The three pillars of SEO

1. On-page SEO

2. Technical SEO

3. Off-page SEO

There are three pillars to every successful SEO strategy - on-page SEO, technical SEO and off-page SEO. This article will discuss each of these so that you have a better understanding of what it takes to rank high in Google. I personally believe that by building a strong foundation in all three areas - on-page, technical and off-page - you will give yourself the best possible chance of success when it comes to search engine optimization.

On-Page SEO

The first pillar is on-page SEO. This takes place on your website pages but does not affect what happens 'off-site'. On-page SEO can include everything from optimizing titles and headings to writing content that is relevant to your keywords.

On-page SEO factors: Titles (helps search engines determine relevance) Page length/quality of content Keywords in text H1 tags - these help with keyword discovery as well as defining the topic of the page. Internal linking - links to internal pages on your site; this helps search engine spiders understand what your site is about. Site speed - Site speed may not be a factor when it comes to ranking but having a slower website will drive people away, so try and keep loading times low. This can have an impact on user experience which Google has said they do take into account. Website load time is an important signal, which we use to help surface high-quality content in search results.

Technical SEO

This is all about the technical implementation of your site online. It includes aspects like link building, image optimization and metadata. Technical optimizations can be split into two often forgotten areas - internal and external links. Internal links are vital for user experience as well as helping with SEO. If you have an article with 10 keywords relating to that topic on the page, it makes sense to link back to other relevant pages on your website via keyword anchors where possible as this will allow Google's algorithm to see what else is related to that keyword. External linking is also very important because sometimes search engines struggle to crawl inner pages of a website unless there are cross-links. Link building is also a key technical aspect of SEO; this can be done via articles, guest posts and social media. The more outbound links you have from trusted websites to your website then the better you will rank for certain keywords.

Technical aspects: Site architecture - ensure your site is easy to crawl with multiple pages on each topic Image optimization - Ensure all images have relevant alt text Metadata (ie titles, description and keyword tags) External linking - link building Internal linking - link building Search engine friendly URLs 404 errors Hreflang & canonical tag implementation x-robots noindex tags Robots meta tags Canonical 301 / 302 redirects Images JavaScript in source code Content management system Ecommerce/basket functionality Mobile responsive design HTTPS protocol integration Search console (and other search console integrations).

Technical SEO Pros

Technical SEO can help your visibility on mobile devices and desktop. This will depend on how well you have implemented technical optimizations like responsive design, speed and redirects. Technical optimization helps create a better user experience as it allows visitors to see your page rather than 404 errors which looks bad for the brand. It is also an essential part of off-page SEO because link building works best when you don't have any technical errors blocking links from being built onto your site.

Technical SEO Cons

There are few downsides to technical optimisation; the main one being that you need to know what you're doing or pay someone who does! Also if done wrong it could potentially affect rankings but luckily Google has a lot of resources available to help webmasters.

The main reason why most people don't bother with technical optimization is because it is time-consuming and can be quite technical. However, it is important to remember that these are the factors that search engines use to determine your website's worth so if you want more organic traffic from Google then implementing technical SEO should be a higher priority than on-page SEO.

Google recently announced they will be focussing mainly on mobile-friendly websites in their algorithm. This means sites that aren't responsive or fast loading could see their rankings suffer as a result of this change. Having a slow website also has an impact on bounce rate, time on site and overall user experience; nobody wants to wait 3 seconds for a page to load when they click a link.

Technical SEO is one of the most important parts of SEO but it's often overlooked due to its technical nature and importance.

The Likeability Of Your Website

This is maybe not as big an issue these days as social media pages make us like what we see in our newsfeeds, but there are still a number of reasons why your website should be "likeable". It could affect whether you convert visitors into leads or customers so a good UI/UX will have a positive effect on your bottom line. If you employ any salespeople then having them use social selling, it will be much easier for them to sell from websites with great user experience as opposed to ones lacking in UX.

Off-page SEO

Link building & outreach

Link building is one of the most important aspects of SEO. Link baiting and guest posting are very effective ways to get links back to your website.

Many people believe that if you have good content then people will share it naturally. The harsh reality though is that you need to guide the conversation with a call-to-action in order for someone's content to be shared, so don't solely rely on the quality of your content as a reason why others should share it. It might be worth paying someone who can educate and offer guidance on how best to achieve this!

You can also pay some websites or blogs popular with your industry to write an article about you (or even better one of your clients). This type of content is very shareable and will drive a large number of links back to your website.

There are various approaches you can use when building links, so if you find an approach that works best for your business then stick with it!

Off-page SEO Cons

Link building is one of the most common ways people get penalised by Google. Link building has also been known to cause conflict between businesses in recent years due to link spamming or scraping. There's nothing wrong with buying links but it might be wise to avoid paid links on websites that aren't related to yours as Google tends to punish these types of link builds.

Off-page SEO Pros

Link building is one of the best ways to get noticed by search engines. Links will both help you rank for your desired keywords, increase your domain authority and improve your conversion rate! Google uses links as a way to determine the trustworthiness of websites and they are also used in ranking so it's important to build quality links on related websites.

Your competitors may be getting thousands of links from high-quality websites which could outperform your own website in SERPs, but if you take the time to obtain relevant links on sites within your industry then you can vastly improve your site's visibility and performance.

If you want more traffic from search engines then creating content that people want to link back to is an essential element of SEO.

I hope you've found the information helpful. If not, feel free to reach out to us for more guidance on how to help your business succeed at tackling procrastination.

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