Understanding the Difference Between On-page SEO and Off-page SEO

Search engine optimization is used as a digital marketing strategy since the inception of the internet. This marketing tactic is commonly used for driving people to your websites, building a new audience, and drawing the attention of your prospects. However, the SEO used at the beginning is completely different from the SEO techniques used in today’s modern world. The days when people could stuff their websites with keywords and backlinks just to rank higher on the search engine are long gone. Today, you need to focus on multiple SEO-focused strategies to drive your website up on Google. The search engine optimization algorithm keeps changing every now and then.

Website owners implement both on-page and off-page SEO marketing strategies to generate qualified leads and improve the sales funnel. If you are doing SEO for a while now, you might have heard of the on-page and off-page SEO. These are the most popular formats of search engine optimization marketing. Both help you grow your website ranking and improve the technical performance of your landing pages, but the strategies used in on-page and off-page SEO are different.

Let’s understand each concept in brief.

1. On-Page SEO Optimization

The ranking of your website is directly related to on-page SEO. As the name suggests, it refers to the changes you make on the website or content to improve your SERP rating in the search engine. It consists of technical aspects and content. The main objective of on-page SEO is to improve the quality of your content and bring relevant traffic to your website. So, it goes without saying that the more you focus on on-page SEO, the higher traffic you will generate on your website. Here’s what your on-page SEO optimization covers:

• Headers and sub-heads
• Title tags
• Speed of your website
• Website responsiveness
• Internal link building
• Alt text
• Metadata

It starts with the headings or H1 tags that must be short, crisp, and relevant to your website content. You could add the relevant keywords to the headers to make them more relevant, but that isn’t necessary. You can also divide the content into several subheads and multiple paragraphs so that it is easier for your audience to understand the content easily.

Keyword Optimization

On-page SEO is all about keyword optimization. You should focus on placing keywords strategically across the content to ensure the best ranking for your post. Your audience types the keyword in the search bar when searching for specific content. The more relevant your keyword is to their search query, the higher the chances they will find your webpage on top of the search results.

Specialists perform keyword research using SEO tools to find the best keywords for their websites. Keyword research is pretty simple. However, you need to place them in a way that they fit your content and look natural on your website, instead of placing them forcibly. Keyword optimization doesn’t mean keyword stuffing. Note that Google penalizes the websites that are stuffed with keywords just for ranking.

The key to getting your website on the first page of the search result is keyword optimization. Use the right keywords and distribute them throughout the content as strategically as possible.

Loading Speed

It may look like an obvious requirement, but many people don’t optimize their website for speed. The pages that load slowly have a very high bounce rate, as people don’t wait for your website to load for more than 3 seconds.

There is a good chance your target will leave your website before even checking the content if it takes too much time to load. Not only does it affect your customers’ satisfaction, but it has a significant role in your website ranking. Google penalizes websites that are not optimized for loading speeds.

These were only to name a few. On-page SEO focuses on every aspect that brings traffic to your website and helps you rank higher on Google. Let’s move on to off-page SEO optimization and the factors that make it different from on-page SEO.

2. Off-page SEO Optimization

Just like how Google has banned keyword stuffing and duplicate content for on-page optimization, the same goes for buying and selling backlinks just to get high authority in search engines. Off-page SEO is all about building authority for your brand in the search engine. Your goal is to get your website on top of the search engine by driving traffic through external sources. Now, you can bring organic traffic to your websites through social media, your competitor’s websites, and other pages that look relevant to your niche.

In a nutshell, off-page SEO involves strategies to get backlinks from high-authority websites to improve your website authority in the search engine and promote your brand across a wider audience. However, this should not be misunderstood with filling your web pages with irrelevant and poor-quality backlinks. These strategies can get your website penalized instead of increasing its search ranking. There is no doubt that the search engine considers the number of backlinks you generate to your website, but make sure that quality is more important to Google than quantity. The Google bots check the sources of these links, the authority of these platforms, and other crucial factors. 10 links from high-authority websites are a lot better than 100 links generated from low-quality pages. So, your focus should always be on reaching out to the websites with high domain authorities, as they will make your content look more authoritative and relevant.

You must be wondering how you can use link-building strategies to drive traffic to your website. Well, the four strategies that will help you bring authentic traffic to your website through backlink strategies are:

• Writing high-quality guest blogs for your competitors’ websites so that you get a quality backlink in return
• Checking broken links on your competitor’s websites and asking them to replace those links with the content you have published
• Using infographics to drive more organic traffic to your page
• Approaching influencers to promote your blog, as they have access to a larger audience base.

Need help with your SEO optimizations? Our SEO specialists are always open to help you further!