Today’s topic is all about the importance of on-site and off-site SEO in Cyprus and why they are both crucial for success. So, without further ado, let’s explore what both have to offer!
On-site SEO:
One of the most critical processes for achieving higher rankings in a search engine’s organic results and running active SEO Cyprus campaigns is through “on-site SEO”.
This is also known as the process of optimizing a webpage’s content for search engines with the intention of “speaking the search engines’ language” and assisting search engine crawlers to understand the purpose and context of your website’s pages & content. Therefore, any improvements made to your website grant a better user experience.
Now that we know all the theory behind it, let’s dive in to investigate the various factors and tactics that contribute to a good score for your website’s on-site SEO.
Here’s a list of the most important techniques!
1. High-Quality Targeted Content
And “high quality” does not mean writing complex and intellectual language. What we mean is ORIGINALITY! Whether it’s just text, photographs, videos, or a combination of these, this content should be unique and useful for your website and your needs. Moreover, the content should be optimised based on the selected keyword that you are trying to rank for. This includes headings optimisation, paragraphs optimisation, and image/video optimisation (alt attributes).
In the end, if you don’t produce content that meets the search intent (keyword query), your site may end up with lower rankings.
2. Meta Data: Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions
In order to decide your website ranking, search engines “read” your page and amongst other things take into consideration your page title and description, in the form of metadata. Metadata is the data used to tag your page in Google’s search engine results.
One of the most important aspects of on-site SEO is the page title. Each site must have a unique title that informs both search engines and users about the page’s content. This doesn’t have to be long; as long as it’s descriptive enough with the relevant keyword.
Another important factor is using meta descriptions. In this case, you should be as descriptive as possible (well up to a certain character limit of course) as this is your chance to “show off” your page and attract people to visit your website rather than just ignoring it.
Don’t forget to include your target keywords in the descriptions and avoid using auto-generated descriptions, as these sometimes make absolutely no sense and will not serve your purpose!
3. Images and Other Multimedia Elements
These are used to make a site more interesting (well obviously!) and easier to read.
The main issue with these is that search engines don’t understand them and they usually slow down a page’s speed.
What you should consider is:
- Use original content – take your own photos or videos
- Resize and compress the images/videos (but be careful not to lose quality)
- Use ALT tags (alt title & alt-text) to describe the image – so that the search engine understands what the image is about
4. URL Optimization
URL optimization is divided into two parts. The first step is to optimize the URL, and the second is to format the URL. A “good” URL is considered to be descriptive yet short that includes your targeted keyword as well as hyphens to distinguish the different paths (i.e websitename.com/services/service-1)
The URL structure should be similar to a website’s actual structure. Sort the pages into categories to make it easier for users and search engines to find what they’re looking for.
5. Internal Links
Inter-linking pages within your website is important for mainly three reasons:
- It helps the Search Engine Crawl Bot to identify the relationship between the various pages.
- It allows the end-user to navigate through the website and get the information they want without searching for it blindly.
- It’s a strategy to increase the amount of time that users spend on your website; thus a user reading something on your site is likely to click on the link to find out more about that particular subject.
6. External Links
An external link is a link that takes you to a page on a different domain than your own. It assists Google to determine the subject of your page and the relevant source that you retrieved the information from. This is very important in order to not get a penalty from Google. If your website uses data/info that was retrieved from another website and it’s not attributed to that, then Google will blacklist the website and a penalty may occur.
Off-Site SEO:
Now that we’ve investigated the various factors of “on-site” SEO Cyprus, “off-site” SEO Cyprus on the other hand includes all strategies outside of your own website (we’ll cover this in just a bit, don’t worry)!
These help both search engines and users “secure” a site’s authority and are often used as key confidence and relevance factors. Off-site SEO is one of the most important factors of a successful strategy (aside from on-site SEO); without it, you’re most likely to struggle to rank high in the search engine.
Let’s take a look at the off-site SEO techniques used.
1. Back-Link Building
The term “backlink” refers to any links or hyperlinks from third-party sources that lead viewers/potential clients back to your website. Also known as “inbound” links, they are considered to be an important metric used by Google to measure the value of a website.
Using backlinks can help to establish your own site as an authority. In simple words, they work as a vote of “trust” from one site to another.
The primary goal of backlink building should be to acquire high-quality links from authority websites. Authority websites can be found by analysing the Domain Authority and Page Authority scores. Quality should always be the aim over quantity, thus it’s critical to consider the connection gap between your site in comparison to your competitors.
2. Google My Business
Google My Business is a free and simple application that allows companies to control their online presence through Google’s various platforms. In this way, you can check and edit your business details to make it easier for customers to find you. You can add various images, your business’s description, services, products & much more. A detailed and well-established Google My Business Account is super important.
3. Forums
Forums are another way to stay up to date on discussions within your area of expertise! By using forums as part of your off-site SEO strategy you can easily create a strong community and level of confidence from your existing and potential audience.
4. Online Reviews
A good online reputation is by far the most important factor of your off-site SEO strategy and this is something that no company can overlook.
When a company receives positive feedback on third-party websites it is establishing itself as a “specialist” in what they do. Positive feedback helps to increase discussions on your company as well as trust! For instance, one of the most reliable networks/channels to view a company’s online reviews is Google. You can navigate to Google Reviews Page and check them out.
Conclusion:
There’re a lot of advantages of using both on-site and off-site SEO in Cyprus and there’s no right or wrong answer on which to use! However before you start you should first think about how you want to expose your website, you need to make sure that it’s in a good state and well optimised!
Still, the importance of off-site SEO in Cyprus should not be ignored and of course, you should know by now that this is more than just “building links”. Off-page SEO has evolved from a core emphasis on driving signals that affect ranking factors, to include a focus on optimizing, developing content, and ranking on search engines other than Google.
Our advice is to focus on both on-site and off-site SEO tactics in order to increase your keyword rankings and eventually your organic traffic. If you need any further help or have any queries there’s nothing to worry about! We’re here to help!
