On Page, Off Page? Am I Even on the Right Page with SEO?

The hidden and not-so-hidden SEO tactics to get your business front and centre with Google.

All the little pieces of search engine optimization (SEO) fall under one of the following categories:

On page.
Off page.

If you want your business to rank higher in search results, which means more site visitors, more service inquiries and, in the end, more money for you, on page and off page SEO need to come together like Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen.

Good news for you – it’s all right here. All you have to do is spend the next 3 minutes and 40 seconds reading.

Jordan and Pippen – On page and off page.

Search engine optimization — *The perfect duo.*

On page SEO is completely in your control, and includes mostly tangible stuff like the content, architecture and coding.

Off page SEO is even more important, but depends largely on the people visiting your site. Does your site seem trustworthy enough for them to do business with you? Where do the links point and how good do those links appear? What kind of social media connections do you have? and so on.

We said it before and we’ll say it again – you need to impress two “people,” for your business to thrive online:

Google
Actual people.

Some on page factors influence only Google, while others only exist for the benefit of your customers. The same goes for off page elements.

Combining the forces of on page and off page SEO in just the right way tells Google your business belongs on the front page of search results and tells potential customers yours is the business they want to work with.

On Page

Don’t just write content – craft it.

You can’t just sit down and let some words spill out of you onto the digital page. Well you can, but it won’t help your business. Do that kind of experiment in your spare time, in a journal or something.

Content on your website needs more than your whims. Your web content must be:

Quality. Quality content flows naturally, speaks in a voice the target audience relates to and contains valuable information.
Researched. You know the phrase you can’t see the forest for the trees? Your customers probably don’t look at your business the same way you do. If you write content based on your personal bias, not research, you’ll make your business appealing to yourself, but not necessarily your clients.
Current. Customer interests change, technology changes. Content reflects your understanding of the current industry landscape, so get with the times! Blogging is one of the best ways to do this.
Packaged. Each page must be a complete package, with images, local keywords and triggers (phrases your audience relate to, smile at, etc…), lists, instructions – anything to reduce friction for the audience. Friction here refers to the amount of clicks it takes your audience to get the information they want. Better package = less clicks = less friction.
NOT POINTLESS. Oh man, a lot of content out there is totally useless. Yours should give readers answers – What’s unique about the service you provide? What does it cost? How will it impact their lives? What is your process? What products do you offer?

Hire a digital architect

A good house is built on a sturdy foundation and solid framing.

So is a good website, only without any of the wood or concrete or rebar or nails, screws, brackets. Umm…let’s try this again.

Your website is like a finished house. It looks nice, with drywall (content) and fixtures (images, links) all hiding the internal, structural stuff.

The drywall and fixtures make the house livable, but the stuff hiding underneath keep the house standing.

The architecture behind your website keeps it standing too. Or, more precisely, makes your house stand out.

Ask yourself these questions:

Can search engines like Google easily crawl the pages on your site? Is each page easily identified, with the right keywords and behind the scenes elements in the right places?
Is your site optimized for mobile browsers? Smartphones account for up to 70% of website views for some industries. If your site isn’t mobile optimized, you straight up miss out on 70% of your potential business.
Does your site load quickly? Most consumers click away if a site doesn’t load in 5 seconds. Slow load times can cost your business tens of thousands of dollars a year. Google actually has an online speed test so you can check if your site measures up. See if your site is fast enough right here.
Do your URLs make sense? www.yourwebsite.com/toronto-landscaping-services makes a lot more sense than www.yourwebsite.com/page-1.
Is your site secure? Consumers increasingly look for https at the start of a URL. It indicates a secure site (or an encrypted site, if you prefer the fancy industry term). Make sure yours is.

Code – not just for video game cheaters!

search engine optimized website — *You big game cheater!*

Anybody remember Game Genie?

You stuck your Nintendo games on it, put in the code, and every game became instantly beatable. You had a million lives, all the fancy weapons, you were invincible. All you had to do was put in the right code.

The code in the back end of your website has the same ability to supercharge your business.

Put in the right code and you get more sales, better leads, bigger profits.

The right code incorporates:

Titles. It might appear over-simplistic, but the title tags on your pages need to contain keywords relevant to the topic of the page.
Descriptions. Same as above, but with more detail. You can tell Google and customers a lot with the right description.
Data. HTML code can be organized in such a way as to improve your position in search listings. Headings, image tags, link descriptions and other similar elements, organized for crawlability, have a huge impact on search position.
Keyword-based headings. More headings with a variety of researched and targeted keywords give search engines better information, so they put your website closer to interested buyers.

Code also helps your site load faster and perform all kinds of user-friendly functions.

Off Page

Trust.

Trust is one of those semi-tangible-somewhat-intangible-but-totally-real things your site needs.

Search engine optimization toronto — *Trust is very, very, very important.*

It’s tough to put an exact face on trust, as it depends largely in personal factors. But what we can say is:

Trust comes from recognition of authority. Think of what makes you an authority in your industry and make sure that is clear to potential customers.
Google trusts your site more if people spend significant durations of time on it. This is referred to as bounce rate. A low bounce rate is good; high bounce rate is bad. Bounce rate can be fixed in a number of ways (and you’ll find out about it in this month’s webinar).
Like wine or cheese (at least some cheese, for some people with weird tastes), age is important. The longer your website is around, the more trust Google places in it. Your website is like cheese for Google! Too much? OK.

Linking the right way.

Don’t link too much. Don’t link too little. Don’t link to sketchy outside websites. Try to get outside websites to link to your website.

But let’s say this part again – don’t link to (or from) sketchy websites. There are scams out there promising a lot of links from others to your website. But these are (99.99999….% of the time) low quality sites that will actually hurt your reputation with the search engines. Google knows these websites exist just to manufacture links.

It takes a lot of time and effort to get a human at a high authority website to agree to link to you and to actually put that link in place. These are absolute gold.

And link words that make sense. Google (and people) looks at a link and expects to follow it to something related to those link words. Follow this link and you will learn about our work. You probably won’t follow this link, and you have no idea where it leads.

You can’t control the person.

Your search engine success relies on people. You have to get your website in front of them, and that depends on:

Their home country.
Their city or municipality or suburb (The Beaches in Toronto vs. Chinatown).
The number of times they clicked (or bounced) from your site in the past.
Whether someone in their social network has interacted with your site in the past.

Trust SEO — *Some things you just can’t control.*

Social networking (like Facebook or Linkedin), is a growing factor in SEO too.

If other participants in a social network share your content, view your content or interact with your content, it will appear relevant to more potential customers.

If your content is shared on social networks, it appears more valuable. Shares filter through friends of friends and allow humans to perform some Google-ish search functions. Shares also leave markers for search engines to pick up on, giving your site more trust. Social media isn’t actually part of Google’s search algorithm, but links are. And brand recognition is always valuable as an off page marketing factor.