Off Page SEO vs. On Page SEO

Whenever you’re looking to improve your search engine rankings, whether on your own or with an SEO company, you likely have heard about off page SEO and on page SEO.  At least half of our clients ask us when they sign up “Do you do just one or the other or do you do both on page SEO and off page SEO?” — but less than 5% of them know the difference, what each one means, and what kind of work is required.
This guide will address types of on page SEO and off page SEO as well as the importance of both in order to have a successful SEO campaign.  Some of these tips and tricks come straight from our current strategy for our customers, and will act as a great guide for you when you begin your search for an SEO firm.

On Page SEO:

On page SEO quite simply consists of anything you do on your website to help improve your search engine rankings.  There’s hundreds of things you can change on a website to rank better in search results, however some of the most common on page changes we make for our clients are:

• Title Tags — Optimizing them to make sure they reflect the content
• Meta Keywords/Descriptions — Optimizing them for click through rates and to match the content
• Keyword Placement — Many clients write great content but never use keywords that they’re trying to rank for
• Internal Linking Structure — Making sure there’s a good link web from page to page on your website
• Content — A good website needs quality content that is updated regularly
• Audits — Making sure all content is unique, fits our guidelines, and the website doesn’t do any questionable practices (links to 3rd parties, comment spam, etc)

These are a few of the most common on page modifications we make.  They not only help rank better in search engines, but they also help things like grabbing customers attention, click through rates, and overall website quality.  On page SEO is extremely important as search engines know you are the only one who controls your website, so they make sure you build a very high quality site before they consider ranking you higher in search results.

Off Page SEO

Off page SEO is what the majority of SEO companies offer (the ones who also offer on page SEO are typically VERY high priced).  Off page SEO simply consists of any off website activities that you do to improve search rankings and improve website traffic.  There’s dozens of ways to improve your off page SEO, however the most common (and ethical) ways that we utilize for our clients are:

• Article Writing — Writing quality articles and distributing them on article sharing sites
• Social Linking — Helping gain a stronger social presence on sites like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Digg, etc.
• Guest Posting — Writing high quality blog articles and having them published on 3rd party websites
• Niche Directories — Submitting your website to directories and categories relevant to your website’s niche
• Link Bait — Producing content and resources that entice other websites to link back to your website naturally
• Blog Networking — Connecting and commenting on 3rd party relevant blogs to build a stronger presence as an authority
• Forum Q/A — Answering questions in forums relevant to your niche to establish you as an authority

These are a few of the most common ways we approach off page SEO, and they are very very different than many of our competitors.  Off page SEO can get quite spammy quite fast, meaning your website could be submitting to software that spams other websites to try and build links.  While these results sometimes work, they are often short lived (less than 2 months).  We believe in building a long term relationship with other websites and obtaining long term links to improve your traffic and search rankings not just today and tomorrow, but for the months and years ahead.

The Main Takeaway…

Remember that on page SEO is critical to any SEO campaign, and on top of working for SEO purposes it also cleans up your website.  Off page SEO is also critical, but there’s a lot of different types of off page SEO so be careful and ask about the tactics that the SEO firm is going to use to improve your rankings.  Some off page SEO methods are considered within search engine guidelines and used by high quality SEO firms, while others are simply ways of gaming the system and spamming other websites.  If I could sum it up into two works: Quality > Quantity