on-page SEO - is it really important?

[herodigital]

of course it is, but to what extent?

take for example two websites that are like-for-like in terms of their content and backlink stream. both sites are updated regularly and both sites participate socially.

however the only difference here is one site is more well-formed and better structured.

this particular site has a HTML site map, contextual links and validates to W3C standards using correct doc flow including heading tags and paragraphs.

the other site is built using tables and still has the <font> tag littered around in it's markup.

suppose that both sites are around the same age and both have appropriate title tags - in your experience does the former website reallystand a significantly better chance of ranking than the latter? in my experience, this is not the case. i have my own theories for this:

- content and it's promotion is what really matters, and i dont think the public at large care too much about the technicalities behind a site. ergo, if a site's content is worth linking to, it really doesnt matter if it is built in tables or HTML5.

- google puts less emphasis on this factor now and regards content incoming links as the infinite ranking points. doc structure is of less importance.

i'm not saying that this is the case! this is just something i have observed over the past couple of years. websites ranking well despite being significantly less well-formed than their competitors.

thoughts?

 

[herodigital]

wow, i expected some responses to this.

 

[terryuk]

I've seen a well optimised site rank #1 with 0 links, so yeah a good structured site and correctly optimised website can work wonders. That was in a mega competitive market.. I'm not too sure how they done it.

The public won't care about the sites technical side, but as long as the site flows well and they can get to where they want to quickly and efficiently then it's good. Last thing you want is your user not being able to find what there looking for.

I use CSS designs with minimal HTML to make it clean and tidy, allowing the spiders to read it quick and see the keywords where they need to.

 

[I, Brian]

On-site SEO is very important - the stronger it is, the more effectively off-site optimisation should work.

Of course, the better on-site SEO's a site, the better it should perform in general - and the more established a site, the more it can leverage the on-site SEO.

However, CSS and HTML validation do not necessarily confer advantages. Personally I don't think I've seen an argument that a tables based website will always be outcompeted by a CSS-driven one. The difference is that you can control content placement better with CSS, but a strong website with functional code is a strong website regardless as to whether it validates as HTML 4 strict or not.

 

[herodigital]

On-site SEO is very important - the stronger it is, the more effectively off-site optimisation should work.

Of course, the better on-site SEO's a site, the better it should perform in general - and the more established a site, the more it can leverage the on-site SEO.

well that's the theory. the point of this topic is that i've seen many occurences where this has been completely overturned

However, CSS and HTML validation do not necessarily confer advantages. Personally I don't think I've seen an argument that a tables based website will always be outcompeted by a CSS-driven one. The difference is that you can control content placement better with CSS, but a strong website with functional code is a strong website regardless as to whether it validates as HTML 4 strict or not.

i agree that CSS will not always outperform tables in terms of SEO. matt cutts has hinted that google prefers well-formed web pages that validated, but again the point of this thread is to challenge the notion that SEO's need to spend a significant amount of time on on-page SEO when it seems that off-page stuff is ultimately much more important.

 

[I, Brian]

People these days tend to fall into the trap of SEO = links.

Funnily enough, when I came to the industry in 2003, no one was talking about links being important, except a couple of mavericks. This is despite the huge importance Google placed on links in their original PageRank patent which was available for public reading.

So I became one of the early adopters of link building and that defined my business for a few years.

Despite my adherence to link building, I've always maintained that good on-page SEO is very important. It's never been a simple case of modifying tags - any monkey can do that - it's an art and science in itself, which I think few SEO's have taken enough care to deeply understand.

However, nowadays, I see far more filters applying to how links can impact Google.

Additionally, these days I see far more on site factors directly influence rankings, not least the semantic structure of both the page and the website itself - something I know Tin on these forums has down to a tee.

The result is that from observation, well done on-page work on an established domain can potentially outrank's a competitor's basic link building campaign. Certainly in lesser competitive and longtail areas.

So, yes, these days links can be very important - but I'd suggest under certain circumstances and done right.

But more importantly, on-page factors have become a more powerful nuance in themselves that should never be underestimated. An understanding of semantic relationships paid to both page copy and internal linking can be exceptionally powerful on a developed website.

I made my name as a link builder, so really I shouldn't be putting them down - the more experience I've had with links and how Google has treated them over time, the more I've moved away from the notion of links as being a simple way to manipulate flaws in the Google algorithm, as much as that for links to work most effectively they must be geared towards human users.

Eric Ward is one of the industry's earliest link builders, but he always maintained that link building should aim provide traffic value. I used to laugh at that, but over time I've realised it to be so very true. Cheap exploits have a limited shelf life, and the availability of cheap exploits has become far more limited over time.

Sure, sometimes crappy links will work, and that's great if you know how to use them effectively.

But, ultimately, Google has made two things a big part of its ranking algorithm:

1. The more useful a link is for human users, the more that link should be weighted
2. The more useful a page is for human users, the more that page should be weighted

The result is that I think it's became a lot harder to create links that can trick Google, and that pages in themselves are more empowered than they have ever been.

On-page work by itself will not at present outcompete competitors in very competitive markets, simply because the amount of link building work sloshing around drowns out most everything else. But those doing well in these areas do even better when they apply important on-page SEO strategies.

2c.

 

[MChisselhurst]

On-page is becoming more important than off-page, which essentially is about getting links.

Google is now considering the usability and service to visitors of one's site more than ever.