We have heard this SEO term a lot of times when it comes to website ranking…We also keep on hearing about On page and Off page SEO…
But do you know what these terms are?
How do they work? ….Their importance?
So lets start by understanding SEO…
What is SEO?
SEO is basically series of steps, ways or strategies that are used or followed to improve the rank of your website in search engine result pages (SERP) hence increasing your visibility on search engine.
There are two main types of SEO:
- On-Page SEO
- Off-Page SEO
We shall study both of these two On page and Off page SEO in this article, including their benefits, difference and how they affect ranking of a website.
What is On page SEO?
On-page SEO also known for “On site SEO”. It is basically taking different parts of website into consideration and optimizing them to rank better on search engines. You have control over these parts of website.
Examples are Title Tags, Headings(H1, H2, H3), Meta Description, URL Structure, etc
However we have manifested a lit of 12 factors that affect the ranking of the webpage in certain ways.
1. Title Tags
You have to write down your title tag by putting a targeted focus keyword in it. It appears in the search results below the URL. It should be very eye-catching and optimized as it is the first thing user sees on search results and clicks it to navigate to a certain site. There are some rules to write an effective Title Tag for each page:
- The length of title should be 51-55 characters or not more than ~60 characters
- Do not stuff the title with keywords
- Put a focus keyword inside the title tag
- It should be written in context to the natural human language and relevancy
2. Headings (H1)
We cannot forget the importance of H1 as it is found mainly on the top of the article with largest text. It is also one of the factors that has a bit more importance in SEO. You should also take into account H2, H3 as they are often neglected. So you can utilize them by optimizing them with relevant keywords and do not stuff!
Ensure that H1 is only used once on a page and then you should utilize H2, H3.
3. Rich Content
You page content matters. a lot when it comes to the On page SEO. As in future it will have much importance with updating algorithm and introduction of E-E-A-T. You need to make sure that you write in natural language with rich content of information relevant to the niche your website is in. There is not maximum length limit fo this.
However you should always aim for at least 600 words of each page or article. Search engine like Google looks for a rich content that is also relevant or surrounding your target keyword, so try to keep it relevant rather than stuffing keywords from every corner
4. URL Structure
It can also play a role in SEO. So you should try to write URLs in a way that they make sense to the users with relevant slugs. Try to keep URL short and do not repeat the same URLs more than once as it will badly impact the experience. Now a days different CMS can easily manage these URL structure for you by tweaking some settings.
5. Page Speed
It is also one of the factor affecting SEO as Google wants that its users gets immediate relevant results. So if your website is not optimized and it takes long to load then it badly affect the user experience and ultimately Google doesn’t like this.
You can optimize your web pages by taking certain steps:
- Reducing HTTP requests
- Ensure server response time is less than 200ms
- Setup Weekly Browser Caching
- Having image sizes under 100kb (.jpg, .png, .gif). You can use smush a famous plugin if you are using CMS like wordpress
- Put all of CSS in external sheet
- Optimizing code by removing irrelvant lines
After following each instruction you can analyse your website speed with google page analyzer “Page Speed Insights” to further look for any problem and fixing it accordingly.
6. Descriptive Image Alt Text
Alt text for images are really important as they play a significant role for visually impaired individuals. Moreover it is also essential for telling search engines what images are about as they crawl through this text while generating search results.
So you can use some keywords in your alt text not more than 8-10 words with a keyword placed in most convenient place that does not affect context of the image.
7. Mobile Friendliness
Mobile friendliness in terms of responsiveness and loading speed of site on mobile has also been prioritized by Google. You should take this factor into consideration by improving the site performance on mobile ad providing a robust user experience.
You can check how your website is performing currently by putting it to a Mobile-Friendly Test by google to check whether it complies by the standard of google.
8. Content answering ‘People also ask’ or FAQs
Google also put forward these PAA results from different website if they are well written and relevant to user’s query. You should focus writing the content in most robust and thorough manner that it becomes relevant to user’s query and gets chosen for PAA. It can be done by incorporating such short questions in your subheadings and answering in list of paragraphs.
For long articles you can use H2 and for e-commerce website you may use dedicated FAQ section.
9. Internal Links
Internal Links have a high impact in On page SEO. These are the links with anchor text linking to the other parts e.g blogs in your website. It helps user to easily navigate through your website through links hence making a flow. It attracts more customers to make purchase if they are smoothly jumping from one page to the other relevant page.
