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Your Ultimate Guide to On-Page and Off-Page SEO Best Practices

Your Ultimate Guide to On-Page and Off-Page SEO Best Practices

SEO, aka search engine optimization, is used by brands to attract sales, bring traffic to their website, and drive growth. It’s a key digital marketing strategy.

SEO has changed so much since the early days of keyword-loading and backlink-filling. More sophisticated and technical than it’s ever been, today’s SEO relies on a mix of on-page and off-page optimization strategies to place high-quality websites.

In this guide, we provide all the answers to grow your small business website with SEO best practices.

SEO and Keywords

SEO keywords are the thread that runs through every stitch of a search engine optimization strategy. Keywords must be carefully selected. Maximize the success of your campaign by building a list of keywords that have been thoroughly researched. Update it regularly. All throughout your online presence, these keywords should be used seamlessly.

What is On-Page SEO?

On-page SEO is on-site techniques that optimize a webpage and/or website for a SERP or ‘search engine results page’. It is a mix of content-based elements and technical components. All optimization aside, the better you do on-page SEO, the more qualified leads your website receives.

Speaking on the technical aspects, here are a few examples of important on-page SEO for small businesses.

  • Title tags.
  • Headings.
  • URL structure.
  • Alt-text for images.
  • Site speed.
  • Internal links.
  • Meta descriptions.
  • Mobile responsiveness

How to Write A Title Tag for SEO

Title tags are HTML 101. They designate the name of a webpage. Title tags are displayed as the result title on a search engine. Every title tag you write should be unique, description, with keywords, and under 60 characters in length.

How to Write A Heading for SEO

Headings are how we divide content. Headings in H1 format are best. Headings should use descriptive language, optimized with keywords. Subheadings H2 through H6 are also used in the same way. H1 is the main heading at the top of a web page while the subsequent subheadings are for use throughout the rest of the content.

How to Write A URL Structure for SEO

URL structure is underrated but extremely important. They help search engines like Google determine what your web page is about. URL structure should be descriptive and optimized with keywords. Automatically-generated URL structures tend to include numbers. Modify that. Use keywords instead.

How to Write Alt-Text for SEO

Alt-text, aka ‘alternative text’, is used to describe images in the meta-data. Search engines cannot read images. They need to be told by alt-text what an image is about. This alt-text is an opportunity to use specific, keyword-driven language in 125 characters or less to get your webpage better classified on websites.

Why Page Load Speed is Important for SEO

The slower your page loads, the higher the bounce rate. If your webpage takes longer than 3 seconds to load, up to 87 percent of your users will leave. Search engines prioritize ranking fast websites for SEO. This is where a highly-skilled web design and digital marketing expert can ultimately come in handy.

Why Internal Links Are Important for SEO

Internal links play a crucial role in search engine optimization (SEO) by improving website visibility, user experience, and search engine rankings. These links are hyperlinks that connect one page of a website to another page within the same domain. Here's why internal links are important for SEO:

1. Improved website navigation: Internal links help users navigate through a website easily, enabling them to find relevant information effortlessly. This enhances user experience and encourages them to spend more time on the site.

2. Enhanced crawlability: Search engine bots use internal links to discover and index web pages. By strategically placing internal links throughout a website, search engines can easily crawl and understand the site's structure, leading to better indexation and visibility.

3. Increased page authority: Internal links distribute authority and ranking power throughout a website. By linking to important pages from other pages within the site, you can boost their authority and increase their chances of ranking higher in search engine results.

Inbound marketing and Internal links, are they same? No, Inbound marketing refers to a marketing strategy that focuses on attracting and engaging potential customers through valuable content and experiences. Here's how inbound marketing relates to SEO:

1. Content creation: Inbound marketing relies on creating high-quality content that educates, entertains, or solves problems for the target audience. This content can include blog posts, articles, videos, infographics, and more. By optimizing this content for search engines, you can attract organic traffic and improve SEO rankings.

2. Link building: Inbound marketing often involves building relationships and earning backlinks from authoritative websites. These backlinks are external links that point to your website, signaling to search engines that your site is trustworthy and relevant. This can positively impact your SEO rankings.

