On page vs off page SEO: What's the differences? RankZ Blog

When ranking your site on Google, it’s more about on-page vs off-page SEO than anything else. To make your website thrive, you must understand how these two types of SEO work.

As search engine optimization (SEO) evolves, so do strategies to improve ranking on Google’s organic results pages. To make your website stand out from the crowd, you need to understand how SEO works. And understanding the differences between on-page and off-page SEO is an excellent start.

Here’s all you need to know about on-page vs. off-page SEO and how they affect your website’s ranking.

On-page SEO

On-page SEO is the process of optimizing the contents of your website to rank high on search engine result pages (SERPs). On-page SEO focuses on building your website and optimizing your content to fit the search engine algorithm.

For on-page SEO, you must focus on publishing well-written articles, including keywords in the right places, increasing page speed, and ensuring a well-organized site architecture.

Always remember that on-page SEO is entirely within your control, and you can determine how well your web page ranks and how well all the elements of your website are optimized.

On-page Factors

On-page SEO is an integral part of any website’s SEO strategy that focuses on improving the quality of your site’s existing content. This is why you must ensure that your on-page SEO strategy works.

But how do you do that? Here’s a list of the factors that make up a well-optimized on-page SEO web page.

Core Web Vitals
Title tags
Page performance
Schema markup
Internal linking
URL structure
User experience
HTML headers
Alt text for images
Keyword research and keyword usage
Site maps

Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vitals are a set of metrics that measure the quality of a user’s experience on a website. They include your largest contentful paint, first input delay, and the cumulative layout shift. Since these factors are important in search ranking algorithms, it’s a good idea to know what they are:

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) measures perceived load speed and marks the point when much of the page’s content has been downloaded. Your LCP should be less than 2.5 seconds.
First input delay measures how long it takes for a user to interact with a page for the first time. Your first input delay should be low.
Cumulative Layout Shift measures visual stability. The CLS helps you know how often users experience unexpected layout shifts (for example, images that don’t have dimensions, content that is introduced flexibly, etc. The lower the CLS, the more delightful your page will be.

Title Tags

When creating your webpage, add a title tag. A title tag appears in the top bar of every search result for a given search query on Google. Consider these two important things.

Make sure it contains your main keyword, especially at the beginning.

Limit the title tag to 55-60 characters.
Make sure it’s captivating.

Page Performance

Page performance is a significant factor in determining where a web page ranks on SERPs. Pages that load quickly are better for users. In many cases, slow-loading pages will get penalized by Google and may end up ranking lower than other pages that load faster.

Schema Markup

Your schema markup tells search engines what your site is about. The information tells the search engine how to interpret and display the content on your site.

Include schema markups to help search engines understand what they see so your page has a higher chance of being listed in relevant searches.

Internal Linking

Internal linking is an integral part of the ranking factors. It describes linking to other pages on your website from the one you’re currently viewing. You can do this by embedding the target URL in strategically written texts.

URL Structure

A well-organized URL structure is crucial for modern web pages because it makes navigation easier for users and search engines.

Simple-to-understand URLs are more likely to generate clicks and aid search engines in crawling your website. Your URLs should contain the primary keyword that reflects the pages they direct to.

User Experience

The user experience is a big part of your website’s success. Google prioritizes websites that are easy to read and navigate.

Easy-to-use websites are mobile-friendly, HTTPS secure, ensure safe browsing, etc. You should design your website from the ground up to work well on mobile devices, computers, tablets, etc.

HTML headers

HTML headers help SEO by providing information about the site, such as the page title, description, and keywords. The more relevant information you can include in your headers, the better your content will have of getting higher rankings in SERPs.

Alt text for images

“Alt text” means “alternative text.” Alt texts are helpful when images don’t load correctly. Your alt text should be descriptive and contain important keywords to help Google understand what your page is about.

Content Quality

The more helpful people find your content to be, the more likely it is to rank on page one. Publish content friendly to search engines and users, with clear and engaging language.

Your website’s content needs to be unique, informative, and well-thought-out. It should contain keywords relevant to your business’s industry or niche. But avoid keyword stuffing.

Meta Descriptions

Meta descriptions are used in the HTML of your site to tell search engines a summary of a webpage. In SERPs, meta descriptions help users determine whether or not a page has the information they need.

This description should be 145 to 160 characters long, impress your reader, and act as bait for further reading.

Keyword Research and Keyword Usage

Keyword research plays a significant role in Google’s ranking algorithms. By researching keywords related to what you want to rank for, you can know and target keywords with high monthly search volumes. Your keyword strategy will depend on your domain authority and keyword difficulty.

Site-Maps

Sitemaps are a way to show how your website’s pages and content relate to each other. Visual and XML sitemaps are the two most common types. Search engines use XML to crawl through a website and index it so users can find it in a SERP.

Off-page SEO

Off-page SEO involves increasing your website’s chances of ranking on SERPs by directing organic traffic to your website. These are actions you take outside of your website that impact your ranking.

Link building is essential for off-page SEO. The more sites that link to your content, the more Google will assume your site is relevant to what people often search for. This gives you a higher domain authority.

Off-page Factors:

Different factors that affect off-page SEO are essential for boosting domain authority in Google’s algorithm. The off-page SEO factors include

Backlinks
Social media
Domain Authority
Local SEO
Forum Posting
Influencer Marketing
Link Building
Google My Business
Social Promotion

Backlinks

Backlinks are links that lead to your website from other websites. There are many ways to get backlinks. Generally, straightforward ways to earn backlinks include

Writing guest posts for other blogs or websites relevant to your industry and including a link to your site at the bottom of the post.
Getting involved in forums or communities around topics related to your writing.

The idea is to get links from high-authority sites in a niche to improve your page ranking.

Social Media

Social media is a great way to get backlinks because you’re showing off your content and asking people who might know someone who knows someone else to tell them about it. Sharing your pages on social media is a great way to gain visibility so that other sites can reference your work when they write something related.

Domain Authority

Domain authority indicates how well you retain links on other websites and get them pointed back to you. The higher your domain authority score, the better your chance of ranking for a relevant search query or keyword.

Local SEO

SEO is a strategy that focuses on the search engine results of your site in a specific geographic area. It allows you to rank higher for searches in your local area and get more visitors from within that area.

Forum Posting

Forum posting is when you post a link to your website on a forum where some other businesses or individuals want to connect with people in your industry. If you’re going to be posting on forums, try posting with keywords that link directly to your website or social media pages.

Link Building

Link building is acquiring links to your site from other websites. You can do this by creating relevant content or by linking to other relevant sites.

Influencer Marketing

Marketing involves getting the help of influential people in your industry to promote your website for free or at a price. Celebrities are common influencers who can help advertise your page to their large audience or followers.

Google My Business

Google My Business is a tool businesses use to manage their online presence and customer data. You can add your business information, including address, phone number, hours of operation, and more.

Setting up Google My Business can make your business more visible in SERPs for terms related to your company name or the products and services you offer.