Every SEO “specialist” will tell you that off-page optimization (link building, link exchange, etc.) is the most important factor in ranking high. That is totally FALSE. They will tell you that because that is the easiest part to improve the ranking. A monkey can post links all over the internet.
I have followed that advice for a long time and my website was not ranking well.
Now I am working with an SEO firm, crt Business Solutions http://www.crtbs.com , that helped me first optimize the website for search engines and only after that start the off-page optimization. How can you rank well if the information is not well formatted in your website so the search engines can index it?
You need clean and valid HTML codes in your pages, H1 tags, meta tag keywords and description for every page, a unique title for every page, SEO friendly links, the keywords in the internal links are important too, title tags for pictures, the keywords to be bold in the text, use paragraphs, how deep the pages are in your website, how many internal links do you have to each page, etc. If you don’t have all these pieces in place, you will not rank well. I am telling your from experience.
The search engines have to find the information first (this is why you need on-page optimization) and than rank your website in the search engines results (this is why you need off-page optimization). If the search engines can not find your website because the website is not well optimized and the text well formatted, how can you rank well?
This blog supports Black Hat SEO
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On-page optimization is important because it deals with on-the-page factors that are critical to the overall efficiency and effectiveness of a website and once these factors are fully optimized, this will contribute to an increase in web visibility and thereby outdoing other less search engine-friendly websites. On-page optimization includes keyword marketing, tuning the pages, optimizing site structure, website submission and auditing and improving the website.
Off-page optimization refers to factors that have an effect on your Web site or Web page listing in natural search results. These factors are off-site in that they are not controlled by you or the coding on your page. Examples of off-page optimization include things such as link popularity and page rank. The most important off-page element are backlinks and Link Exchange. These are links to your web site – page that have to be relevant (for max results!) to your niche. The more links you have to a page/keyword, the better will it be ranked. That is why writing to other people and asking them to exchange links is important and takes a lot of your time.
Both are important – onpage and offpage factors.
However, it’s possible for a page with poor on-page SEO to rank well simply based on the number and quantity of inbound links it gets, as well as the anchor text of those links.
On the other hand, a page with great on-page SEO will struggle to rank well with no links — unless it’s a term that has little or no competition.
So, in that sense, off-page factors (links, anchor text) can probably be considered more important.
Hope this helps.