ON Page SEO Part 1
On Page SEO refers to the way in which the actual content, layout and tags on your site itself are presented to the search engines.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is something of a mysterious art. An ongoing battle between webmasters trying to unpick the complex algorithms used to rank organic search results for personal gain, and the search engines themselves guarding against unscrupulous SEO tactics to preserve the quality of their results. SEO is something you learn through practice, and there is no substitute for first hand experience. Nobody, literally nobody, knows precisely how Google and other search engines weight the importance of separate on and off page factors in determining the ranking of sites. Two sites could be identical in almost every respect, but one may be caught out by an almost indiscernible difference that flags up as suspicious tactics, and this is why we have to pay attention to detail and put ourselves in the shoes of the engines themselves.
Take, for instance, two websites with identical on page credentials. They both have original and expansive content, excellent layouts and well optimised, descriptive, keyword rich tags. But one of these two sites may have outbound links grouped together on a side bar, whilst the other may only use external links in the context of real content. Something as subtle as this could ring alarm bells when the information is fed through Google’s machines and it could be something as small as this that leads to penalties imposed on YOUR site.
How do we avoid this? Well, it’s simple: we put ourselves in the shoes of Google. If you were trying to maximise the relevance and quality of your search results, what would you see as an obstacle.
PAID AND RECIPROCAL OUTBOUND LINKS
I’m including this in the ON Page SEO article because I’m referring solely to ANY links on your site to other sites (paid or not), and not links from other sites to your own. Google DON’T like paid links. When someone buys a link from your website, or proposes a link exchange - THINK TWICE. Google hate this strategy because it distorts the natural ‘voting’ system. Imagine a presidential election in which one candidate buys votes from the electorate. In any democracy this would simply not be allowed, and why should the internet be any different? When the engines rank a website they want to know all the links are earned by merit and because of good, original content.
If you were devising a system to rid paid and reciprocal links once and for all, what would you look for? Well, a few things spring to mind that must set alarm bells ringing. Why would a website group together a huge amount of links to various unrelated websites on a sidebar or footer if they weren’t paid or exchanged? Why would say, a poker site link to a golf site if it wasn‘t paid? You have to think like an engine.
Key Points: If you are going to accept paid links, or even if you’re linking to any other website because you want to share its content with your visitors, then bare this in mind:
Don’t go overboard. If one page on your site contains tens or hundreds of outbound links it will look manipulated. Keep the number down.
Link to relevant content. Don’t plug a bunch of irrelevant websites on yours. Keep the majority of outbound links relevant, and with relevant anchor text. If you do accept paid links from all sites, avoid landmines like pharmaceuticals and gambling and keep them to a premium.
Try to embed links within content. If you have a sidebar on your site that is just a straight up list of links - don’t think Google won’t notice. If you want to link to another website, embed the link into written content on your site. This way it looks more genuine.
This information is not just important for SEO reasons, but also for the sake of your profits. After all, you’re bound to sell more advertising on your site if your customers are seeing results themselves.
