The Importance Of On-page Seo Factors – Never Leave Home Naked!

By Author: Brad Knell
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Often I think the job of on-page optimization is over-looked or greatly discounted when it comes to search engine optimization. Some SEO strategists concentrate on back linking for their clients and there’s no doubt how important links pointing back to your website pages are. The argument can be made that if you acquire enough back links from authority sites, you can find favor with Google. Take for example the phrase ‘click here’. We’ve all heard about this one. Out of 882 million search results, Adobe’s Flash Player page comes up number one in Google for this key phrase. But what does the phrase itself have to do with Adobe Flash Player? In this case it’s the sheer number of sites linking back to their page and the use of the phrase ‘click here’ that makes it rank number one. So quantity is definitely something to consider.

But how many links are enough to guarantee this position? Currently Google displays over 23 thousand links from other web pages that point to the Adobe’s Flash Player page. That’s an incredible number and only a fraction of the real number Google knows about. Does your website ...
... have that many links pointing to one of its pages? Chances are it doesn’t. So, while back linking can produce some amazing results in terms of sheer traffic, unless you’re prepared to grown them over a long period of time and wait for this kind of result in the meantime, you need to take into consideration the on-page factors as well.

On-page SEO includes the basics: keyword research, Title Tags, Meta data, keyword rich text content, keyword rich Heading tags, image and video file optimization, clean code, and optimized, well-organized nav links etc. Think of it like building a foundation for future success in ranking. You need a solid foundation to build your pages on and to tell both visitors and search engines what your web pages are all about. Without it, the site will be much slower to rank well in the serp’s.

If your site is about widgets, then you need to do everything you can to emphasize the relevancy of your site to that theme or topic. Google gets its first clue about this from the elements it finds in your sites pages. Think of the on-page SEO elements and your sites content as a marriage. They need to be as close a match as possible… otherwise a ‘divorce’ may be in the offing.

On more than one occasion I have completed a client assignment where only the on-page optimization was performed because the client didn’t want to pay the ongoing expenses associated with back linking and the site still managed to rank in the top 3 spots in Google in spite of the lack of back links. Will those sites hold their position? Probably not, but it got them some much needed traffic and respect from the serp’s.

Your websites on-page elements should always be optimized first. After that, look for one good quality link back to the site and let Google crawl and index your pages. Then begin a linking campaign, adding high quality back links gradually over time, naturally. Taking a ‘wholistic’ approach to your websites optimization will guarantee the results you’re looking for: targeted traffic and lots of it. It might be a competitive race but it’s a long one. If you don’t have a solid strategy you’ll never win it.

Brad Knell is the author of several articles on organic SEO and the owner of Local Search Strategies in Canada. His company places emphasis on Local Search and Organic SEO for small businesses. Learn more about how local search can put your business website in front of more visitors faster!