as one of the best practices for driving traffic by image search. Search engines do not read images and therefore it is important to properly define the image in text with alt tag for improving your overall ranking. But, you must take care of image size. If image size is too large your website loading speed will be slow. Site speed is very crucial as ranking factor.
• Domains – It’s a great idea to place relevant keywords into URLs. Using keyword in URLs has number of benefits like – domain defines itself even when there is no anchor text, while hovering, visitors could know whether they will get what they are looking for. Visitors are exposed to URLs on SERPs and it has been observed that they consider it before going to any website.
Also, try to match URLs with titles. It is recommended to use fewer folders because fewer your folders, fewer slashes in your URL. It makes your URL readable.
#3. Engaging content
It is important to write relevant and attractive content to engage visitors. If your content is not engaging, visitors won’t spend much time and leave your page which will lead to increase in bounce rate and low web page rankings.
#4. Internal linking
Interlinking to relevant pages of a website gives more insights to readers. Also, it lets viewers visit other page on your site. Moreover, it will pass link juice to other pages on the website. You can always use keyword rich anchor text while interlinking to other pages. Avoid multiple links to same page as it is considered one of the bad practice to seo.
Internal links on website is important both for SEO and also creates good user experience. Here is the list of few things which you need to consider –
• Three click rule – You should always keep in mind that your important pages are accessible within 2 to 3 clicks from home page.
• Broken links – Broken links are bad for user experience, confuse visitors and also affects ranking power. Therefore, broken links should be find and fix as soon as possible.
• Redirected links - If any visitors logins to a page and they are taken to a number of redirects, their website will be negatively affected. So, it’s very important that your pages don’t have more than 2-3 chains of redirects.
#5. Mobile friendly approach
Our first focus in gaining this advantage is to look at just how we deliver mobile-friendly content. There are three possible approaches:
• Responsive web design
• Dynamic content
• Separate URLs (mobile site)
Responsive website design is Google’s recommended way to tackle mobile-friendly sites and, as such, is the approach you should take unless you have very strong reasons not to.
Responsive design has been around for a while, so this is not a new concept. However, we still see sites that are technically responsive while not providing a strong experience for mobile users.
Ultimately, responsive design is just a small part of creating truly mobile-friendly websites.
What is off-Page SEO?
Off-Page optimization is not just about link building, lots of the people are not aware of it. Well it has lots of more external signals that influence your website’s ranking. Which means you work outside your website.
#1. Acquiring backlinks
External links is a link building process also known as backlinks and is one of the key factors for better ranking on search engine results page. Backlinks are the links from higher authority sites to your pages. It is not necessary to build long list of backlinks but is required to get quality links.
#2. Promoting your content via social media
Social media promotion can help you a lot to drive relevant and interested traffic to your website. There are number of social media platforms used for business exposure such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn etc. You can help boost your seo values by just spending a little time on it.
#3. Social bookmarking
Social bookmarking is old off-page seo technique but still considered useful. It is very important for those who want to grow their business and promotion. You can bookmark your webpages on well-known and popular bookmarking sites, don’t forget to tag the keywords. These sites directs visitors to your website when they search for relevant keywords. Thus, it helps you get huge amount of traffic, improve website’s authority and passes the link juice to your website.
#4. Guest blogging
Guest blogging is a SEO technique which lets you write and publish a blog post on a third party website to promote your brand. It exposes your brand to relevant audience and can be an effective method to generate awareness. Refer our amazing blog “SEO Benefits of Guest Blogging” to learn more about guest blogging benefits.
#5. Directory submission
It is one of the most valuable and simple method for off-page seo. Directory Submission to top directories gives online exposure and increases your website’s domain authority as well. Besides this, your website will be easily indexed on search engines and get highly targeted traffic. Be careful, it is crucial to choose effective directory and suitable category. Suppose you have education related sites then you will select "education" category for submission.
Final words
SEO techniques changes over time, you must be updated on latest practices to keep your website beyond your competitors website. And therefore, you can outsource link building services, SEO Keyword research services, Outsource E-commerce SEO, Outsource local SEO, Outsource guest posting, Outsource enterprise SEO, White label small business SEO, Offshore SEO, and Outsource backlink analysis, suggest not to stick with the old ones rather keep reading new practices to boost your website ranking.
Chanda
Chanda is B.Tech Computer Science, a digital marketing enthusiast specializing in social media. Working as a search specialist at Megistron Media and has been helping clients attain their campaign goals by creating bespoke digital solutions.