SEO vs. Local SEO – What’s the Difference?

Provided by local SEO company, Lucidpage, Inc. of Pawleys Island, SC. MORE INFO

In this article, I want to discuss the two broad categories of activity performed by search engine optimization (SEO) companies, on page activities and off page activities. There are many differences between the two, but believe it or not, there are also similarities. This information is important whether you are a small business offering a local product or service, or a large multinational corporation.

First, a brief definition. SEO, or search engine optimization, is the process of improving and maximizing a web page’s ranking in web search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, and even Duck Duck Go. With that out of the way, let’s compare and contrast on page and off page optimization activities.

Simply speaking, on page seo activities is anything that can be done directly on a business’s website, or an individual page of that website. This is far ranging and includes such activities as:

  • Adding new pages and posts
  • Changing title, description, and keyword tags on a page
  • Schema markup
  • Using h1, h2, and similar tags within content
  • Deciding on menus, hierarchy, and how to interlink site content
  • Adding text or image links that take users to other site pages (internal linking)
  • Adding text or image links that take users offsite (external linking)
  • And more

The one thing that all of the above activities have in common is, because all of the work is performed on the business’s own website or web pages, they are completely controlled by the site owner or whoever is managing her website.

Let’s compare that with off page seo activities, which include:

  • External backlinking (links pointing back to the business web pages)
  • Choosing anchor text (the clickable text portion of a backlink)
  • External mentions (mentions of the business name on other websites)
  • Social media shares (shares of the business or business website on sites like Facebook, etc.)
  • Citations, or listings of the business in business directory sites
  • Google Business listings
  • More

It’s pretty easy to see that the above off page activities have one thing in common… because they happen off the business’s own website, they are outside the direct control of the business owner or SEO professional working on their behalf, making results more difficult to achieve.

However, you should not underestimate the vital importance of off page seo activities, merely because the work is harder, and often quite a bit more expensive. The results are almost always worth the extra time, effort, and money involved, especially if done properly.

For example, try to succeed doing SEO on behalf of a local business without getting that business listed in the Google Business listings, and ranked in the top 3 of the map listings (3 pack). Also, try to get a web page ranked for a highly competitive search term (keyword) without have at least a few high authority back links pointing back to the page.

Learning the differences and the similarities between on page SEO and off page seo is important for business owners, professional SEO providers, and even just people curious about the art and science of getting web pages to rank higher in the search engines for specific terms and keywords.