Posted on March 11, 2011 by admin
Following on from our previous posts about How Google Works I thought it would be timely to discuss a question that often gets asked.
“When trying to get your website ranked high in Google what is more important – Onsite or Offsite factors?
(see post 3 for more info about what Onsite SEO and Offsite SEO means)
In 1 word . . . . . . . . . . . the answer is . . . . . . . Onsite
In 735 words. . . . . . . . . the answer is . . . . . . . . . not so bloody simple! Let me explain. As we know Google’s number one job is to generate relevant search results for its users. So if they were to put too much emphasis on either Onsite or Offsite fators this wouldn’t produce the most relevant results. For them its about a good balance which makes answering this question that much harder.
So before I answer it lets have a look what Google’s answer is
As you can see from Matt’s answer both On and Offsite SEO are incredibly important but I think he tends to share the same opinion as me and that is that it all begins with Onsite. Whats that old saying “you can’t polish a &!#@”. Trying to get a website to rank for a search phrase that isn’t even mentioned on the website is an almost impossible task. The best example of this is local businesses that have websites made by people who don’t understand how Google works. I have spoken to lots of business owners who wonder why their website isn’t ranking for search phrases relevant to their business.
For example I had a plumber the other day ask me why his website wasn’t ranking for the term ‘Plumbers Melbourne despite the fact that he was a plumber who was based in Melbourne. Well after having a quick look at his website the reason was obvious. Nowhere on the site did it say Plumbers Melbourne. In fact it only said Melbourne once and Plumbers twice. No wonder Google didn’t think it was a relevant site for the search term ‘Plumbers Melbourne’. When I was explaining this he couldn’t understand why Google wasn’t smart enough figure it out – after all he is a Plumber from Melbourne. The answer is that Google search in an algorithm NOT a human. Whilst Google’s algorithm is incredibly smart it’s not that smart. If you want to rank for a particular phrase e.g. ‘Plumbers Melbourne’ make sure the words are on your site!
Now if a site doesn’t use the exact search phrase, does that mean that it will never rank for that phrase? Surely that would be impossible? Right? Well its actually wrong! Lets have a look at a great example of where a website does the unthinkable and ranks for a search term that doesn’t appear anywhere on the site at all.
Lets have a look at the search results for the phrase ‘Click Here’
Amazingly enough the words ‘click here’ are no where to be found on http://get.adobe.com/reader/ yet is still manages to rank number one – how can this be possible? This is a very rare example where there are SO MANY sites linking directly to this page, most of which look something like this – click here to download Adobe Reader – So what does this mean? It means that who ever said “you can’t polish a &!#@” didn’t know what they were talking about, not that I’m saying that Adobe is a &!#@ but I think you get my point.
You could use the above example to make an argument that Offsite factors can be more important than Onsite factors but I think you can agree that this is an unusual situation. Plus ‘click here’ is not a highly sought or competitive search phrase.
Lets talk about an example that is a bit more useful to the everyday website owner. Lets continue to use the example of Plumbers Melbourne. If you were building a website from scratch where is the best place to focus your attention, Onsite of Offsite? Without doubt you should focus on getting all the Onsite SEO factors right. For many uncompetitive terms it doesn’t matter if you don’t have ANY Offsite factors in place and you can still get a number 1 Google ranking.
Summary:
- For non competitive search phrases you can achieve good rankings with only Onsite or in extreme cases only Offsite.
- As you try and rank for harder search phrases the combination of On and Offsite factors becomes more obvious.
- Good ranking sites begin with good content. If your site doesn’t have good content then no one is going to link to it.
Tip for Website Owners:
Write down the main search phrases that you want your site to rank for. Look through your site and make sure that these exact phrases are there. Remember, you need to tell Google what your website is about.
Thanks guys
Quick Question about ranking my website
How do you know how competitive your site is?
Im not sure if I need to do Offsite SEO or not?
Thanks
Hi James
Good Q – I will mark it down for a full blog post in the future.
In short I think the first thing you need to do is find out what keywords you want to rank for. Because not all keywords within the one niche have the same level of competitiveness.
For example if you are a Dentist then ranking for ‘Dentist’ is going to be harder than ranking for ‘Melbourne Dentist’, which inturn is going to be harder to rank for than ‘Richmond Dentist’.
Feel free to email us with your niche and we will send through a free report on your keywords and competition!