Have you ever wondered how Google sorts results? or How to appear in the top positions of Google and other search engines? Well, to do this it is necessary to know how Google’s algorithm works and its two main categories, SEO On Page and SEO Off Page.
How the Google algorithm works
The operation of the Google algorithm or any other search engine, no matter how much some try to prove otherwise, is secret. By studying SEO, reading news and articles, publications from Google itself, doing tests, small leaks… etc, you can intuit some aspects of it, but it is not public and, therefore, we will never fully know how it works nor all the variables that are part of it. Furthermore, since they are constantly changing, what is valid today may no longer be valid tomorrow.
But, why is it convenient for us to know how the Google algorithm or any other search engine works?… Because this way we will know how Google orders the results, based on what criteria and, with this, we can improve our SEO positioning and thus improve the position in which we appear in the search results.
That said, if we want to know how search engines work, we will start by knowing the categories of the Google algorithm:
- Seo On Page, focused mainly on content.
- Seo Off Page, basically focused on links.
Differences SEO On Page vs SEO Off Page
The main differences between SEO On Page and SEO Off Page, as you have already seen, are the topics they cover, while SEO On Page is focused on content, SEO Off Page focuses on links:
- SEO On Page or content, tips and improvements to apply that depend on the website that we are optimizing and that are under our control. Examples of this could be the creation of quality content, improving web speed or choosing the right keywords when writing the website.
- SEO Off Page or links, changes and optimizations that do not depend on the website we are working with and that are not under our control. Some examples are the analysis of the quantity and quality of sites that link to us or the elimination of incoming links.
As you can see, the objective is to divide the behavior of search engines into two categories of tips, improvements, good practices… etc that help us improve our positioning in the search results depending on who is responsible for applying these changes.
What is SEO On Page or content
SEO On Page focuses on the content and consists of everything that is on our website and, therefore, we can control since we are the owners and/or those who manage, build, write… etc.
The SEO On Page categories are:
- Quality content, focuses on creating attractive and useful content for the user, it is the most important part.
- Word density, that is, how much a word or keyword is repeated throughout a specific page and a website in general.
- Where to use keywords or word prominence.
- Speed, https protocol and duplicate content, key factors that influence the position we occupy in the search results.
- Mobile web compatibility, nowadays it is important because most of the traffic comes through mobile devices.
- Correctly choose keywords, in this way we will be able to attract the target audience that interests us.
- Other tips to improve your SEO On Page, such as avoiding traps or Black Hat SEO.
SEO and quality content
Quality content is the most important part for SEO and for users, it will be useless to use complex techniques to attract traffic to our website if the content we offer does not meet a series of requirements that determine what quality content is:
- Useful content that helps solve problems and needs.
- Original information, avoiding copying the work of others and making an effort on our part.
- Well structured, summarized and processed information.
- Content generated by humans for humans.
- Information easily accessible by anyone.
- Content with links that help expand the information we offer.
- Updated content.
- And above all… content that you enjoy generating.
Global and local word density
Word density in SEO is a concept or ratio that indicates the number of times a certain word appears in a certain context. Depending on the context in which a word is found, we can divide the density of words in SEO into two groups:
- The local word density or word density of a specific page is the number of times a term appears among the total words of said page, not of the entire website (number/total words page).
- The global word density or word density of a website is the same as the previous one but the search word is with respect to the total words of said website (number/total web words).
For example, suppose we are dedicated to selling cars. If all or most of the pages we have contain the word car, we will have a good global positioning.
From these two points we can draw the conclusion that a specific page may be well positioned at the SEO level (because we have thought very well about the words to include) but the website as a whole may not be so well positioned.
Where to use keywords
The correct location of keywords, better known as word prominence, is a term that refers to the SEO score of words depending on where they are located on the web. That is to say, a keyword in the first lines or in the title (here it scores better) is not worth the same as in the last lines of a page.
Just like density, we can subdivide it into two parts, depending on the context in which it is applied, we have the following categories to locate keywords within a website:
- Keywords in URLs, files and images.
- Keywords in HTML elements.
Speed, https and duplicate content
There are other factors that affect SEO On Page, which are, in summary:
- Website loading speed, it is important that the website loads quickly, for which, among other things, it is recommended to optimize and reduce the size of the images as much as possible and, in videos, use links or embeds such as those provided by YouTube.
- Http and https. The https protocol is preferable as it is more secure.
- Duplicate content. This factor will penalize our SEO enormously. On the Internet there are many web pages that allow us to check if we are violating this point, either ourselves or another page copying our content.
Mobile or responsive web compatibility
Today, given that mobile devices account for a large share of traffic, it is essential that your website is compatible with mobile devices. This will not only benefit your SEO but will also improve the user experience by providing you with quality traffic.
Check mobile compatibility first manually (via a mobile device or the mobile view of a browser) and, after solving the errors found in the manual analysis, use a tool to analyze it automatically such as the Google Search Console usability option or Google’s mobile friendly test.
To get a mobile friendly website, make sure your content management system and its templates are mobile friendly and, if you don’t use a CMS, make sure you use a mobile friendly design framework like Bootstrap.
Choose and analyze keywords
To choose keywords, it is essential to analyze the user’s behavior regarding their search habits, for which we have tools to choose and search for keywords.
Keywords are the terms we use when writing our website. Not only does where they are located matter, as we have commented previously, the terms used also matter.
