Search Engines are getting smarter and more intelligent due to which it has become more difficult to achieve a higher ranking in search engines.
Technical SEO help you to optimize your site so that search engines can properly crawl, render and index all the important pages of your site.
While on-page and off-page SEO are other two important factors that help you to rank your content higher on search engines.
In this article, we will learn what is the difference between Off Page SEO and On Page SEO.
And how both these optimization techniques are crucial to beat your competitors and rank your site higher on Google.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.
It is the process of optimizing your blog and its contents to increase its visibility in search engine like Google and in turn increase your organic traffic.
By focusing on SEO you can save money on paid promotion to drive traffic to your blog or website by running ads on Google or Facebook or any other platform.
Thus, if your blog is SEO optimized then you will get traffic from search engine automatically without running any paid ads.
It's sound simple but you must have a strong strategy to implement these SEO techniques to your blog. You can implement these by focusing on the following two SEO techniques-
- On-page SEO and
- Off-page SEO
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Must Read: MOZ vs SEMrush, which is the best SEO tool?
What Is On-page SEO?
On Page SEO is the practice of optimizing individual web pages in order to rank higher than your competitor in search engines and drive more relevant traffic.
In an On Page SEO you should focus on the following factors -
- Keyword Research
- URL Structure
- Page Titles
- Meta Descriptions
- Heading Tags (H1, H2, H3, H4, etc.)
- Internal Linking
- Image Optimization
- Use Responsive Design
- Boost Site Speed
- Use Social Sharing Button
- Create a Sitemap
1. Keyword Research
Before writing any blog post you must do proper keyword research using any of the popular paid keyword research tools like Semrush, Ahref, KWFinder or free keyword research tools like Ubersuggest or Keyword Planner of Google Ads.
Also read: Best paid and free Keyword Research Tool
I would advise you to go for Long Tail keywords with low competition and decent monthly searches in search engines. Why? Because long tail keywords allows your blog post to easily rank higher in Google Search as the competition is low here.
Where to use your keywords?
- URL - Your URL must contain your main keyword
- In the page title
- In the post Meta description
- In the Headings
- As link anchor text whenever possible
- In the alt text and file names of images
2. URL Structure
The URL of your blog post must contain the main keyword.
For example, if you are writing about best online affiliate programs then your URL should be like this. Short, simple and stuffed with important keywords.
https://technicalwall.com/best-online-affiliate-programs/
Other important factors to consider here are-
- www vs non-www must be redirected properly
- URL without the / at the end must be redirected to version with / (or vice-versa)
- http:// and https:// URL must be redirected accordingly
3. Page Titles
Optimizing your blog content shouldn't start in the body of the text, but rather the title of your post. Title tags are displayed on search engine results pages (SERPs) as the clickable headline for a given result.
By writing good SEO page titles you can improve rankings and click-through-rate (CTR) of your post.
For proper on-page SEO try to include relevant keywords in your page or post title.
Longer titles does not perform well so, try not to write titles more than 70 characters long.
4. Meta Description
Meta description is an HTML attribute that provides a brief summary of your web page content. While writing meta description try not to write lengthy description as Google generally truncates snippets to 160 characters.
So, as a rule limit your meta description to 160 characters for better search engine ranking and CTR.
Also read: How to write effective Blog Meta Description
5. Heading Tags (H1, H2, H3, H4, etc.)
For proper SEO it is important that the headings tags must be structured effectively in your blog content.
The header tag, H1 tag, will usually contain the title of a post with your most relevant keywords included in it.
The H2 tag is a subheading and should contain similar keywords to your H1 tag. Your H3 is then a subheading for your H2 and so on.
6. Internal Linking
Internal links are links that go from one page of a blog to a different page on the same blog.
There are three main benefits of using internal linking in your blog or website-
- It establishes a hierarchy for your blog.
- It allows your users to navigate your blog and find relevant contents.
- It reduces your blog bounce rate and as a result your blog ranks better in search engines.
7. Image Optimization
Image optimization is achieved by
- Reducing the file size of your images without sacrificing the quality so that your page load times remain low.
Always make it a habit to compress your images before uploading in your blog content.
