Onsite SEO vs. Offsite SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Earlier, we answered the question, "What is SEO?"

So now that we know what SEO means, how do we begin to "optimize" our website?

There are Onsite SEO practices and Offsite SEO practices.  Both of these are forms of trying to improve your website's visiting traffic by doing things to get a higher ranking within the organic (opposed to the Sponsored) search engine results.

What is Onsite SEO?


Onsite SEO are things you do to your website to make it more appealing to search engines, like Google.

Some examples of this are

• updating your website's content regularly
• improving your title to better align with your keywords
• adding pages to your website that are relevant to the keywords that you are targeting

It  is sort of like owning a restaurant and improving it without advertising.  You can improve your business at the restaurant by doing things like finding ways to improve the taste of the food, cleaning the restaurant more often, or hiring friendlier staff to greet your customers.

What is Offsite SEO?

Offsite SEO are things you do OUTSIDE of your website to market (tell the world) about your website.

Some examples of this are

• Writing Articles related to your topic
• Making entries into social media, like Facebook, Twitter, etc. that are related to your topic
• Making Classified Ads that point to your website

It is like you owning a restaurant.  You need to find ways to bring people into your restaurant, even before they ever try your food.  You need to do things to let them know you exist, like pass fliers, make a radio advertisement, place an ad in the paper, or make a post on the local bulletin board.

So Onsite SEO is doing things ON your website to optimize your chances of getting recognized.

Offsite SEO is doing things OFF your website to optimize your chances of getting recognized.

Which is more important?

They BOTH are really important.

What good will it do you to make wonderful tasting food at a great price if nobody knows to go to your restaurant?

On the other side, what good does it do you to tell everyone about your restaurant, only to have them go there to eat food that tastes like dirty cardboard?

You have to take care of the inside and the outside--just like your website.

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