What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
As the name suggests Search Engine Optimization is to optimize your website in order to rank it higher for particular keywords so that your website appears when someone is searching for the keywords in the search engines like google, bing, yahoo etc.
SEO Is Divided Into Two Main Areas:
1) Onpage Optimization:
is done on the pages of the website itself.It is done to optimize your website for search engines and users.
2) OffPage Optimization:
covers activities which take place else were and not on your website pages.
Is Onpage SEO necessary? Why can’t we just go withOffpage SEO? In my experience Onpage and Offpage are equally important but that saidOnpage search engine optimization is easier to accomplish than Offpage.
Let see why?
Onpage Search Engine Optimization
Why Bother With Onpage SEO?
1) Onpage Comes Before Offpage:
before you start promoting your website, it is important to make it fit and fine for search engines to find it and rank it. When you optimize your website (on page) you actually speak the language of the search engines, you give them what they are looking for . By doing this you increase your chances of getting noticed and being ranked by the search engines.
2) Optimize The Website To Make It Easier For The Search Engines To Read It:
search engines software which is called the crawler, crawls through your website looking for rich content like original articles, videos, images, info graphics etc. Each time it comes to your website if it finds new rich content then chances of your page being indexed gets higher.
3) Social Bookmarking:
Social bookmarking works just like the bookmarks on your computer the only difference is that social bookmarking is done on the web from where it can be easily shared whereas personal bookmarking is saved on your own browser.
4) Onpage SEO Could Be Sufficient For Local Businesses:
If your business is local and all you want is to make your local customers aware of your whereabouts then on page seo could be your answer.
For checklist of On page SEO click here
Now that we have an understanding of On page SEO lets look into Off page SEO and its checklist.
What Is Offpage SEO?
Bringing traffic to your website by performing activities outside of your website is called Off-page SEO.
How do we perform Off-page SEO
There Are 3 Main Ways To Do Offpage SEO
- 1. Link Building
- 2. Social Bookmarking
- 3. Social Media
Let’s discuss them in detail
1) Link Building:
is getting ‘Quality’ links to your website from other websites and blogs. I stressed on the word Quality as not all links that are sent back to your website are quality links. For example if a well known blogger or business refers to your website in their blog then it will be considered to be a high quality link as compared to a link coming from a startup business.
Achieving and maintaining quality backlinks requires continuous efforts. When people like what products or services you offer, if they like what you say then there are chances that you will get more links back to your website. This will suggest to google that you are an expert in your field and people like what you say and refer back their readers, customers etc to your webpage. Thus google will rank your online content higher in a relevant search than other bloggers or businesses.These links ofcourse have to be natural i.e made by real people who read and like your content.
The best way to get natural links is to publish articles, blogs, videos, images etc which other people would like to link to.
2) Social Media:
Social Media is also a form of Link building. You can get traffic back to your website from your social media accounts like facebook, twitter, pinterest, google+, linkedinetc by posting content which is liked and shared by others. When your content is shared, your social media username is mentioned or relevant link from your website is passed on,resulting in more traffic to your website.
With the world getting more connected through Social Media a large number of businesses have their business page across many social media sites resulting in increase of footprints on their websites.
3) Social Bookmarking:
Social bookmarking works just like the bookmarks on your computer the only difference is that social bookmarking is done on the web from where it can be easily shared whereas personal bookmarking is saved on your own browser.
In essence Social Bookmarking is a link which is posted on social websites for others to see and share interesting content. Examples of social bookmarking websites are stumbleupon.com, reddit.com, digg.com, delicious.com etc.
To sum up onpage and offpage seo are equally important for Search Engine Optimization. Onpage optimization could be more useful to local businesses than offpage. You have to continuously perform offpage SEO to keep your ranking high in search engines.
For website owners that are new to SEO or simply do not have the time to deal with web site optimization, you can always hire a trusted SEO firm to do the work for you. Have a look at our great range of SEO packages, suitable for every online business, customized to your own needs and requirements and at competitive prices.
Now that we have an understanding of On page SEO lets look into Off page SEO and Offpage SEO checklist.
Contact us today to discuss your requirements.