The Ultimate Guide to On-Page SEO and Off-Page SEO

If you are just starting to blog today, you must know what SEO is and how to properly implement it. Without the implementation of latest on-page SEO techniques, it could be nearly impossible to rank. Since on-page SEO is not the only factor, I have also covered off-page SEO techniques as well in this article. We will look at how to optimize your website for both on-page SEO and off-Page SEO, more details on this below.

To start, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Basically the way you build your web pages and implement techniques to help you rank as high as possible on the search engine results page (SERP). As you can imagine, your site will likely get more traffic based on the higher ranking on search engines such as Google/Bing/Yahoo/Yandex/etc. results page.

To more clearly understand different SEO techniques. I will separate it into 2 main sections: On-Page SEO and Off-Page SEO.

On-Page SEO:

Refers to everything that you can improve ON your website or a particular article itself. Main optimization tips to keep in mind are; page titles, internal links, outbound links, and meta descriptions.

1. Page Titles

Page titles are one of the most important on-page SEO factors. Your page title should contain your main keyword and the closer it is to the beginning of the title tag, the more weight it has with search engines. Adding modifiers to your title tag, such as: 2019, guide, review are a great way to rank higher for the long tail version of your target keyword. It is important to wrap your title tag in H1 tag, as this lets the search engine know exactly what the title is and what the article may be about.

2. Meta Descriptions

The meta description is what shows below the page or article title in Google search. This is another great place where you can place your target keyword as it’s the first article description that Google is able to read before analyzing the whole article. Note: Meta descriptions should be one to two sentences, roughly around 155 characters. It should match the content, as if it is misleading, you will likely have a greater bounce rate.

3. URL Structure

It is recommended to use shorter URLs for better on-page SEO.

A short url such as fisnikde.com/seo-optimized-post is much easier for Google to understand than fisnikde.com/1/29/2019/blog/long-title-of-blog-post.

In fact, in an interview with Google’s Matt Cutts, he suggested that titles should be limited to around 5 words. After 5 words Matt mentioned, “…our algorithms typically will just weight those words less and just not give you as much credit.”

If you happen to use WordPress, you can set the permalink structure to “post-name”

When writing a post, make sure to modify the URL to only include a few words, and likely containing your main keyword if possible.

If there is a long URL that points to a page that is several clicks from the homepage, this likely means there is less authority flowing to that page. Rankings are affected by the authority of the page, less authority means lower rankings.

4. Multimedia in Blog Posts

You should never write an article without inserting at least 1 image. In a study conducted by Neil Patel, “ 65% of people are visual learners.” Splitting the body content with images related to that article, people are more likely to finish reading what you have written.

Microsoft mentions that mobile devices have shortened the average human attention span to around 8 seconds.

Adding image alt text is a great place where you can include your main keyword to describe the image, as long as the keywords are relative to the image. This provides greater ranking in SEO as you’re visually showing what the article is about, thus reducing the bounce rate of your article.

Images are not the only practice to follow. If you have a related video or tutorial to include within your article, this is another great media element to include.

5. Keyword Density

Including relative keywords within your content is important, as this helps search engines better understand what your article is about. Using LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) Keywords helps improve your SEO as they share the same context of your main keyword. LSI keywords are related semantically to your primary keyword.

LSI Keywords help you broaden your main keyword, helping your from not stuffing your main keywords on an article and Google penalizing you for it.

6. Internal Linking

Internal linking is a great on-page SEO strategy to use. Placing links from one article to another related article which you cover the topic in greater detail, is a great way to show website visitors that you have in-depth quality content. This also helps in reducing your overall bounce rate.

When you link to other articles on your website, this allows visitors to navigate to other content which you’ve published. It also ensures search engines properly crawl your website and find all pages. In addition to the articles being crawled, it also helps build relevancy of a page to relevant keywords and phrases, helping increase Google PageRank of your pages.

7. External Linking

Being an active member of the web by linking out to high authority domains, will help you rank higher. Google will see this as the content you’re sharing is in-line with others’ findings and you’re sharing the PageRank with others.

Off-Page SEO:

Refers to all the techniques that you can do OFF your website to help you rank higher. This includes such things as social networks, guest article submission, blog marketing, forum, etc., simply anything that is from outside your website, linking back to your website.

8. Social Networking

Use of Social Media is a great way to increase your online presence. You should create a profile of your own for Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. and start sharing your content and linking back to your website. This allows you to promote your website to all your existing friends and also help you build an online reputation.

9. Blog Marketing

Posting comments in other blogs that are within the same category as what your blog is about is a great way to generate backlinks, if they allow adding a link in the comment section.

10. Forum Marketing

Linking back from forums related to the content you share on your website is another good opportunity to generate backlinks. Get involved within the same forum community and reply to threads, offer advice, answer questions, etc. This will help you build a wider audience and you will be able to share your expertise within your niche.

11. E-Commerce Network

If you sell products online, you can get a start on advertising your products for free on online shopping networks. Websites like Google Products Search, MSN Online Shopping, and Yahoo Online Shopping are all great places to start. This will increase your chances of others seeing your products and hoping help in increasing your sales.