On the other hand the Search engine has a keen eye on these links while crawling through the site as they consider them for better user experience. However you should use the anchor text with most relevant text and target keyword if possible. you should not use conventional ‘Learn more’ call to action. It should be more of a context and meaning of the page it is being linked to.
10. E-E-A-T Signals
If you are familiar with google’s new update in quality raters guideline then you must know E-E-A-T. Its acronyms stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness and is one of the ways Google measures the value of your content.
You should consider this while writing content for your site. In short Google is now looking for a very rich and valuable content written by relevant expert having experience. It checks on these signals by keeping a track on citations, testimonials, awards, etc. So you can address these signals by considering above mentioned factors to show expertise, experience, authority and trust.
11. Core Web Vitals
Core web vitals are the signals contributing to user experience and are defined as critical by Google. The purpose of these signals is to check for user experience with a website, by taking into account its page visual stability and load time, interactive experiences. Here are some core vitals that are considered crucial for better user experience:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) – measures perceived page loading speed and marks the point at which the majority of the page content has downloaded.
- First Input Delay – quantifies user experience of a user’s initial engagement with a page.
- Cumulative Layout Shift – quantifies the amount of layout shift on visible page content and measures visual stability of a page. It’s usually causes by images without dimensions.
You can check for LCP score on Page Speed Insights by Google. And you must keep it within 2.5s and you can add height and width dimensions to each new site element to optimize CLS. Also, avoid adding new content above existing content on a page (unless responding to user interaction).
12. Schema Markup
These are basically code snippets placed inside the pages of website. Googles uses these structured data to call them out to specific aspect of website in rich results like “recipes” with star ratings and images. It is a form of structured data and appears on top of SERP and have comparatively higher CTR .
You should not ignore this as it can get you much of organic reach. So always form up a valid Schema structure for your site.
What is Off page SEO?
Off-page SEO also known as “Off-site SEO” refers to series of steps or strategies followed outside the website to improve its ranking.
Examples include link building, guest posting, social media marketing, etc.
Here are som of the techniques you can opt to have a better Off page SEO of you site:
1. Link Building
Inbound links are the most important factor contributing in Off Page SEO of your site. Link building is basically getting other websites link to your site. This get be done is someone likes your content and link to your site.
Or else you can get it by providing valuable content for others like guest blogging in exchange to links, however in this case the niche of both the sites should be relevant to avoid sending bad signals to Google.
Link building can also be done by appropriate PR and content marketing. There are two major factors in how these link will affect your SEO:
- Authority: The authority of the website that has linked to your site will define the SEO score
- Unique Domain: The links connecting to your site are being checked by algorithm for uniqueness
2. Content Marketing
Content marketing is an important Off Page SEO technique that can used to improve the traffic to your website by posting valuable content. It can be done by many ways like:
- PR: You can get extra brand awareness by PR marketing and more referrals to your site contributing to better SEO
- Social Media: The more you post the content, the more attention you will seek from the audience and hence brand search and links will be generated eventually.
- Influencer Marketing: It works well if you are a popular blogger you can easily sell your product or service or you can ask another blogger to promote your product
- Forums: You an also share relevant link in the forums where there are large communities up for discussion.
- Guest Blogging: You should always try to find out Guest blogging opportunities online. You may find these opportunities by trying Google Search operators with your query. It is reliable way to earn link for your site.
3. Local SEO (GMB Listing)
Local SEO also contributes towards better off page SEO by listing your brand on Google Business Profile (GBP). This ensures a good visibility on search results. You should always keep your information up-to-date. You should quickly respond to the reviews and establish a consistent daily postings.
4. Reviews
As we know E-E-A-T by google, the trust factor can become very crucial while dealing with the reviews. So we have to ensure that we reply all the reviews whether they are bad or good. As Google recommends replying to these reviews to build a trust between your brand and the audience.
You can ask all of your customers for reviews. And please….DO NOT buy fake reviews.
5. Events
This is yet another great technique to get attention by a large audience. You can create a buzz around your business by using these events properly. For example you can get brand mentions while the event is being promoted. Or influencer can share it to add valuable insights for their audience.
Importance of On page and Off page SEO
Both On page and Off page SEO have their significant role in the ranking of a website on SERP. However we cannot define that one is better than the other.
You can say On-Page SEO plays a role as a foundation pillar for the search engine optimization of your site. The Off-page is build on that foundation for further improvements. So start with addressing all the factors with On page SEO, meanwhile you can work on building trust and awareness among your audience by using Off Page SEO techniques.
Both will contribute to improve the ranking of your site in SERP.
