The meat and potatoes of web optimization.
On-Page Search Engine Optimization.
On-Page SEO is the act of optimizing the text, links, and media on your website. Optimizing your keywords in symbioses with the search engine spiders is essential. This service usually will consist of a one time fee paid to the SEO professional and can take up to a couple of weeks to complete. On the other hand, a Fortune 500 company may have a very large site spanning many languages, this type of website will take a proportionally larger amount of time and money to complete. In both of these cases, monthly arrangements are typical.
The first thing to occur in any search engine optimization campaign will be the keyword research. Knowing what keywords you are targeting and their comparative competition is critical before beginning any part of the project. Once the keywords are selected, the code of your website will be changed with meta information being the first. In the past, the keywords used in the meta-tags served as a large part of the algorithm. This led to rampant keyword stuffing and eventually, because of spamming, search engines made these tags practically irrelevant to ranking. Meta-keyword tags are still frequently used however, to reflect the current keywords being used and as a reference to anyone working on the project. The meta-description as well as the page title tags are very important components, not only for SEO purposes but for sales conversions as well. This is information what will show up in the search engines fmay be the only exposure to your company a user may have. Having clear and effective content is essential to making the sale.
After the meta-information has been updated, all relevant links and tags such as the ALT Tags and the H1 and H2 (header) Tags will be changed to reflect the targeted keywords. This includes changing file names of any embedded or linked content such as videos and images. The title tags that will show up in the browser are also adjusted for each page. Content will be updated to contain relevant keywords and an internal linking strategy will be implemented. Internal linking is nothing more than linking your pages to themselves, what you call the links will be used to determine the relevance. Many internal links have been included in this page.
Keyword density is also frequently talked about in search engine optimization circles. There are some professionals that swear by formulas to determine the perfect amount of keywords in your content. While these formulas can be helpful, the content still needs to be readable to users, and sometimes by stuffing as many keywords as can fit, you can reduce the effectiveness of your information to convert sales. Good SEO professionals will seek a holistic balance between keywords and readability.
On-page SEO will also include items such as a site maps, scripts for search engine spiders, changes to your social media pages, etc. These techniques can take anywhere from 6-12 months to fully realize their results, and it is important, as with any SEO strategy, to be patient!
Off-Page Search Engine Optimization.
Ok, so on-page SEO makes sense, so what exactly is off-page SEO? Off-page SEO is everything that occurs off -site. Anytime a link is mentioned in regard to off-page SEO, it is usually referencing backlinks. You have a backlink when another website links to yours. The main purpose of off-page SEO is to gain these links. See “What the heck is linking?” for more information on links. Having a professional firm conduct your off-page SEO is always a good idea. There is a lot involved and can take up a lot of valuable time.
Manually seeking out sites to link to you is a tried and true method, but it is not the only way to obtain backlinks. Posting on popular blogs and using a hyperlink back to your site in your signature is a common way of gaining fairly effective backlinks. With today’s social online environment, comments and forum posts are highly useful for gathering and distributing information. Being a part of these communities is a perfect way to spread the word. Many of these blogs will either allow, or eventually allow you to post links back to your website, creating a backlink. Off-page SEO also include various directory and local search submissions. All of this is used in combination to try and earn backlinks from the web community..
Beware of companies using tactics such as duplicate keywords, link farm submissions, garbage links, hidden links, etc. These are typically termed Black-Hat SEO techniques and are a good way to get your site flagged or even banned. There is no way to beat the online system consistently and permanently since it is always adapting. The best way to naturally rank is to create relevant and interesting content.
This is only a very small sampling of what is involved with on-page and off-page SEO. We encourage you to seek out as much information as possible. Give VISAO Solutions a shout and we will put together a FREE web analysis for your company. This analysis will outline your keywords and potential return on investment (ROI) using an SEO strategy. With VISAO Solutions you can be guaranteed 100% White Hat SEO.