What is On-Page & Off-Page SEO

Are you confused by the difference between on-page and off-page SEO? Then you’re not alone because many people don’t know what the difference is.

The main difference between on-page and off-page SEO is the location of the optimisation. On-page SEO optimisation is done to your website like publishing high-quality content and improving page load time. On the other hand, off-page SEO is done off-site on places like your blog or social media.

While the methods involved with practising on-page and off-page SEO strategies differ, both processes have a shared goal: To rank your website as high as possible in the search engine result pages or SERPs.

On-Page Optimisation

On-page SEO is the practice of optimising web pages to earn organic traffic and improve your website’s rankings. When determining where your website will rank, Google takes a number of on-page factors into account. These factors consider the overall user experience and how effectively your web page answers the customer query. Some of the on-page ranking factors Google considers are:

  • Content quality
  • Site and page speed
  • Title and header tags
  • URL structure
  • Keyword optimisation
  • Page load time
  • Mobile responsiveness
  • Internal links

Off-Page Optimisation

There are ranking factors Google considers that lie outside your control as the site owner and they’re called off-page SEO factors. These factors include things like:

  • Social signals
  • Brand mentions
  • Number of linking domains
  • Sources of linking pages
  • The relevance of linking pages
  • The authority of linking pages
  • The diversity of linking pages

As you can see, building backlinks is at the very heart of off-page SEO and it’s the quality of the backlinks that count. As Google’s Matt Cutts famously said “The objective is not to make your links appear natural; the objective is that your links are natural”.

Off-site SEO is all about garnering attention for your website to increase brand reputation and authority. You can do this in many ways. You can share videos and infographics on social media, create podcasts, build local citations, land reviews, and more.

What’s More Important?

Both on-page and off-page SEO are important. The two work in unison to improve search engine rankings. When you produce quality content that’s backed by great on-page SEO, you’ll surely earn those valuable backlinks to improve your domain authority and push you up in the SERPs.

If you need help with your on-page or off-page SEO or both, consider hiring an SEO agency. A top-notch agency will develop effective on-page and off-page strategies to help raise your rankings in search.

Even though it costs to work with an SEO firm, it will be money well spent. Your site will be found by searchers looking for the types of products or services you sell to improve your bottom line, all while boosting your brand’s authority.