SEO Tips: On-page and Off-page Optimization

A website that has not been optimized for the purpose of search engine ranking will rank very far behind in search engines. If you want to see your website ranks high in major search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN, search engine optimization is a must. Imagine what will happen if your website ranks 1st in Google for a popular search term. Well, most probably Google will bring a lot of free targeted traffic to your website every day which may skyrocket your product's sales, affiliate commission or Adsense earning.

There are two types of search engine optimizations:

1) On-page Optimization
2) Off-page Optimization

On-page Optimization
On-page optimization is the process of structuring or changing the elements on your webpage so that it can be found by search engines for specific keyword(s). The on-page elements or factors that you need to change in order to improve your website's positions in search engines include title Tag, header tags, page content, alt tag, meta description tag and meta keywords tag.

Title Tag/Page Title
Title tag is the tag that defines the text in the top line of a web browser. The title tag is probably the most important on-page factor because search engines usually use the title tag to provide a link to the sites which match the query made by the user. Thus, Adding your main keywords to the title tag will definitely boost your website's rankings. Let's use the following keywords as an example:

a) Make Money Online
b) Make Extra Money

The title tag for your webpage should look like this:

Make Money Online | Make Extra Money
The "|" character can be added by holding the shift key on your keyboard and pressing the backslash key above the enter key.

You should limit your keywords to a maximum of 3 on each webpage because too many keywords in a title tag may be seen as spamming by search engines.

Don't start off with highly popular keywords because these keywords usually in fierce competitions and it can take several years for your website to rank top in search engines. Try to start off with keywords that have less than 10,000 monthly searches. You can go to http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/ to find the keywords or search terms relevant to your website that have less than 10,000 monthly searches.

Header Tags
The H1 header tag will be used as the title of the content on the webpage. As search engines read pages from top to bottom, so the H1 tag should contain your most important keyword and it should be placed at the top of the page which will be seen by your visitors.

If you need to add a sub-heading for your webpage, you can create a H2 header tag and include your second most important keyword into the H2 tag.

Page Content
Use your keywords throughout the page content in natural ways. Try to include your primary keywords within the first or second sentence of your content. Do not over use your keywords in your content. One or two times for a big paragraph is more than enough.

Alt Tag
The alt tag of your images should contain your keywords. Don't add similar keywords to each image as search engines may see them as spam.

Meta Description Tag
Search engines will use your meta description tag as the short description of your website listed in their search result pages. Thus writing a keywords-rich description will surely help in improving your website's position. The length of your description should not be too long, 2 to 3 sentences will be enough and the description should be encouraging people to click the link to your website.

Meta Keywords Tag
Meta keywords tag may have been completely ignored by Google and other search engines but not Yahoo. Yahoo is still encouraging webmasters to use meta keywords tag for improving the rankings of their websites. You can visit http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/ranking/ranking-02.html to read more about Yahoo's webmaster guidelines. Add all your keywords to the tag in order of importance and don't repeat the same keyword.

On-page optimization will improve your website's positions but you can't achieve top rankings with on-page optimization only. To get your website to the top, off-page optimization is needed. In fact it is the off-page optimization that can get your website to the top. But this does not mean that on-page optimization can be ignored because off-page optimization is far more effective when on-page optimization is in place.

Off-page Optimization
Off-page optimization concentrates on increasing the number of backlinks. Backlinks or inbound links mean the links to your website from other websites. The more websites linking to your site, the higher your website's positions will be. There are actually two types of backlinks:

1) One-way link - A relevant website links to your webpage without requiring a link back from you

2) Reciprocal link - The owner of a relevant website agree to place a link to your website and in exchange you provide a link back to the owner.

Search engines weight more heavily on one-way links than reciprocal links.

Other important off-page factors you need to pay attention are:

1) Anchor text used in the link pointing to your website.
2) The Google page rank (PR) of the website linking to you.

Anchor Text
When you exchange link with another site, you will need to provide your website's title that will be placed on the link exchange partner's website. The website's title will be a clickable link to your website and the clickable link is called anchor text. You anchor text should contain your targeted keyword.

Google Page Rank (PR)
You can see the Google page rank of a website using Google toolbar. Here's the link to download and install Google toolbar.

http://www.google.com/tools/firefox/toolbar/index.html

Page rank shouldn't be ignored when building backlinks. The more high page rank relevant websites (websites that have content related yours) linking to you the faster your website will reach top ranking in Google.

In order to rank high, you need to build as many backlinks as possible. But don't grow your backlinks too fast as Google may de-index your website for this reason. There are no specified guidelines by Google of how many inbound links you can build daily. Based on my experience it is safe to have 5 to 10 backlinks per day.

There are several ways to get backlinks to your site. Here's how......

Send Link Exchange Requests to Potential Links Partners
Before starting a link exchange campaign. You need to create a link directory that will be used to provide a link back to your potential link partners. Your website is ready to exchange link with other webmasters once the directory created.

You can find your potential link partners by searching on major search engines like Google and Yahoo for your targeted keywords and then visit each website in top 100 or top 200 listings. Make sure that the site you are requesting a link exchange related to yours. When a potential link partner has been found, you will want to go ahead and add your potential partner's link to the appropriate category in your site's link directory and then send an email to the potential link partner stating:

a) That you have linking to your potential link partner.
b) A direct link to the page where the potential link partner listing can be found.
c) How it would benefit to the potential link partner's if linking to you.
d) Your linking details.

To achieve better result, you should not get backlinks to your home page only. Try to get links pointing to your other webpages too. Also use more than one keyword anchor text.

Article Marketing
Writing several articles and submitting them to article directories for publication is a great way to build one-way links. By including a link to your website in your articles resource box, you not only gain quality one-way links but also drive free targeted traffic to your site. Your articles may drive truckloads of traffic if they are impressive. There are hundreds of article directories if not thousands. You can find them by going to Google and entering the search term 'article directories'.

Directories
Submitting your website's link to directories is another way of getting backlinks. Directories normally offer 3 types of listings:

1) Paid listing
2) Free listing
3) Free listing but require a link back from you.

If you choose the first or third option and your website meets the submission guidelines and rules of the directories, your link will usually be listed within days. If you select the second option, you have to wait longer and your website's listings aren't guaranteed.

Getting listed in quality directories with Google page rank 7 or higher such as DMOZ and Yahoo directory can be more beneficial for increasing your rankings than a lot of links from smaller and newer directories. But it is not easy to be accepted by these quality directories.

Press Release
Press release is simply an announcement of an important event for your business. Just like article marketing, you can gain one-way links by writing a press release with a link pointing to your site and submitting it to other websites. To find websites that accept press release, you can go to Google and enter the search term 'submit press release'.

Affiliate Program
If you are selling a product or a membership service, launching an affiliate program is a good idea to increase both your inbound links and online sales. Webmasters that are interested to market your product will place your link on their websites and you get free one-way links.