On Page Vs. Off Page Seo: Not Really a Fight
In the realm of search engine optimization or SEO, our efforts to rank higher on the search engine result pages can be classified into two big and distinctive categories: page and off page SEO.
But it is actually a battle? Is it on page vs off page? Or is it more about two paths to get to the same destiny?
Let us learn more about the differences between these two types of SEO strategies for your page rank.
On page SEO refers to all those factors of your web page that are within your control. Things you can do to your website to optimize it for user experience.
On the other hand, Off page SEO refers to the different strategies you can apply to increase your domain authority within a specific niche. These strategies are not in your immediate control.
As you can see, both are extremely important for an overall successful SEO campaign, and far from being against each other, they should work together in harmony to create a beautiful and optimized website that users love to visit.
Before going any further, let us understand how search engine ranking works.
You rank within a niche for a detailed set of targeted keywords and the way your website works. These are all On page SEO factors.
Now, how high you rank for that targeted keywords is largely affected by how popular your website actually is. If your content is being shared by the users or other websites is what builds the popularity, credibility, and authority of your website. The higher your authority score, the higher you will rank for a determined set of keywords.
What comes first? On page or Off page?
This is not like the question of the egg and the chicken. It is very clear that you must focus your attention on the on page SEO work first before thinking about bringing people from outside to check what you have to offer.
Thinking it this way:
Let us say that you advertise having great products at your store and top of the line customer service. However, every time a person goes to your shop, you do not have the products in stock, and the personnel is rude and unpleasant with the customers.
Before worrying about your off page SEO strategy, it is important to have the house in order. There is no use for a good backlink in a link building plan if the link leads the user to a website that is not fully optimized.
To build, increase and enhance your domain authority, you must focus first on creating high quality content with the potential to be shared by many.
Then, you should be in line with Google’s core web vitals which are a series of common signals that every website should strike for in order to have a fully optimized website.
So, the takeaway is: even though both page and off page SEO are important for the overall positioning strategy, you should focus your work first on the things that are in your control.
Worry about the things you do on the pitch before going around asking for other players to match with your team.
Upgrading the On page side of the equation:
Clear website architecture:
Building a website is like drawing a blueprint for an office building. Websites must have a clear architecture for them to be crawled by Google’s bots.
Upgrade your website’s speed.
If a page is not fast enough it is more likely for a user to abandon that page within the next 30 seconds and that is a red flag for Google. You can read our entry blog about how to optimize your website’s loading speed here.
Have good internal linking:
when a website has a good internal link map, the user will probably spend more time on the website reading about all the things you have to offer. Take advantage of anchor text as a tool to guide your user through a different page on your site besides once they have finished reading the first one.
Make your website mobile friendly:
these days, users are more likely to be reading your from a cellphone or tablet than on a laptop or PC. Be sure that the mobile version of your website runs as sweet as the desk version.
Upgrade the quality of your content:
creating SEO friendly content is like alchemy. There is no simple formula to apply for this, but you can follow these guidelines from our previous blog post.
A picture worth a thousand words:
every time you load a photo or illustration to your website, make sure to add a proper description to the image. Google has an image section that can become a pathway to your website if you manage to have solid alt texts for the different illustrations you upload.
Do not forget the meta:
The meta description is that little resume you find under the URL that leads you to a given website. Place at least one keyword in the meta description to facilitate googles crawlers to know what your blog post is about.
And now, the off page part.
Well, when it comes to increasing your website’s domain authority score, there are several things you can do. Nevertheless, you need to be mindful that these things are not in your control so, it is easy for them to go sideways.
The primary thing that determines your authority score is the quality of the backlinks you earn for your website.
To gain quality backlinks you must create awesome content that follows the trends in the market. Things that people like to read about. If you have that, gaining backlinks will be a little bit easier.
Here are other things to keep in mind
Quality content is original content: do not, we repeat, do not copy and paste content for other pages. This is disrespectful to your audience and other content creators. You do not have to be unique; you just have to be different.
Use social media: social media platforms can help you build quality backlinks. You can take advantage of the dynamics of social media to make your content visible to more people.
Quality over quantity: this applies to almost everything in life, and backlinks are not the exception. It is better to have a handful of good, rock-solid backlinks than a bunch of crappy, broken, toxic backlinks. Nowadays, you can get punished by Google for buying links, and that will cost you more than all the efforts to get a quality backlink.
Influence marketing: this is an old but classic way to gain quality backlinks. Touch base with relevant personalities within the niche of your product and service and ask them to refer to your website when creating their content
Basic takeaways.
There is no On page vs Of page battle.
You need both strategies to rank higher.
On page SEO is in your control. Take advantage of that.
For OFF page SEO, quality will always be better than quantity.
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