Organic SEO Tips:

On-site & Off-site Strategies for Organic SEO

By Chris J. Everett, Principal & Founder Captivate Search Marketing

The most traditional, deep-rooted form of search engine marketing is Organic SEO, which is a highly effective method of increasing a website's visibility in the search results by boosting its relevancy for targeted keywords through both on-site and off-site strategies.

This post will discuss on-site and off-site Organic SEO Tips for Beginners that work together to make a website more valuable and trustworthy to the search engines and help lead to higher rankings that are built to last.

ON-SITE OPTIMIZATION STRATEGIES

On-site optimization techniques are just as they sound. They are tactics you can execute on your website to make it more suitable for ranking on your keyword targets. On-site strategies help build keyword relevancy, all while increasing the conversion potential of your website with site visitors.

Moreover, these tips can help you identify what resources you need to look for in an organic SEO company that will help your business achieve its organic SEO objectives.

The first on-site optimization tip we have is making sure your website copy is both well-optimized and well-written by a professional SEO copywriter.

Your organic SEO marketer should have a stable of talented SEO copywriters who write keyword-rich, easy-to-read content that converts users and promotes top rankings in the search results.

Optimized SEO Copywriting

A professional SEO copywriter will know:

• How to structure the content for your webpages so it's highly optimized for maximum SEO friendliness.

• How to develop each webpage on your site to be focused on one primary targeted keyword phrase that has one or two closely related variations of that keyword throughout the page content.

Keeping your webpages focused on one specific topic or set of related keywords is one of the most important organic SEO tips you can utilize because it leaves no doubt in the "mind" of the search engine spider on what your web page content is about.

The organic SEO strategies that your SEO copywriter should implement are:

• Utilize targeted keyword phrases in page title tags, Meta Description tag so it stands out to users

• Include the targeted keyword phrase in the appropriate page headers (H1, H2, H3)• Intersperse the keyword phrases throughout the page content so that it reads well• Sprinkle strong tags on targeted keyword phrases to allow search engines to

know that these words are more important than other words on the page

You might think to yourself that you can write your web content on your own, but trusting a professional copywriter to help can have many benefits because of the knowledge and expertise they have in their field.

They know what it takes to write web copy that ranks well in the search engines, but also captivates site visitors, leading to an increase in conversions.

One of the simplistic organic SEO tips that gets underutilized is internal cross linking. Cross linking is the practice of linking related pages on your website with each other.

Internal Linking for On-site Optimization

This is an easy on-site optimization technique that makes it easier for search engine spiders to crawl your website, but also makes it easier for visitors to find related information that could be beneficial to them.

One of the benefits that can come from executing this is that two closely related pages that are cross linked together can appear as a "double stack" or even sometimes a "triple stack" (results on top of one another) on the search engine results page (SERP).

When performing cross linking strategies, be sure to use optimize anchor text for your cross linking.

To further illustrate, if you have a page on your website that's topic is all about Local PPC and another page on your site that talks about the benefits of Local PPC for small businesses, it's a good idea to link those two pages together with the anchor text "Local PPC" or "Local PPC for Small businesses“

This strategy can make a huge impact on increasing the visibility of your website in the search results!

A website's sitemap is the index listing for your website and is the second most important page on your site (other than your homepage.) Your sitemap links to every page on your website and can provide a valuable boost to the overall topical relevancy of your site to the search engines.

Optimized Sitemap Organization

Here are some tips you can use to make your website's sitemap further optimized for the search engines:

• Include a couple of paragraphs underneath your H1 tag.• Separate sitemap into themes under specific headers. • Constantly update your website and your sitemap with fresh

content that will boost topical relevancy for your site• Up-to-date contact information should be included on the

sitemap including your phone number, email, fax and address• Separate your sitemap into themes under specific headers.

For example, if you have a set of pages that discusses Content Marketing, then utilize content marketing as the header and then list the specific set of subpages under that topic below the header.

• Constantly update your website and your sitemap with fresh content that will boost topical relevancy for your site

• Your up-to-date contact information should be included on the sitemap including your phone number, email, fax and address

OFF-SITE ORGANIC SEO TIPS

While on-site strategies are powerful, it's arguable that Off-site strategies play an even more significant factor in achieving top results in the search engines.

