What is Onsite Search Engine Optimisation?
What is Onsite SEO?
In simple terms, onsite search engine optimisation covers all the things you can do on a website to help it rank better in search engines. This is opposed to what is generally referred to as offsite optimisation which is all the things you do away from your website to help it rank. At Probity Web Marketing we believe that onsite optimisation is the most important part of a search engine optimisation strategy.
What does Onsite SEO involve?
The most obvious part of onsite search engine optimisation is the actual content: eg. Web Pages, Blogs, Announcements, FAQs etc. After all, it is the content on your website that website visitors are looking for and therefore is what Google is wanting to show in their SERPs. For this reason, it is also the most important part of onsite optimisation, but it can also cover the following:
- Keyword research and placement - what keyword is the content about and where should this be placed.
- Content Structure - what headings, hyperlinks, image alt text etc should be included.
- Page Structure - what should your page title, meta description, URL etc be.
- Site Structure - this includes breadcrumbs, sitemaps, menus etc. How does the entire site come together and be navigated?
- Schema - how can we help Google and Social Networks display our listings etc.
Sorry for getting a bit technical there, but you did ask.
Why Onsite is the most important part of Search Engine Optimisation.
It is important to search engines (eg, Google, Bing etc) that when you do a search that they display a list of great websites that will have your answer. Otherwise you might change to a competitor and that affects their income stream. So what do we consider a great website? Is it a website with lots of great content that is easy to read and navigate; or is it a website with a minimum of content but lots of links to it? The obvious answer is great content. So that means that great content will always be important to Google and as they continue tweaking their algorithm (the program that ranks sites) they will always rate it highly. The reverse can be argued for links, particularly when there is a whole industry created around getting spammy links for SEO. So why wouldn't you spend the majority of your time, energy and money on creating great content (onsite optimisation)?
But don't just take our word for it. Here is a quote taken directly from Google's Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Starter Guide.
Creating compelling and useful content will likely influence your website more than any of the other factors discussed here. Users know good content when they see it and will likely want to direct other users to it. This could be through blog posts, social media services, email, forums, or other means.
Organic or word-of-mouth buzz is what helps build your site's reputation with both users and Google, and it rarely comes without quality content.
So is Onsite Search Engine Optimisation all you need?
No. You will also need to do some offsite optimisation with things like online directories and profiles. You should also be working on your website optimisation to ensure that you convert as much of the traffic (visitors) that comes to your site. You can also consider Search Engine Marketing, Social Media Marketing and anything else that might increase your online leads and sales.