The Two SEOs
Website optimization is critical for site health and traffic. Search engines award actively and properly optimized websites with higher organic rank so Search Engine Optimization should be high on the web marketer’s radar. Almost daily, small marketers engage in what in the digital marketing industry is known as but rarely called Off-Page Optimization. Off-page optimization is an appropriate combination of social bookmarking, link building and social media engagement performed for the sake of the target audience.
Writers and other SEO experts tend to perform off-page optimization tasks. We prefer to refer to this type of optimization as Marketing SEO to distinguish it the other type of site optimization, Technical SEO or On-Page Optimization.
TECHNICAL SEO
The lesser known of the two, Technical SEO doesn’t exist in the same social circles of Marketing SEO but may be the more important when it comes to affecting a website’s search engine rank. On-Page Technical optimization activities are done to a website’s backend pages to comply with the most current best practices as dictated primarily by Google. Almost every day, Google changes to its ranking algorithm. Some are tiny tweaks; others seriously shake up the SERPs order of the rank and file.
Technical SEO are tasks performed by programming folks or a webmaster. They ensure a website is up to date with the latest best practices which can affect site rank.
READY, SET, GO
Much attention is paid to technical optimization during a new website build. But Google is famous for changing its algorithm calculus (Penguin, Panda and the like) in its quest to provide the highest quality results relevance from a search query. Google updates consequently may change a best practice or mandate that a new file type like sitemap or robots txt be added to a website’s directory. Thankfully, backend Utility updates need only be performed periodically primarily on older websites. But like a car that although runs requires a maintenance tune-up so too older website must get Technical tune ups to ensure compliance with the latest guidelines.
Digital Dirt Under the Nails
On-page Technical SEO is a utility function performed strictly for the benefit of search-engines. It also works to enhance user experience as well. Keywords may be developed as a part of Technical SEO service and the density of keywords on a page analyzed. Or, marketing folks may generate keywords and phrases as well as write the Meta text.
But it is a technician’s job to physically add the Meta text to the site’s backend pages as well as perform other backend tasks such as optimizing page titles, H1 tags and adding image alt text. In addition, Technical SEO considers page size and load times, 301 redirection, and 404 Error pages. Website page optimization includes repairs to make a website more search engine friendly and remove little user annoyances like broken links.
Both types of SEO are important for site traffic for different reasons. Optimizing for marketing SEO alone is only half the job. On-Page Technical SEO ensures that the daily on-page marketing SEO efforts have their best chance of success on the back of a technically tuned website.
This article was sponsored by SEO Tuneup.