Off-site optimization techniques work to develop more authority and significance for your website with the search engines. The most significant off-site optimization strategy is developing links .

Boosting Relevancy & Rankings Away from Your Website

Before we get into how you can build links back to your website, you must first understand the difference between the types of links because not all links carry the same weight.

• Do-Follow Links - links from other websites that factor into the overall search rankings

• No-Follow Links - Links that are not used to factor into how well a site should rank in the results

For the purposes of organic SEO, you might be wondering why you'd ever want to use a no-follow link back to your website. Here's why. The Search engine giant Google rolled out some significant algorithm changes in 2012 that essentially penalized websites that had a "spammy" or unnatural profile of links back to their site.

Websites that were penalized were using unnatural methods of building links such as subscribing to SEO services that published thousands of links on non-valuable spam websites that for a short time produced high rankings.

When Google discovered this black hat SEO technique was starting to decrease the value of its search results, it released the Panda and Penguin updates, which relieved these websites of their high rankings, and in some cases booted them out of the results all together.

Because of these significant Google changes, it's critical to generate a natural link profile that features links from both high-authority do-follow links, as well as links with a no-follow tag applied to them.

When you invest in SEO services, striving to have a natural link profile will keep your website from being penalized for "over optimization," and will keep your website in good graces with Google.

Part of linking naturally is to have a balanced usage of anchor text for your links. An excessive amount of links on the same anchor text can negatively affect your rankings.

To further illustrate this point, say you're optimizing one of your web pages for the keyword phrase "Atlanta Bankruptcy Lawyer." Instead of continually using the anchor text "Atlanta Bankruptcy Lawyer," be sure to mix in variations of your keyword such as "Bankruptcy Lawyers in Atlanta" or partial linking anchor text such as "Bankruptcy Law.“

To build on this introduction to off-site optimization tips, here are more in-depth tactics on

developing links and content marketing strategies.

To avoid the over optimization penalty, generating a natural link profile is critical to achieving top rankings for your website. Below we highlight some strategies you can use to develop natural links back to your website that pay major dividends for your organic search campaign.

Linking Techniques for Organic SEO

• Anchor text utilizing your main targeted keyword phrase (i.e. Laser Hair Removal)

• Variations of your targeted keyword phrase (i.e. Laser Hair Removal Treatments)

• Partial linking to your web page (i.e. Hair Removal)

• Linking your domain name back to your site (i.e. www.yourdomain.com)

Topical relevancy is also an important aspect of building a natural link profile.

For example, if your website is undergoing an SEO strategy focused on ranking highly on keywords related to "Running Shoes," you should work to gain links back to your website from sites related to running or sporting goods.

When it comes to organic SEO tips that have the most significant impact on achieving higher rankings, links would be toward the top of the list. Keep in mind, though, that linking must be done ethically to ensure maximum optimization for your site.

The final off-site optimization strategy in this post is content marketing. Content marketing is the practice of distributing valuable content throughout the web in various platforms.

Content marketing promotes an increase in branding visibility for your website, but also works to develop natural links back to your website.

Content Marketing Strategies

Below are some of the avenues you can use in content marketing to bolster your organic search efforts:

Content Marketing Strategies

• Content marketing through building and continually updating an off-site blog.

• Offering Guest Blogs to other websites in your industry (they get your quality content, you get a backlink and increased brand exposure).

• Utilizing article marketing websites (Ezine, Go Articles, etc.) to distribute your content to.

• Video marketing and video SEO on YouTube, Social Cam and Vimeo.

• Content marketing is an incredibly effective strategy for building trust with the search engines and in turn developing top rankings for your organic search campaign.

We hope you've uncovered some beneficial tips that you can implement in your search strategy. With the continual evolution of search engines, it's important to stay on top of the most recent and impacting organic SEO tips that will keep your website ranking toward the top of the search results.

Organic SEO Tips in Summation

Be aware of any changes that the engines are making and always be making strides to increase the quality and relevancy of your pitch to both consumers and search engines.