Optimizing in the Right Places for the Best Return.

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I am constantly being asked how to prioritize certain types of optimization, and the question is a good one. We all understand the importance of optimizing, but sometimes it’s hard to discern which type of optimization will produce the best improvement in Google rankings for a certain page.

For instance, one visitor to my blog recently explained that he had spent a great deal of time optimizing his webpage using Word Presser, yet he hadn’t seen the anticipated improvement in ranking on the Google search pages.

This visitor then asked me a pretty straightforward question; which is more effective, on-page or off-page optimization?

My answer, unfortunately, wasn’t quite as straightforward. All I can offer is; It depends.

The Beauty of Backlinks

The Google algorithm has always been impressive from an analytical point of view, but the folks at Google have always been keenly aware of its limitations. No amount of number crunching or keyword counting will ever replicate the judgment of a human reader with regards to whether an article is “good” or not.

Consequently, Google relies on the opinions of other humans regarding the usefulness of a particular webpage. For instance, if one person visits a website to compare car insurance quotes and finds that particular site is very useful, he may backlink to it from his blog or webpage, or he may “Like” it on Facebook or Tweet about it to his followers.

A word about backlinks, though; Google prefers quality over quantity. If you write one article, spin it 100 times, and post it to 200 different article directories, you’ll get lots of backlinks. However, Google won’t be impressed.

The folks at Google updated the algorithm a while ago to take into account which websites were backlinked to yours. Backlinks from trusted websites will help your webpage – and your domain name – rank well. Backlinks from article directories or low-ranking websites might actually hurt your Google rankings, though.

The effect of backlinks on your search engine results is so important that I recommend you spend about 80% of your optimization time on cultivating quality backlinks. This will make your webpage rank better for highly competitive keywords, driving more traffic to your site.

Purposeful Placement; Optimizing With Keywords

You should only be spending about 20% of your efforts engaged in optimizing on-page, but that certainly doesn’t mean the task should be put off altogether. After all, your backlinks won’t help you rank well for the shorter and more competitive keywords if the algorithm can’t find those keywords on your page.

Keyword placement is crucial, but should never be done at the expense of good writing. Placing your target keyword in your article title as well as the introductory paragraph will bring it to Google’s attention quicker.

A meta description is also ideal for conspicuous keyword placement, and this little box has the added advantage of being the perfect place for a description of your article. Meta descriptions are often seen as blurbs under the links on search engine pages, so they will also help researchers know whether the content on your page is what they’re looking for.

Absent a meta description, Google will often capture the first 160 characters from your article and use that as the aforementioned blurb. Unfortunately, most of us don’t automatically write a concise article description in the first two sentences of our articles, so this practice usually won’t help your webpage rankings. Use a meta description whenever possible!

Accidental Excellence; Optimizing with Content

If all of this keyword placement, article description and backlink management sound a little overwhelming, there is one way to make all of these tasks much easier; just write a good article.

A well-written article will make keyword placement much easier. Because your target keyword should be your topic, it will naturally appear in your title and introductory paragraphs. Because a well-written article will be easy to summarize, your meta description will be easy to write and understand.

A well-written and informative article will also help you produce quality backlinks, simply because people will read it and then recommend it to others. However, there is one more technical advantage to quality content that most writers don’t ever think about.

If a user is trying to find a good insurance quote specifically for a new car, he won’t just look for “insurance”, or even “auto insurance”, which would be the highly competitive target keywords. He would be more likely to look for “auto insurance quotes online”.

The more familiar you are with your subject, the better chance you’ll have of using those less-competitive, long-tailed keyword phrases that your target audience will search for. You could consider this an extra bonus for good writing skills.

How to Target Your Optimizing

Back to our original question, which kind of optimizing is more effective, you can now understand why “it depends.” Both on-page and off-page optimization are important, but each one has a specific job. On-page optimization will help you gather the quick traffic through low-competition keywords, while building your backlinks off-page will help your website’s overall ranking on the SERP.

These guidelines are, of course, based on my experience. Now I’d love to hear about yours. Let us know what has worked well for you by leaving your comments in the box below.