Every search engine optimization strategy can be broken down into two categories: on-site SEO and off-site SEO. Both are extremely important for the success of an SEO campaign and to increase your rank on Google. To understand the difference between the two of them, you must understand how search engine algorithms work. So, let’s do this.

First off, on-site SEO is all about what your site is about 🙂 , what is the main focus of it, also knows as the theme of your website (aka what you rank for), and off-site SEO is all about the authoritativeness and popularity of your site (aka how high you rank).

On-site SEO

is done directly on your website. That means that this part of SEO is totally under your control. So do your best to enhance every part of your website to better rank on Google.

Let’s work with some examples so you can better understand what you should do:

TITLE TAGS

• Your title tag should be written like this: Focus Keyword* – Secondary Keyword* | #Brand Name
• Never ever use duplicate title tags (most SEO plugins and tools will warn you about this)
• the title tag must be at 55 characters or less in length (and that includes the spaces too). Moz also researched that if you keep your titles under 60 characters you can expect about 90% of your titles to display properly.
• don’t overdo SEO keywords in your Title because you will surely get a penalty from Google
• and the most important thing (especially with the latest Google BERT and E-A-T algorithm update) is always think of your visitors first. Don’t make the title just to apply with Google’s guidelines… It must be appealing to your visitors too.

*Focus Keyword is the main keyword you want to rank for on Google and Secondary Keyword is the second most important keyword that is closely related to your main keyword.

Note: The most important thing regarding SEO, especially with the latest Google BERT and E-A-T algorithm update, is always think of your visitors first.

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META DESCRIPTIONS

• are very important in getting users to come to your website via from search engine results page (that is also known as SERP)
• the recommended length for a meta description is approx 160 characters
• as always, you should avoid duplicate meta descriptions
• do not use quotes or any non-alpha characters because Google cuts that out of the description so there is no point in losing character space with that 
• some general suggestion is to include a call-to-action to lure the visitor in 🙂 

HEADINGS

• you should always try to use the focus keyword (that is your main keyword) in headings
• the rule is, have ONLY ONE H1 heading, and several H2, H3 headings
• they are generally used to give some breathing space to your content
• you should use the H1 heading at the top of your post, preferably in the above-the-fold part of the page

URL STRUCTURE

• use the focus keyword at least once in your URL structure
• don’t make the structure too long – keep it short but relevant
• think carefully and don’t change it once you publish your post because the redirect can mess with your on-site SEO. True, you can always fix that, but a lot of people don’t think about this and don’t know how to fix this.

*A note to all WordPress users – user pretty permalink structure, no default numbers or silly stuff like that 🙂

ALT TEXT ON IMAGES

• name all of your images in a way that describes what they are
• there are several plugins that do that for you, but if you use RankMath then you can choose to use the title of your post as an alt text for all the images on that page
• Use dashes between the words, rather than underscores ( my-image.jpg rather than my_image.jpg)
  • a lot of people don’t know this but this is one of Google recommendations
• do not use non-alpha characters (so no %, &, $, etc…) because they can only break your post or not open when you post that link to social media

PAGE SPEED

• this one is actually very simple and straightforward – your visitors love a fast website that doesn’t lag, and so that Google. If he can browse (index) your site fast, he will give you extra points (so to speak). 
• the top two WordPress plugins to speed your website are Hummingbird (free and paid version) and WP Rocket (only paid version, but worth every $$).

OTHER RELEVANT THINGS FOR ON-SITE SEO OPTIMIZATION

• paragraphs should be approx three sentences long because anything longer than that will result in losing the visitors’ attention
• use bullet points and bolding to break up large blocks of content but don’t overdo it. (We all love lists) 😉
• put internal links to other blog posts on your site. The main focus is to interconnect every part of your website so if your visitors and interested in knowing more they can easily find it. And maybe even spend the whole day browsing your website. (Yes, we all wish that LOL)

Yes, I know this is a lot and you may be feeling lost with all this information. But, here is a great checklist from Matthew Woodward (that you can download for free) who wrote a fantastic article about on-site SEO and what you can do to rank better on Google.

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On the other hand, off-site SEO focuses on improving the power of your domain (website) with links from other websites. What this basically means is that if your website link is found on a website that Google finds trustworthy he will give you credit for it.

The most significant off-site SEO factor is the number and quality of backlinks to your website.

What should you do?

– create awesome content that people want to link to because it is valuable

– share your content via social media

– guest blogging on sites related to yours

To learn more about backlinks you should read this great article from T-RANKS “How To Get Backlinks: 9 Most Effective Strategies“.

I hope you found some interesting and maybe valuable information in this post. And if you like it you can always share… You know what they say – “Spread the love” 😉