3. Social media promotion: Inbound marketing utilizes social media platforms to promote content, engage with the audience, and drive traffic to the website. By sharing and promoting content through social media channels, you can increase brand visibility, attract more visitors, and potentially improve SEO performance.

In summary, internal links are important for SEO as they improve website navigation, enhance crawlability, and increase page authority. Inbound marketing complements SEO efforts by focusing on content creation, link building, and social media marketing  to attract and engage potential customers. Together, these strategies can help improve website visibility, drive organic traffic, and boost search engine rankings.

Why Mobile Responsiveness Is Important for SEO

Most users are viewing your website on a mobile device. Mobile responsiveness adapts your website’s visual to the screen size being used. It makes your content easier to read. Search algorithms prioritize mobile responsive websites over desktop websites and rank accordingly. Assuming you want a better search ranking, ensure your site is mobile responsive website.

SEO Isn’t Just Technical, It’s About Content As Well

Technical aspects are just half of the SEO battle. The other part of it is having unique, relevant, exciting content that attracts your target audience and keeps them on your website.

Here are some examples of content you can create for your website.

  • Blogs.
  • Videos.
  • Infographics.
  • Podcasts.
  • Original Research.
  • Case Studies.
  • Interviews.
  • Online Reviews.
  • How-to Articles.
  • Quizzes.
  • Copywriting.

Where content marketing services meets SEO is the sweet spot. We can’t tell you what sort of content to use. Every website is different. What’s sure is it can’t be duplicated from another website and it absolutely has to engage your audience. The better you know what your audience wants, the more likely you can serve it to them in the content you create.

What is Off-Page SEO?

Off-page SEO are the ways you optimize your website that fall outside of your own domain.

Backlinks fall under the category of off-page SEO. In the past, websites would buy backlinks on spam websites in an effort to get more. More isn’t better, these days. In fact, Google will even penalize you for too many low-quality backlinks.

Quality in backlinks is more important than quality. An authoritative high-quality website that provides you with a backlink is worth far more than even 100 low-quality sites. Here are ways to earn backlinks for your website and further strengthen your website’s SEO rank.

  • Write guest blogs for other sites that promote you as a Subject Matter Expert with a backlink.
  • Write content that mentions influencers or other websites. These are notably popular among search engines and can net you more eyes on your page.
  • Create infographics. They’re immensely popular. Blog writers, influencers, and users online are using infographics on the regular.
  • Look at blogs in your category of products and services. Send them a message. Ask them to write about your brand and provide a backlink. Asking isn’t such a bad strategy. Websites are always looking for content.

How Can You Maximize Your Off-Page SEO?

There’s a lot more to an off-page SEO digital marketing strategy than backlinks. The goal is to increase site authority and gather more links. There are a lot of ways to do that. Here are some more.

  • Register your business with local listings and internet directories.
  • Register your business with popular listings like Google My Business, Yelp, Yellow Pages, and relevant social media platforms. Add your name, address, and phone number as well as a link to your website on each one.
  • Participate in discussions on forums like Quora, Reddit, and elsewhere. If you have extensive knowledge in your field, you can do a lot with answering questions and providing a link back to your website.
  • Submit content to sharing websites with a link to your website. For video projects, Dailymotion and YouTube work. For audio podcasts, there’s Soundcloud and so many others. For images, there’s Pinterest, Instagram, Flickr, and more. These are opportunities to re-direct attention to your website and further build your backlinks.

What is More Important, On-Page or Off-Page SEO?

When we compare on-page and off-page SEO, we see that both have their purpose in a campaign.

A website needs both to come together in order to succeed in achieving the highest possible search engine rank.

On-page SEO is everything you can control. It relies on having the right keywords and the technical knowledge to place them in opportune areas. There’s also an element of skill and creativity which one must have to generate content that is unique enough to attract eyes.

Off-page SEO is the optimization that happens outside of your website. From a search engine perspective, off-page SEO is what indicates your site’s popularity, relevance, trustworthiness, and authority. Search engines like promoting sites that are these 4 things. When you have great off-page SEO, your on-page efforts don’t have to work so hard and you ultimately get a higher ranking.

Unlimited Exposure uses the most advanced internet marketing in Toronto systems in the world and know algorithms and ranking factors to help get your website to the top place on search engines. Contact a representative today for more information on how we can help you!