As Google keeps making changes to its algorithms, it's hard to keep your search engine simple and focus only on one aspect. With the constant updates, there is no hard and fast rule of what would work in SEO.
Thus, it would help if you focused on both aspects of Search engine optimization. That's because you are putting your SEO efforts into both the search audience and the users. This brings us to two essential components of SEO: On-Page SEO and Off-Page SEO.
In this On-Page SEO vs Off-Page SEO, we will share the detailed comparison between the two and why you need both of them in your SEO strategies?
On-Page SEO
On-Page SEO uses specific techniques on individual web pages to make them rank better on the search engine results page so that you can earn more relevant traffic from people searching for your type of product or service.
In other words, On-Page SEO is the process of optimizing your website's content for search engines. SEO is essential because it uses Google to determine where your website is positioned in search results.
Google's algorithms are very complex and challenging to understand. It is a secret formula that determines how your website will rank in search results. So if you want to get more relevant traffic from search engines, you need to focus on On-Page SEO techniques.
On-page SEO is essential because it allows people to find you when searching online for information about the product or service you offer.
Factors of On-Page SEO
There's some reason why SEOs spend most of their time doing the On-Page SEO optimization for their website. You might have probably heard about these on-page SEO factors but do not remember.
Here is your On-page SEO checklist:
Title Tags
The title tag is the short text placed into the head section of a website's HTML code.
This text is usually used to show title and author information and can be found on the top left corner of the browser window.
A title tag is the essential element of an on-page SEO strategy.
The title tag contains a keyword or a few keyword strings to help your audience and search engine understand what content is about?
There are a few quick rules to write compelling title tags in SEO:
- Title length should be around 55-60 characters long.
- The best practice is to use the keyword at the beginning of your title.
- Do not do keyword stuffing in your title tag.
Heading Tags
Heading tags are the short text placed within the head section of a website's HTML code.
Headings contain the most significant string of words on a page, so they get extra attention from search engines when they rank your web pages in their searches.
As a general rule, the page title should be used in the H1 tag in HTML. All other sub headers can be used as H2 and H3.
URL Structure
Every webpage should have a unique URL structure. A well-defined URL helps search engines navigate to the page quickly. URL structure consists of 3 parts: domain name, path, and fragment.
Domains should be placed at the root of your site (the main page). If you have a subdomain or a subdirectory, make sure to include it as well. The second part is the path. The path is the path to the current page on your site.
Including the main keyword in your URL can further improve the relevance of the page.
Meta Description
A meta description is one of the critical SEO factors. It appears on the search results page. It is the part of the content that is below the fold.
Meta description helps search engines understand your page better. This is because it describes your page contents in a single sentence, which helps users decide whether they want to click on your link or not. More than the search engines, you need to write a meta description relevant to your audience.
A compelling meta description can entice your audience to click on your page. Though there is no negative impact of a long meta description on your ranking, it is recommended to use a 160-200 characters long meta description to view in the search engine results.
Use a Meta description Generator tool to create a compelling meta description tailored for the readers. AI Copywriter is one of the prompt tools to generate meta descriptions:
Content Quality
If you want to be successful in search engine optimization, you need to have page content that is high quality and relevant. The content that you create should be unique and informative.
You can try every on-page SEO optimization technique like keywords, internal links, and title tags, but it wouldn't take you anywhere without good and quality content. The content on your pages must provide an enhanced user experience that is better than others and more informative.
For this, you must analyze the competitors and look at what they are doing. The goal is not to copy them but take inspiration and write better and more informative content than the competitors.
You should also optimize your website for various types of devices so that users across the globe can easily access your website.
Alt Text
Alt-text is the text that appears in the images on your website. The alt text must describe what you are trying to say about an image so that people can understand it easily. According to Social media today, Image results return 19% of the search queries on Google.
Google image search is different from the regular search engine. You can get a better ranking if you have an image that is more relevant to the content of your page, and it will help you get a better click-through rate from your website.
Image is one of the features of SERP, so you must create a high-quality image with a clear alternative text.
Here are a few guidelines on how to write an alt text for your web page image:
- Use the target keyword in your image.
- Do not exceed more than ten words in your image alt text.
- Make sure to use at least one image consisting of alt text same as your target keyword.
Page Load Speed
Page load speed is an essential factor in SEO. It makes a big difference between a website's ranking and overall performance. Page load speed is the time it takes for a page to load when a user visits it.
A slow page load speed can significantly impact the overall performance of a website. It can slow down the loading of content, slow down navigation, and reduce page views.
The problem with slow page load speed is that users will quickly leave the site, increasing the bounce rate. And, Google considers the bounce rate as a significant negative signal in SEO.
Some factors in ON-Page SEO may affect your page speed:
- Minimizing HTTP requests.
- Server response time is longer.
- Setting browser caching to at least a week or longer.
- Enabling Gzip compression.
- CSS in an external stylesheet.
- Image size larger than 100 kb.
- Minifying all JS, CSS, and HTML.
- Eliminate render-blocking resources.
You can use tools like Google Page Speed Insights and GTMetrix to check your page loading speed.
Internal Links
Internal links are the most important ranking factor of SEO, and they help search engines to determine the relevance of a particular page for the keyword. Internal links help search engines know the page's context and how it relates to the keyword.
