There are 3 main components of SEO, on-page, off-page, and technical SEO.
On page SEO
- On page SEO concerns itself with optimizing the content you can see on a webpage. E.g. images, words, headings, etc.
Technical SEO
- Technical SEO concerns itself with optimizing the website for the search engines. E.g. ability for the site to be crawled, indexed, site architecture, rendering the site (speed)
Off Page SEO
- Off page SEO concerns itself with what is happening outside of “off” the website to help optimize or increase the website’s online visibility. E.g. backlinks, brand building
Reference: https://www.stanventures.com/blog/off-page-seo-techniques/
What are some of the basics to consider or keep in mind when considering each of the three components of SEO?
On Page SEO
For on page SEO think about a potential customer who may not know you business, brand, service or product but they have an idea of what they are looking for. Put yourself in their shoes and mind and try to think and imagine what kinds of workds, phrases and questions this person may ask to find your offering. Now, think about the kind of customer you’re looking for, your “idea” customer. What kind of content do they consume? How much time do they have to consume it? When are they consuming it? How are they consuming it? How are they looking for it? E.g. voice search, typing on a desktop, tablet, cell phone?
Answers to these questions and more will help you better structure, write and create the content for your website and individual webpages.
Example
For example, a business offers moving services for residential clients. Both long distance and local moves. Among the service offered is a special moving service for seniors downsizing from their home and into a retirement community and a much small space. E.g. Going from a 4 bedroom house to a one bedroom apartment or even into a single room. This is a more niche service so,
Question: Who would be looking for this?
Answer: A relative, son, daughter, grandchild on the behalf of the senior.
Question: What kind of content do they consume?
Answer: Depending on their age, it could vary. But since we’re only considering website content here, let’s stick to content found on a website. E.g. blogs, service pages etc.
Question: How much time do they have to consume the content?
Answer: Since this person is doing this for an older family member the may not have as much time and may try to squeeze in research during their spare time. E.g. over lunch hour at work, (on their desktop?); while picking up kids from school (on their mobile phone?); lying in bed before going to sleep (on their tablet?)
Question: How are they looking for the content?
Answer: Depending on when they are doing their research it could be voice searches and queries in a search engine. Voice search would most likely be searches formulated in the form a question. Queries in a search engine may be more of a phrase.
E.g. voice search or question: “Who moves seniors from their home to a retirement community?”; “Movers that relocate seniors who are downsizing.”
Search engine query: “senior relocation”; “moving company for downsizing seniors”, “retirement movers”, “movers for seniors”
Now that you have this information, or at least an educated guess as to who is looking for you and how, you can now start planning your content. For example, let’s say you want to create a blog post on your website about what is involved when moving a senior from their home to a smaller space in a retirement home. Given your potential customer is busy, doing this for a loved one, and probability doesn’t have a lot of time to dedicate to research in a given sitting, they may appreciate lists and bullets with concise answers and information. A blog post this is a list of things to consider when relocation and downsizing and elderly parent may be exactly what they are looking for. AT the top of the post there could be a table of contents that is a list of descriptive subheading for each main point, perhaps in the form of a question or brief answer. Each table of contents item can be clicked or expanded to provided more details. A call to action could be placed at the end of each of these expanded items linking to the relative service page or to a contact form, page, or number.
Since these searchers may also search by voice you may want to incorporate some of these questions they may ask into your content. Since they may also research on their desktop or tablet, you want to include some of those search phrases they may use in their queries in your content. You may want to include images and video answering their questions. People aren’t always able to reach but can listen. Titling, labeling, and naming these pieces of content using words and phrases related to your specific offering, “senior relocation”, is also important.
All these little details on a webpage that are usually taken for granted make a difference and can make all the difference in your website and webpage’s online visibility. Whether you do this yourself or get an agency to do it for you, don’t take for granted that whoever is doing it for you will cover every detail or even know what your service or offering is. It’s easy for anyone to miss one, even the most experience SEO. So ask; ask to see what they have done; the reasoning behind their keyword selection, page structure, blog type, header choices, image names, image alt text, etc. At the end of this post I have a short list of possible questions to ask any new agency you may be considering.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO considers crawlability, indexing, site architecture, site rending, and other elements relevant to search engines when trying to achieve online visibility.
Technical SEO is usually something we can’t see so it doesn’t come to tope of mind unless there is an obvious problem. E.g. The site isn’t loading; you click on a link to apage on your site and you get the dreaded 404 page error!
Site architecture is the big one, how the pages are arranged or the hierarchy. Ideally you want your website to have a “flat” architecture. Below is a diagram of what a “flat” website artchitecture can look like.
Each level requires a “click” and you don’t want anyone to have to click more than 3 or 4 times to get to the information they are looking for.
While technical SEO is intended for the search engine when designing the site architecture you also want to consider the user or visitor to the site.
Rendering of the site can be thought of as how fast the site loads, site speed. The content management system, platform website is built with, used to create the website, images and video included in the website content, all play a factor in the site speed. Also, the device needs to be considered when looking at site speed. On a mobile device, most websites load much slower than on a desktop. Minimizing load time, or pages peed, for mobile will als reduce load time, page speed, on desktop. Browsers can make a difference too. You may want to consider a mobile friendly site of design if all your potential customers use mobile devices more to search and brose the internet.
Crawlability is how easy it is for a search engine to “crawl around” through your website and access information. Tactics such as faster page speed, internal linking, submitted a site map to Google, update the robos.txt file; canonical tags and pages; site audits; reduce low quality and duplicate content; remove redirect chains and internal redirects; fix broken links, and more.
