In website search engine optimization, there are basically two components that any SEO practitioner should work out on. And these two are generally referred to as:

1. On-Page Optimization, and
2. Off-Page Optimization

In this article, I shall try to describe each of these two components of website search engine optimization. And I shall also try to briefly touch on the necessary steps on how to work on optimizing websites so that they ranks high in search engine results.

Website Search Engine Optimization On-Page

If we are going to compare webpages to other commercial products, on-page optimization focuses on the actual product itself – the webpage. Take note that I say webpage, and not website. This is due to that fact that it is the individual webpages that rank in search engine results, not the website itself. Although some website domain names sometimes appear in search results, it is actually the index pages of those websites that are ranking.

And so, on-page optimization focuses on the webpage itself. The search engine takes a look at the webpage and evaluates it in relation to the keyword that is being searched for. A webpage is nothing more than a composition of text – both seen and not seen by the average webpage visitor. The text that you read when you view a website is also read by the search engine. It evaluates the topic or the subject that the webpage is talking about.

But aside from that visible text, search engines also take a look at what is written “behind” the visible text. These are called metatags. And they exist basically to help search engines evaluate what the whole webpage is all about. These are like descriptions that are embedded into the text that can be read by the website visitor. But the metatags tell search engines which words carry more weight than the others.

On-page website search engine optimization includes the evaluation of the exact keyword that is related to the search, the position of the keyword in the totality of the written work, the surrounding related keywords that build up on the main keyword being searched for, the title and headings of the webpage, and the description metatag of the webpage.

Off-Page Optimization And Backlinks

Then, there are external factors that search engines factor in when evaluating the ranking of webpages for keyword searches. And these are the backlinks, or the webpages that link to the webpage being evaluated.

These backlinks are like votes of confidence that the other webpages give to that page. It must be noted that not all backlinks are equal. The quality of the site giving the backlink gives considerable weight to the amount of linkjuice that is passed on. Linkjuice is a term referring to the power being passed on by the link-giver to the link-receiver. The higher the Page Rank of the link-giver, the more vote of confidence it gives.

The anchor text in which the link is embedded is also a major factor in evaluating the links in website search engine optimization. If a webpage is trying to compete for a certain keyword, the more backlinks that it has containing that particular keyword as anchor text, the higher chances that it would rank higher in the search results.

There are additional nitty-gritties in website search engine optimization. But basically, the factors stated above summarizes the whole process of how search engines ranks webpages for certain keywords. Not all of the factors involved in the algorithm of search engines are known exactly by website search engine optimization experts. And, add to that, the search engines consistently and continually change and improve their algorithms to give better results. And this is also done to prevent SEO experts from gaming the search engines to easily manipulate the results they give out.

With that said, website search engine optimization is a science that is continually being upgraded by both the search engines and the SEO experts.