Chapter 3: On-Page SEO & Off-Page SEO

In the previous chapter, we explored how search engine’s and Google’s algorithms work. So how exactly does SEO operate? Any comprehensive SEO strategy needs both on-page and off-page SEO. Let’s take a look at the differences and importance of each of them.

What’s On-Page SEO?

On-page SEO refers to all ranking factors within a website. These are factors you can control on your website. Here’s a few of them:

HTTPS

Have you purchased and installed an SSL certificate or migrated your website from HTTP to HTTPS? HTTPS is an internet communication protocol that protects the integrity and confidentiality of data between the user’s computer and the site as a way to keep it secured from data theft and protect it against man-in-the-middle attacks. Early in 2014, Google announced HTTPS as one of its ranking factors and began to label HTTP websites as “Not Secure” in 2018 so that users can identify which sites are safe. For that reason, installing SSL certificates and updating your HTTP website to HTTPS is a crucial first step to improving your website ranking.

Meta Title & Meta Description

Meta titles and meta descriptions of different web pages appear in the search results when users enter a query on Google. They summarize the content of a webpage so users can quickly grasp what each search result is about. As mentioned previously, Google is committed to providing users with the best search results. This makes meta titles and descriptions, not merely a significant factor affecting the click-through rate (CTR), but also a way for search engines to determine the relevance of a webpage to a user’s query and a website’s ranking. From this, we can clearly see that meta titles and meta descriptions play a somewhat important part in SEO. It is an indispensable element for website optimization and improving search results ranking.

URL Structure

A good URL structure means that it is simple and to the point. It enables users and search engines to quickly acknowledge the overall context of a website as well as connections between web pages. Here are three suggestions to improve user experience, crawlability, and indexability.

1. Use dash “-” as a separator
2. Avoid using special symbols such as commas “,”, question marks “?” and equal signs “=”
3. Incorporate keywords into the URL

On-Page Content

Although “Content is king!” is not an unfamiliar phrase among SEO experts, we believe more in “quality content is king.” What do we mean by quality content? Quality content should be relevant to users’ queries and satisfy search intent. On top of that, it must also be simple, straightforward, and easy for the audience to understand and digest. Using creative words and phrases that catch the eyes will also give you that competitive edge over your rivals.

How you arrange and structure your content also plays a huge role in how easily users and search engines understand the content. Carefully plan your content and make use of headings, tables, lists, etc. to present information in a user- and search-engine-friendly way. 

Image Optimization

Enticing visuals, on top of engaging writing, are an unmissable element for websites. Appealing images can do much more than simplifying complex concepts. They improve your website’s overall appearance and catch your readers’ eyeballs. So far, search engines are still unable to interpret the message behind an image. We must, therefore, add alternative texts (Alt Text) to inform the search engines of the meanings behind each image. Image size affects the page load time. While ensuring the quality of an image, we must also try and compress the image file as much as possible to within 100kb in order to control the loading speed and give users the best browsing experience.

Page Speed

Google started to use page speed as a ranking factor for mobile search results in 2018. Many of us asked, “Why emphasize mobile pages?” That’s because the popularity and ubiquity of mobile devices have altered the habits of Internet users – more of us rely heavily on our mobile devices to browse online information. Given this change in user behavior, Google began a shift to mobile-first indexing in 2019, primarily using the content on mobile pages to index and rank a website. Increasing mobile page loading speed becomes an essential step in SEO. In addition to compressing image files, you can also improve page speed by removing unused JavaScript and CSS, to avoid losing users due to slow load time.

Many overlook the weight of off-site SEO while solely focusing on on-site optimization. Generally speaking, off-site SEO influences a website’s domain authority, which is Google’s perceived trustworthiness of your website. Now, let’s take a look at how we can get Google to trust our websites.

What is Off-Page SEO?

Many overlook the weight of off-site SEO while solely focusing on on-site optimization. Generally speaking, off-site SEO influences a website’s domain authority, which is Google’s perceived trustworthiness of your website. Now, let’s take a look at how we can get Google to trust our websites.

Backlinks

Backlinks are links from other websites that link to your own and are a vital factor concerning a website’s domain authority. These links play the role of a recommender, as they reflect your site’s value or can serve as a point of reference for Google, but the more isn’t always the merrier when it comes to backlinks. As we’ve discussed before, Google penalizes websites with a lot of unnatural and irrelevant backlinks, so the quality of these backlinks matters far more than the quantity.

📖  Continue Reading: SEO Tutorial: The 4 Important Things about Backlinks

 

Social Signal

Social signals, including comments, likes, and shares, are all actions that promote your website visibility on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Although Google stated in 2014 that they treat all backlinks equally and that there is no correlation between social signals and search results ranking, it doesn’t mean that social signals are insignificant in SEO since they show the brand’s popularity and brand loyalty. As social media exposure and word-of-mouth marketing grows, it draws in more audiences to learn and search about the brand. In the long run, social signals can bring more organic traffic and improve SEO performance.

 

Now that we have a deeper understanding of SEO, we’ll cover in detail how you can reach and attract more target audiences and potential customers to your website by doing keyword research. Got a question about our SEO services? Contact us now!