Reference:
10 Steps to boost your site’s crawlability and indexability, Brian Frederick, November 2022, Search Engine Journal, URL: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/crawling-indexability-improve-presence-google-5-steps/167266/
Is Internal and external linking useful? Lani Haque, June 2023, Data Untangled, URL: https://datauntangled.com/internal-and-external-linking/
Indexing of a website is where submitting an XML sitemap to the Google can help. Keep in mind search engines, like Google, don’t have crawl or index your website. It will eventually do this on its own time but there are things that can be done to get your site noticed by search engines and Google. One main tactic is to submit your website’s XML sitemap to Google Search Console, GSC.
Note: There are few Google tools that are free and are strongly advised to be on every website. And YOU as the owner of the website should have access, the “keys”, to these. The main ones are:
- GSC, Google Search Console
- GA4, Google Analytics
- Google Tag Manager
- GBP, Google Business Profiles (optional and for local businesses)
The first one GSC is where the XML sitemap will be uploaded to. The SML sitemap is a list of all the page son your website. The idea is that uploading this list of pages on your website to GSC will bring your website to Google’s attention, sooner rather than later. No guarantee that Google will crawl and start indexing your website the minute your upload your XML sitemap but it does increase the probability Google will, sooner than later.
Question: What is GSC?
Answer: GSC stands for Google Search Console. It is free and is provided by Google. Once this property is on your website, your traffic on Google will be tracked. Sounds ominous but it’s a good thing if used properly. For example it will provide information about what search queries people are using to find the different pages on your website. This information can be helpful in telling us how to alter the wording of the content on your website. This is just one example.
Once you have the GSC property on your site and verify that it’s there, Google will now start tracking all the activity on your website and store it. It’s collection data about the traffic on your website which you have access to and you can use however you like. This data is valuable for your SEO but it takes awhile to collect enough data to make meaningful decisions. Taking the data and interpreting in a way that is beneficial for you is another post! Stay tuned!
Off page SEO
Off page SEO consists of all the activity that isn’t on your website that helps to increase your website’s online visibility and presence. The most common tactic that everyone immediately think about is “backlinks”. A backlink is a link “back” to your website from another website. The idea is that the website linking back to yours has “authority” and online visibility to drive some of the traffic they are receiving to your site. This is not easy though.
Some Off Page SEO tactics
There are many tactics to try to gain these coveted backlinks but that is another workshop. Some other examples of off page SEO tactics are,
- Word of mouth
- Flyers
- Brand awareness
- Directory listings
- Chamber of commerce
- Social media presence
- Podcasts
- Guest posting
- Etc.
For example, if we consider our residential moving company and their niche service offering for moving seniors to retirement homes, how can we use off page SEO tactics to try and bring more traffic to the website?
First and foremost, for a local business is to get GBP, google business profile set up. Any other directories like yellow pages, Yelp etc that you can get your business listed on, great. Your local chamber of commerce may be another place to get listed on. If your city and neighbourhood has a BIA, business improvement area, try and get listed on there. In your neighbourhood, city, or region that you service has any upcoming events or community activities and events, participating in some way or providing sponsorship can also get a mention and link back to your website. Any social media platforms you have, include a link back to your website. Any posts you make on these social platforms, create a link back to your site. If you have writing blogs on your websites, create. However, guest posting on websites and blogs with a greater authority or reach is another way to get a link back to your site. It may involve more writing on your part, but the rewards for your effort can make all the difference. In this particular example because the niche is moving and downsizing elderly from their home to a retirement home, letting all the local and regional retirement homes know that you offer this service. This could be through email, a flyer, a request for a mention on their website, sky’s the limit. Working with complimentary services such as cleaning services for seniors, daycares, remember that the persona looking for this service is most likely a loved with a young family of their own. The ways of marketing “off page” are only limited to your imagination.
Let’s summarize the ideas for off-page SEO mentioned above:
- GBP, Google business profile
- Directories for local businesses. E.g. Yellow Pages, Yelp
- Chambers of commerce
- BIA, Business Improvement Area
- Community events and activities
- Social media platforms
- Guest posting on websites and blogs with greater authority and reach.
- Retirement homes
- Working with complementary services. E.g. cleaning services for seniors, day cares
- Word of mouth
Remember this is not an exhaustive list, merely a start of a list.
List of possible questions to ask your new agency and account manager:
- Have you worked with other businesses in the industry I’m in? If yes, ask for a case study to showcase some of the successes with that client in your industry.
- Have you worked with other businesses like mine? (e.g. small, local, ecommerce, corporate, education etc.) If they have, ask for a case study to showcase some of the successes or ask for examples.
- What experience do you have? What experience do the people in your seo team have?
- What tools will you be using?
- What is the strategy that you use?
- Do you provide regular reports? (not just and audit, but a report)
- What KPI’s, key performance indicators, do you use to for SEO?
- Ultimately, I want (STATE WHAT YOUR GOAL IS). How will SEO help me achieve this? How will you help me achieve this?
- What can you promise or guarantee me for my website’s online visibility? (This is a trick question. It isn’t possible to guarantee anything with SEO except that the agency/SEO specialist and team will do their best to increase your online visibility but how that progress is measure and when it will start to show, isn’t possible for anyone to guarantee. The best and experienced SEO in your industry can do is provided an educated guess and even that is subject to change because no one can predict what will happen on the internet!)
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