On-Page SEO vs. Off-Page SEO; Which Comes First?

by | Jan 19, 2012

You know the old debate about the chicken and the egg?  That one is still going on, and will continue to rage as long as tulsa seothere are opposing sides on the theory of evolution.  Thankfully, it’s a lot more clear where onsite and offsite SEO in Tulsa are concerned.

Things happen in order for a reason, because what happens when a specific and deliberate strategy is executed improperly?  It’s ineffective.  It doesn’t make sense to brush your teeth and eat breakfast, right?  You certainly wouldn’t spend the day at the beach then put sunscreen on before you go home.  The same mentality applies when you’re setting up a strategy for SEO in Tulsa to promote your business online.

Tulsa Search Engine Optimization – Putting the Cart Before the Horse

Whether you’re expanding the reach of your small business or you’re starting a new endeavor from scratch, the order in which you execute your SEO strategy is important.  Often a business owner doesn’t realize that on-page SEO and off-site SEO are two very different things that require separate attention.  They cannot be executed in the wrong order, or even simultaneously.

Your first step is On-Page SEO.

On-Page SEO in Tulsa refers to anything you can do that improves your website, or optimizes the content that’s within your domain.  This includes all of the meta content, the body content on each page, landing pages, internal html structure, page hierarchy, alt tags, internal link strategies, headings, etc.

Off-Site or Off-Page SEO in Tulsa refers to everything done outside of your domain in order to improve relevancy for specific keywords.  This typically centers around building links and social proof, acquiring editorial links, etc.

Most companies put far more emphasis on off-site optimization and link building, mainly because bloggers and SEO companies try to sell these services pretty hard.  Business owners believe this is what is necessary in order to get visibility in the search results.  That’s true to a point, but without on-page SEO in Tulsa, the efforts are wasted.

SEO in Tulsa – Setting Up Your Online Outreach for Success

The first step before you approach an SEO strategy is to get your website in order.  Every business wants a mass of traffic they can turn into profitable leads.  To do that, they often dump as much optimization and keyword stuffing into their site.  All the visibility in the world won’t convert a customer if your website fails to deliver.

Improve the quality of your site as well as the quality of the content within.  Improve the navigation, tighten up the content, focus on benefit statements and answering the pain points and questions within the mind of the customer.  Offer an attractive and efficient layout, then focus on careful optimization of the content within.  If you focus on value then you can easily keep the traffic that eventually comes to your website.

Step 2 – Start with your Strategy for SEO in Tulsa

Optimizing your on-site content is actually quite simple.  If you focused on provide value and hitting on the benefit statements and pain points of your customers, then you’re likely already optimized pretty well from a consumer standpoint.  Now you just to work on what establishes relevancy in search.

Keyword research will provide the insight into the best performing keywords.  Use these words naturally within the body of your content, within the title and subheadings, alt tags, meta content, etc.  Create internal links using these keywords.

Most importantly, establish landing pages for your keywords. You don’t want to use the same keyword on every page of your site. (Click to read more about cannibalizing your keywords in website copywriting)

Step 3 – Create the Link Building Campaign

Once you’ve got the foundation for on-site SEO in Tulsa, think about what you’ll do offsite.  Every business will have a different strategy for link building.  This can be anything from reciprocating or sharing links, article marketing, press releases, video marketing, forum posts, social sharing, etc.

By building links, you’re creating visibility for your site while establishing links anchored to your target keywords.  As you build more links, your relevancy in search will improve and so will your position in local search around Tulsa.

Once you start driving traffic, you’ll notice a significant increase in leads and conversions thanks to proper on page optimization of your content and website.