You can use online tools like compresspng.com or compressjpeg.com to compress your images.
These tools compresses images by almost 70%. You can also use image compression WordPress plugins like TinyPNG or ShortPixel. - Using Alt text in your images. It is the most important image optimization factor.
The text in the alt tag is displayed in place of the image if the image does not load due to some reason or is taking too long to load.
It also helps your images to rank higher in Google Image search.
8. Use Responsive Design
Your blog should have responsive design which basically means that it should be easily accessible and view-able on different devices regardless of screen size such as desktop, mobile or tablets.
Responsive design results in an improved user experience and typically a greater time on your blog reducing bounce rate and increasing conversions.
9. Boost Website Speed
Google considers a website loading speed as an important factor for ranking high in the search engine. A fast website with proper SEO optimization tends to rank higher than its competitors.
A slow website increases bounce rate which results in lower conversions and low ranking in search engines.
To boost your website speed you should consider using Content Delivery Network (CDN) like Cloudflare or BunnyCDN. While Cloudflare is free to use, BunnyCDN is one of the most affordable and quality CDNs around.
CDNs have servers around the world which helps in serving a website content faster based on the location of the users.
If your web host is slow you can also consider moving your website to other web host which can boost your website loading speed.
A2hosting is one such web host which can make your website 20X faster.
Read full review of A2hosting here.
Another thing you can do to speed up your site is to use free plugins like W3 Total Cache or WP Super Cache.
If you don't like to go though some learning to curve to handle all the setting yourself, you can use a premium plugin like WP Rocket to do all the settings for you automatically.
10. Use Social Sharing Buttons
You must allow your visitors to share your blog post among their friends in social media platforms such as Facebook, Pinterest or Twitter.
You can use social sharing buttons in your blog contents. There are many free and paid plugins which you can use to share your blog contents.
Social Snap is the plugin that we use in this blog. It supports all the major social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and others.
Google considers social shares as an important SEO factors. When your blog content is shared on different social media websites you get additional traffic to your blog from these sites.
11. Create a sitemap
A Sitemap is an XML file that contains list of your website's URLs. You must create a sitemap for your website to enable search engine crawlers to index all your web pages.
There are many online tools such as xml-sitemap.com from where you can easily create sitemap for your website.
What is Off-page SEO?
The biggest off-page SEO factor is the number and quality of backlinks pointing to your website.
Off page SEO is a task in which powerful backlinks are created for a website for increasing it's ranking in Google Search. It mainly refers to backlinks and other external signals as mentioned below-
- Profile Creation
- Blog Directory Submission
- Blog Commenting
- Guest Posting
1. Profile Creation
You can create backlinks for your blog by creating profiles of your blog in websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and Quora.
Just visit these websites and create your profile. In your profile page just include your blog URL along with your name, email address, etc.
By adding your website's URL in these websites you can easily create backlinks for your site.
2. Blog Directory Submission
There are many free high Domain Authority (DA) blog directories where you can submit your blog URL to create backlinks.
By submitting your blog URL you get some free quality backlinks for your blog which will provide on-page SEO benefits by increasing your blog's ranking in search engine.
3. Blog Commenting
By commenting in a blog post you can exchange your ideas, thoughts or opinions about what you feel for a particular topic or a blog post.
Always comment on a blog post of a website having high domain authority and include your website link in it.
In this way you create a backlink for your blog and get SEO benefits.
4. Guest Posting
In SEO, Guest Posting is a method in which you write an article for a website and get a link to your website or blog in return. It is a very effective link building tactic.
If you write a guest post in a popular website, you not only get a do-follow backlink but also drivine traffic from that site to your blog.
So, always try to write guest post in order to get quality backlinks and free traffic.
Conclusion
I hope that now you understand what is the difference between off page and on page SEO.
By implementing the above strategies you can SEO optimized your website which will help you to increase your online presence.
If you have any question or suggestion please comment below.
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This is a great post with useful information
Thanks
Another very important point on SEO is the optimization and compression of images on the site. Here is an interesting article on this topic: https://optipic.io/en/blog/images-seo-optimization/
Thanks Alex