Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Onsite SEO vs Offsite SEO
-
Hey
I know the importance of both onsite & offsite, primarily with regard to outreach/content/social.
One thing I am trying to determine at the moment, is how much do I invest in offsite.
My current focus is to improve our onpage content on product pages, which is taking some time as we have a small team. But I also know our backlinks need to improve.
I'm just struggling on where to spend my time. Finish the onsite stuff by section first, or try to do a bit of both onsite/offsite at the same time?
-
Thank you! I'm watching this now

-
Great thank you.
All helpful
I guess my other question is, I am in B2B, not the most glamorous products & we don't use social - I also want to change this, however..When we start to produce this amazing content, if we haven't built the social community yet - where do we share it?
-
I'm going to chime in with Rand's Whiteboard friday on Link Building Outreach as it covers so many important factors related to offpage link acquisition.
Try and create content and articles that are above and beyond what others have in your niche. Give people a reason to really want to grant a link because they feel it is beneficial.
-Andy
-
Becky,
Your priorities certainly are in order. For if you don't get the onsite stuff right, (a) the offsite stuff might never come and (b) if it does come would be tough to measure.
Take the time to get the technical and the on-page SEO airtight, then, as time permits, spend time learning as much as you can about your target audience (e.g., who they are, where they congregate, what content they share and engage around, who the influencers are, etc.). Then you can begin creating content knowing that it's hitting the mark for the audience, who will likely be willing to share and, possibly, link to it in the future.
From there, you move up to adding outreach to your repertoire, whereby you create content targeted to getting the attention of influencers, who'll help you share it, which should bring more attention to your site and illuminate what the audience is hungry for and receptive for from your brand.
RS
-
I wouldn't change a bit. I always focus on making sure a site is accessible and has an optimal site architecture first. For on-page content, I will create (or attempt to create) a compelling user experience by offering content that helps solve an issue the prospect may have and focus on optimizing conversion. Most people underestimate how difficult and resource intensive this is to do because it takes a ton of time involved with data gathering, analysis and creating the content. So after you are 80% happy with this (because that last 20% will take as long as that 80%), begin implementing your off-page strategies and work in conjunction with a continual effort on improving and adding on-page content. A core objective is focusing on great content and earning the links, so that is why I typically start there. As you know, this is a process that never ends. Good luck!
-
Hey
Thank you for the response.
We are creating helpful articles/guides & useful content for customers which links to products - I know we won't get links direct to products

I guess ultimately my question is, should we focus on this content within our site and earning links to this through outreach, or should we focus any effort on producing content simply for outreach purposes? Such as PR pieces for local news as an example
At the moment, I can't do both on my own.
-
For Linkearning you need content wich is readable/shareable/linkable - really great stuff with a lot of value for others, without great content it is a Mission Impossible. So if thats part of your "onpage" - you need great value to share with the right people.
It's hard to answer this question, we don't really know how far u are and what you exactly mean with onpage or what the site's content is.
I think Links to products are pretty hard to get. You need content round about your products, linking to them. Outreach for Links to products could make you sad and depressive ...PS: I think Rands last WBF helps a lot in saving time by do outreach in a better way: https://moz.com/blog/link-building-outreach-in-a-skeptical-world-whiteboard-friday
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Why is pagination SEO such a mystery in 2021?
Hi folks. I would like to discuss pagination. I use WordPress (Genesis, specifically). I ran my site through a site scan and it flagged an error which told me that my blog was producing duplicate meta descriptions because the blog is paginated - the same meta description from the blog page is being used on Page 2, Page 3 etc. I looked into this and the Internet is awash with many other people scratching around for a solution. My understanding is that using a canonical link on the first page is not a good idea, because it says to Google that only Page 1 of the blog is important. I also read an article that states Google no longer reads the Rel=Prev/Next code that could be used to tell Google to ignore the issue. So, what's the solution? Do I even need one? As a side-thought, it seems to me that pagination is, well, pretty useless. I mean, if my blog has 20 pages and I've worked hard to create content, who is going to click through to anywhere near page 20? Nobody. There has to be a smarter way for people on-site to access content. I would love your thoughts on all of this. Cheers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Nobody16165422281340 -
Best Permalinks for SEO - Custom structure vs Postname
Good Morning Moz peeps, I am new to this but intending on starting off right! I have heard a wealth of advice that the "post name" permalink structure is the best one to go with however... i am wondering about a "custom structure" combing the "post name" following the below example structure: Www.professionalwarrior.com/bodybuilding/%postname/ Where "professional" and "bodybuilding" is my focus/theme/keywords of my blog that i want ranked. Thanks a mill, RO
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RawkingOut0 -
SEO for multiple languages [Arabic]
Hello all, I am currently managing a Marketplace that comes in two different languages: English & Arabic. The English website is, fortunately, doing quite well in terms of SEO performances but, not the Arabic one. The website has two kinds of content: Static content: controlled by me. It includes menu items, navigation, static pages etc which is properly translated among the two languages User-uploaded content: It includes ads/news posted by the user which may not be translated to Arabic if they chose not to do it. Now if somebody goes to the Arabic website and check a news item that doesn't have an Arabic translation, it will show the English title. I am assuming, serving content in a different language that is specified in the hreflang is a straight no, right?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MozammilStorat0 -
Are these URL hashtags an SEO issue?
Hi guys - I'm looking at a website which uses hashtags to reveal the relevant content So there's page intro text which stays the same... then you can click a button and the text below that changes So this is www.blablabla.com/packages is the main page - and www.blablabla.com/packages#firstpackage reveals first package text on this page - www.blablabla.com/packages#secondpackage reveals second package text on this same page - and so on. What's the best way to deal with this? My understanding is the URLs after # will not be indexed very easily/atall by Google - what is best practice in this situation?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Hreflang in vs. sitemap?
Hi all, I decided to identify alternate language pages of my site via sitemap to save our development team some time. I also like the idea of having leaner markup. However, my site has many alternate language and country page variations, so after creating a sitemap that includes mostly tier 1 and tier 2 level URLs, i now have a sitemap file that's 17mb. I did a couple google searches to see is sitemap file size can ever be an issue and found a discussion or two that suggested keeping the size small and a really old article that recommended keeping it < 10mb. Does the sitemap file size matter? GWT has verified the sitemap and appears to be indexing the URLs fine. Are there any particular benefits to specifying alternate versions of a URL in vs. sitemap? Thanks, -Eugene
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | eugene_bgb0 -
Are backlinks the most important factor in SEO?
I have had an agency state that "Backlinks are the most important factor in SEO". That is how they are justifying their strategy of approaching bloggers. I believe there are a lot more factors than that including Target Market definition, Keyword identification an build content based on these factors. What's everyone's thoughts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AndySalmons0 -
Does font size affect SEO?
In the eyes of Google, would the font text size of say a news article affect SEO? For example, a slightly larger font being easier to read by those with bad eyes? Accessibility? If so, what size would be ideal? 10, 12, 14? Your thoughts and suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Peter2640