SEO can be divided into two main groups: on-site SEO and off-site SEO.
On-site and Off-site SEO
On-site SEO
On-site SEO deals with the optimisation of elements on a website to improve its relevance and visibility to search engines. This can include optimising keywords, user experience, code optimisation and the format of URLs.
On-site Factors
These are search engine ranking signals directly which are controllable by site owners.
Relevance: Topic that is relevant to page content versus search term
Freshness: Frequency of content updates
Overall quality: Spelling, grammar and sentence structure
Keywords: Naturally occurring keywords in the page content
Keywords
Keywords are:
Words that users type into search engines to show what they are looking for
Words used on web pages to show search engines what the page is about
Keyword research is a critical component of search engine optimisation. Keywords are usually broken up and grouped based on the number of words within query phrases.
Keyword research is a core component of SEO
It involves figuring out which words to rank for based on the most popular words and phrases that are searched on search engines. Researching keywords gives digital marketers a better understanding of how high the demand is for certain keywords. It also shows how difficult it would be to compete for those terms in organic search results, offering some direction for optimisation efforts.
Keyword research isn’t just about identifying the popularity of a search term
It’s also about exploring the many ways that people use language to research an idea or topic. As such, researching keywords isn’t just important for SEO. It’s also a major element of content marketing as a whole.
Why?
Keyword research can help you:
Find ideas for your next blog post,
Learn more about the needs of your audience, and
Keep up to date with the lingo of the ever-changing search landscape.
By researching the words people type into search engines – in addition to making use of this research to create targeted content it is possible to drive the right traffic to your site. This traffic is more likely to convert.
HTML signals
Titles: Concise, descriptive HTML titles, containing the page’s target keywords
Descriptions: These are unique HTML descriptions which are tailored to each page
Headings: Concise, descriptive headings and subheadings
Alt attributes: Descriptive alt text for images
Lists: HTML lists for scannable content
Architecture signals
Accessibility: Website crawlability and accessibility
Page speed: Web page loading time
URL structure: Descriptive, clean URLs
Internal links: These are the sources, destinations, and anchor text that relate to internal links
Outgoing links: Outbound links to trusted websites
Sitemaps: Presence of HTML and/or XML sitemaps
Domain signals
Registration privacy: Public vs. Private domain name registration
Domain registrant: Record of domain name registrant
Exact match domains: Especially quality of EMD sites
Registration length: One year only vs several years in advance
Domain extension: This is to do with generic and country-specific domain extensions
Off-site SEO
Search engines look for websites that link back to your site as an indication of good content. For example, the more pages that link back to your website, the more valuable Google will judge your content to be. The assumption is that if a lot of sites want to link to your site, then you must have good content. However, this has been the source of many Black Hat SEO tactics in the past.
Off-site optimisation is to do with the promotion of your website across the web to build brand awareness, improve rankings in search engines and attract visitors from third party websites.
Social media is one of the best ways to gain high quality back links from authority websites. This includes social bookmarking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and many more. As offsite SEO works best when someone else is recommending your content. You must encourage visitors to use the social bookmarks throughout your site. This will help you build deep inbound links for your keyword rich page content.
Effective off-site SEO requires a balanced link portfolio
This is because sources of information and references are important to search engines. For example, a link that contains your main keyword from a site with similar content and a keyword used out of context from an unrelated site will have different degrees of relevance.
Off-site Factors
This is influenced by visitor engagement, social media, and other off-site variables.
Backlink signals
Strength is about the authority and trust to do with websites and web pages that link to your site
Anchor text: Descriptive, natural, diverse anchor text
Relevance: This is to do with the relevance of the topic of linking web page’s content
Domain diversity: Backlinks from various domains
Reputation signals
Authority: Domain and page authority signals
Trust: Domain trust signals
History: This is to do with the history of the acquisition of the backlink, violations of guidelines and penalties
Reviews: This is to do with reviews on Yelp, Google Places, Yahoo Local, etc.
User-interaction: Bounce rates and click-through rates
Social signals
Social shares: This is about “Likes”, “shares”, and other endorsements of web content through social signals
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