On-Page and Off-Page Optimization
On-page Optimization Explained
There are two main types of search engine optimization – on-page and off-page. On-page is probably the simplest of these two aspects of search engine optimization. It relates to the elements on the web page itself. That is, the words, and what importance is given to the words on the page.
Search engines want to know first and foremost what a web page is about. So they will look at the various word elements. Search engine robots (or "bots") cannot read images or things like javascript or most other scripting languages. So they have only the pure text to rely on. They look for various clues within the HTML (hyper text markup language) on the page to find out the important words.
First they look for the title of the page (the words within the <title> and </title> tags) as the biggest clue. Then they look to see if there are any header tags (<H1> and <H2>, etc.) to see if they have any words between them. These are the large font sizes that denote page or section headings, and are a good indication what a page is about. They also look at the URL of the page itself (the web page address). The chances are that if the same word appears in the title tags, the header tags and the URL then it's a fairly safe bet to assume that that's what the page is about.
They then check to see if the same words are contained in the body text of the page, and how often. The various combinations of these, and their frequency on the page, will determine firstly what the page is about, and secondly how important that page is against all other pages about the same thing (your competing pages).
Off-page Optimization Explained
This relates to the links from other sites coming into the web page in question. For a page to be listed high up in the search engine listings (if you want your page to be Number 1 or at least near the top of the first page of the search engine's results) you have to be what the search engine judges an "authority" site. This usually means that you have to have other web pages (preferable outside your own site) on similar themes, linking to you. These links are preferably non- reciprocal (one-way only) denoting that the other websites think that this page is important enough to link to it (without necessarily a link back in return).
Increasingly, you need both on-page and off-page optimization. If you are in a relatively
uncompetitive market, like balloon blowing (to take a throwaway example) the chances are you'll be able to get a high listing in the search engines just by using good on-page optimization; you probably won't need backlinks at all. But the more competitive the sector, you'll be wanting all the backlinks you can get. And in a really competitive market, like the insurance market, you really will be struggling to inch ahead of your competitors by using complex backlink strategies like linking from different "C block" IP (more of that later) addresses, varying the anchor text (more of that later as well), and so on.
Some people say that off-page optimization is more important than on-page optimization. Here's a good analogy I read some time ago to explain this better
Ten men walk into a restaurant and sit down at a table. Nine are dressed in smart suits and one is dressed in jeans and a tee-shirt. The telephone rings and the waiter answers it. The person on the other ends asks the waiter if he can speak to the accountant who has just walked into the restaurant, and the waiter immediately looks at the people sitting round the newly occupied table. The waiter walks up to the table and asks if there is an accountant among their number. Six of the men in suits each point to the man in jeans.
So who is the accountant? Do you judge him by what he wears, or do you judge according to the spontaneous reactions of the other people who know him? Now let's take a look at on-page and off-page optimization in a little more detail.
Originally posted 2007-03-17 19:13:00.
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