A website with lots of internal links is more likely to be visited by other websites. Internal links help the users discover the content of a website and help them find information about a particular topic.
The trick with internal linking is that you have to use them in the main content of a web page and focus on the anchor text pointing to your page you want to rank higher for traffic from search engines.
Anchor texts are clickable text that can be used as a hyperlink. The best practice for internal link building is to use the anchor text similar to the primary target keyword you want to rank for. Do not overdo the anchor text, but make slight variations in the text.
Structured Data
Structured data is another factor that affects the search engine ranking. Search engines use structured data to rank a website for a particular keyword.
Structured data can be either in the form of Schema or Microdata, and there are a few things you need to know about it:
Schema is the structure of data that helps search engines understand what information is available on a particular web page. It can be either RDF or JSON-LD, and you need to follow schema rules to make it compatible with search engine ranking.
Microdata, on the other hand, is the way of describing content on a webpage. It can be either RDF or JSON-LD, and it is compatible with search engine ranking as well.
Examples of structured data include reviews, ratings, recipe information, and travel guides or maps.
Core Web Vitals
Google introduced Core Web Vitals as a set of signals that they deem influential on the Internet. And in 2021, it became an SEO ranking factor for websites on search engines like Google and Bing.
The purpose of Core Web Vitals metrics is to measure how long it takes before you can interact with a web page. It's important because the longer it takes for something to happen, the less likely people will be on that website again and again.
Thus, Core web vitals are significant for improving page experience and also enhancing the user experience.
Off-Page SEO
Many people think that on-page SEO is the only way to get more traffic and page ranking. However, this is not true.
Your off-page SEO efforts are just as important as your on-page SEO efforts. Off-page SEO can increase your search engine rankings and get you more traffic from search engines.
"Off-page SEO" is a term that refers to the optimization of a website's back-end, i.e. the search engine optimization of the website's content, its metadata, and its robots.txt file. Off-page SEO focuses on improving a website's ranking in search engines by making it more visible on the search results pages.
It is a form of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It is distinct from on-page SEO, which focuses on improving a website's search engine rankings by making its content more relevant to the user and usability.
While the On-page SEO is for the users and the search engines, the Off-page SEO is merely for the search engines.
There are a few Off-page factors that can help you build trustworthiness in the eyes of Google.
Factors of Off-Page SEO
Below are some of the most crucial Off-page SEO factors that one needs to consider for better visibility:
Backlinks
One of the essential Off-page factors is the backlinks pointing to the page. While the number of backlinks plays some role in building Google trust and passing the link juice, the quality of backlinks matters the most.
According to Moz, "the authority of the linking site and the linking page both matter."
When creating a backlink from an external site, make sure that it is relevant to your niche. If you are an interior designer, make sure that the backlink is from a website covering home decorating.
There are a few actionable ways to build Off-page SEO links:
- Writing guest posts.
- Hosting webinars or participating in them.
- Creating press releases.
- Creating a network of sites to build cross-links between them.
- Using infographics or other visuals such as video content to earn backlinks.
Domain Authority
This is the overall score for a site. The DA score reflects how well a site can rank in Google, Yahoo, and Bing. This score is calculated based on the page's link popularity, keyword density, domain authority, backlinks, and site age.
Apart from this, it is the relevancy of your content that builds the authority of your domain.
Page Authority
This is the score of a page based on its content, backlinks, social signals (SEO), and user engagement. Page authority measures how much weight you can give to each factor when calculating your site's ranking in Google. The higher the page authority, the more weight you can give to those factors.
Social Shares
Social shares are measured by the number of times a page is shared on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn. When you share content on social media, it can help you gain more visibility and traffic apart from the search engines.
It can further enhance your brand mentions on social media.
The brand mentions played a significant role in increasing the visibility of your brand or website. The more and higher quality posts and articles you share about your brand, the better it is to get relevant backlinks from other websites, which will help you with both on-page and off-page SEO.
On-Page SEO or Off-Page SEO: Which is more important?
On-page SEO and off-page SEO both play a vital role in the success of a website. On-page SEO means on the actual web page. Off-page SEO means on other websites and other pages.
SEO is more effective when you provide good on-page signals as well as off-page signals. It's harder to rank a page by only using off-page SEO without providing on-page information, or vice versa.
However, on-page SEO is what you should focus on first. That's because everything that you do on your webpage must be good for the readers and provide them with a good user experience. Once you have a slight improvement in your rankings, use the Off-page SEO techniques to boost visibility.
Conclusion
The most significant difference between on-page and off-page SEO is that you can control the on-page optimization factors within your website.
The off-site factors are more uncertain as you can't control what search engines do, so the best way to increase your chances of ranking well is to create valuable and exciting content for your target audience. Several tools can help you with On-Page optimization as well as off-page SEO.
For example, the page speed checker tool like Google Page Speed insights or the backlink analysis tool like Ahrefs and SEMrush could be of great help.
In the end, it all comes to creating better content. And, content as we know, is a hard nut to crack. For this, you need an SEO assistant and writer tool like Scalenut.
Scalenut considers various On-Page SEO factors and generates optimised content for the search engines for your primary keyword.
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