On-Page and Off-Page SEO

Posted on July 20, 2012 by Michael

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How often do you hear people say “Look it up on Yellow Pages” these days?

Search Engine Optimization is now a fundamental part of any online marketing strategy. It is arguably the most effective form of online marketing. Google alone receives one billion search queries a day. These days you are more likely to hear people say “I’ll Google it”.

The goal of an SEO campaign is to increase the visibility of a website in a search engine’s search results. The higher your website is ranked on search engines, the easier it is for people to find your website. With millions of competitors online, it’s hard to stand out from the crowd and this is why an SEO campaign is crucial for businesses wanting to increase their leads.

There are two main parts of SEO. On-Page and Off-Page SEO. Search engines crawl through the web and indexes web pages based on certain keywords. The relevancy of these web pages will be ranked against the keyword.

On-Page SEO

On-Page SEO is the optimisation of pages of a website. This is achieved through keyword building and correct HTML coding. A website requires a good ratio of graphics and copy-writing. Good copy generates search traffic for a website, not its graphics. When you are writing for your pages, make sure you are using the keywords you want to be found with. List all the keywords and phrases that you want your website to be associated with and use these keywords within your copy.

Title tags and meta tags are also very important for SEO. Optimising these tags will help search engines better index your pages. Talk to your web designer or website developer to see how to make these changes.

Off-Page SEO

Many websites make the mistake of stopping at On-Page SEO. On-Page SEO is only half of the job. The other half of a search engine optimisation campaign is Off-Page SEO. This is where link building comes in. Link building is a method of creating links on other websites that links back to your website. Search engines such as Google recognises back-links and they use it to rank your website. Essentially, back-links add credibility to your website. Search engines take credibility of a website into account when they are ranking the website.

There are many ways you can create back-links. List your website on online directories, contribute to blogs, and link back to your website on forums you frequently visit. These are the common methods people use. There are other ways of link building and SEO companies such as MagikSEO have lots of tools to maximise the effectiveness of link building.

Maintenance

An SEO campaign is not something you can set and forget. It requires maintenance and regular updates. Most importantly, it needs to be monitored. Keyword ranking performance should be tracked and recorded on a regular basis. Pay attention to your website’s analytics and look at what search terms people are using to find your website.