Using rarely used terms will not be the same as terms that most users use to search. If we use common terms, used by the vast majority of users, we will be able to improve our position in search engines.
Tips for SEO On Page
There are certain factors that prevent automatic indexing carried out by web spiders. These elements, which we should avoid, are:
- Traps or black hat SEO with the aim of fooling the Google algorithm.
- Javascript.
- Dynamic content.
- Modals or pop-ups.
- Adobe Flash Player.
- Everything that is behind a login.
Finally, it should be noted that it is highly recommended to think about and do SEO On Page as the page is being built, not once it is finished, this will save us unnecessary and redundant work and will allow us to position ourselves in search engines much faster.
What is SEO Off Page or links
SEO Off Page focuses on the links on our website and consists of everything external to our website, which does not depend on us and which we cannot control.
It is more complex than SEO On Page since it is not on our website and, therefore, it does not depend on us nor can we control it directly. It depends, above all, on what other websites do and the agreements we have with them.
Around 50% of Google’s algorithm depends on SEO Off Page. Google not only cares that the content of our website is of quality through content and other factors, it also determines whether our website is important or not through SEO Off Page.
Before getting into the matter, it is advisable to know a little history. All this comes from Page Rank, one of Google’s original algorithms created by Larry Page to determine the importance of a website that assigned a value between 0 and 10 depending on how many links pointed to said site and their quality. This algorithm stopped being used in 2012 and what is currently used is a variant of it, something similar and much more evolved, broader and with some unknown variables.
The SEO Off Page categories are:
- Algorithm and link metrics. We will learn, through some examples, how the algorithm works as well as some metrics that will be useful to us.
- Who links to us and remove incoming links. We will analyze the internal and external links on our website as well as methods to remove incoming links.
- Customer journey to get links and improve the user experience. We will talk about the customer journey strategy to apply to our site to achieve a better user experience and naturally obtain more links.
- Several tips to improve your SEO Off Page, such as avoiding Black Hat SEO traps or monitoring broken links on your website.
Algorithm and metrics for links
Two key variables are involved in the SEO Off Page algorithm:
- Number of links. How many links point us. The more, the better, although as we will see later, this is not entirely true.
- Links quality. Not only the number of links matters, but also their quality.
For example, a link from Wikipedia is not the same as a web page full of advertising that is dedicated to clickjacking. The first case is positive, it will contribute to improving our SEO, while the second case is negative and will contribute to penalties from search engines.
To measure these two variables we have several link analysis tools:
- Manual analysis. Although it is not a tool, common sense and manual analysis is sometimes enough.
- Majestic. Some of the metrics used by this tool are citation, trust and flow ratio.
- Moz. We will analyze what domain and page authority are.
- Ahrefs. We will use the domain and url rating as well as Ahrefs’ own ranking.
If you want to delve a little deeper into the topic and learn, through an example, how the search engine algorithm works with links and metrics we have a specific article for it.
Know who links to us and remove incoming links
Once you have learned the basics of the search engine algorithm regarding SEO Off Page and the most important metrics, it will be time to take action by knowing who links to us and remove links that are negative for our SEO.
On the one hand, it is necessary to know what internal links and what external links we have on our website. While internal links are those that we put ourselves in the content to redirect the user to different pages of our website, external links are those that point to our website from external web pages, which we do not control directly.
Once we know what they are, we will analyze the external links (both at the domain and specific page level) using a simple technique that will allow us to know if these links are positive or negative for our SEO. This technique to analyze external links can be summarized as:
- Manual analysis. We will use a series of criteria to know if a web page is positive or negative for our SEO. Within this section we will also analyze the content, context and anchor text that link to us.
- Analysis through metrics. Only if in the previous step we were not able to categorize the links, will we use several metrics to make a decision.
Finally, once we know which links to delete, we will delete them first by trying to contact the website and, if we have not received a response after a while, disavowing the links using Google disavow.
Get more links with customer journey
It is also necessary to know the customer journey technique applied to SEO. This technique will allow us to know how to interact with our target audience and will basically provide us with two benefits:
- Better user experience. By applying a few simple steps we will be able to improve both interaction with the user and their experience on our website.
- Get more links naturally. When the user is satisfied with their experience, they are much more inclined to share your content. This results in links being generated naturally and, as a consequence, our SEO Off Page improves.
Strategies and tips for SEO Off Page
Finally we will see a series of tips and strategies for SEO Off Page that will revolve around the quantity and quality of links such as, for example:
- Regularly monitor links to avoid black hat SEO attacks.
- Review content, context and anchor text of links.
- Use of internal and external links and eliminate broken links.
- Avoid black hat SEO traps such as link farms.
- Use the customer journey to generate natural, quality links.
- Other tips such as, for example, which domains are most important in incoming links to our website.
In conclusion we can say that SEO Off Page requires, so to speak, monitoring the Internet to know what links to us and how. It is not only about desperately getting links, but also about getting quality links and eliminating those that are not. Following these tips or not can lead us to improve or not the SEO of our website and, in some cases, have or not have SEO penalties from search engines.
Unlike SEO On Page, we cannot carry out SEO Off Page as we build the page because, as we have said, it does not depend on us but on external websites for the most part. It is a process that takes time and requires some patience.
Finally we can say that applying and improving SEO On Page is much easier since, as you have seen, it depends on variables that we can control and that are on our website.
