Is Onsite SEO Dying Down?

[bj]

I think you're right to a degree, Janeth. But the phrase "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink." occurs to me in relation to client sites. My sites are doing fine. But I have them automated to do what they need to do, and I add content usually a minimum of twice a week, sometimes more. And I'm aware always of keyphrases, and tweak for them as I write.

But telling a client that's what he or she needs to do to succeed doesn't mean the lesson sticks. I give them the tool. They have to USE it.

So, for some clients, having someone do the onsite stuff is the only way their sites will ever get any visibility.

[janeth]

Nope you have 2 out of three correct the third is totally overblown. I don't have any trouble placing sites and have never begged for links er... did link development. I can do more with the content on the site then anyone can beggin' links and doing Social Networking and blogs. That kind of content rarely gets links from authority they get a lot of low quality links. I'll take a few quality/authority links over 100's of low traffic IBL's. Take the time you spend begging for links and build content and sticky items that generate links with no effort on your part. If you have to ask then... you don't deserve the link and the benefit will disappear with the next link algo update.

I do not beg for links. And if you want to test what I am able to do against what you are able to do then just pick the topic.

[chrisJumbo]

I think Peter put it will. You may not have spent too much time, but you did basic on-site SEO. And although the SEs may be savy, they still like well structured sites. If you have a well structured site, quality natural content, and links, you'll do well. Structure and Content are on-site SEO. It doesn't take much more effort to properly structure header tags, images, etc.

A lot may have to do with how competitive the term is, as well.

Also, I'm sure others will point out that on-site SEO includes making sure your site is accesible to everyone. Although, I will have to admit, we haven't gone that far.

[Tig]

I agree, content is king, but how the content is written is vitally important. I work with many different types of business, and they know their business very well, but that doesn't mean they know how to write content for the web very well.
Our SEO business is up about 240% from last year, and much of it is helping clients rewrite their content to match where they want their site to fall in keyword results.
Once we combine that with the rest of the good SEO habits, we can get natural results fairly quickly.
So I believe that Onsite SEO is not only vital, but on the rise.

[ArthurNYC]

Content is still king but they have ti find the content. So I don't buy that Onsite SEO is dying down.

A

[williamc]

I do not beg for links. And if you want to test what I am able to do against what you are able to do then just pick the topic.

Sounds like a challenge to me :P

But I already know what you can do Janeth

[claybutler]

There are really only four things that all the major search engines look to form the bulk of their opinion about your site.

1. The Title Tag
2. Page content ( this includes the regular body copy as well as you global achitecture and anchor text)
3. Inbound Links
4. Outound Links

I've been optimizing since 1999 and the basics have alway held true. I pretty much ignore all the latest algorithm chasing and speculation.

As has been pointed out, your automated SEO blog plugin is really a decent SEO tool. Just utilizing that makes your website heads and tails above most websites that have title tags like "Welcome to xyzwebsite.com"...on every single page! Or better yet, "Untiltled".

You could probably do even a bit better by crafting a custom title for each post since quite often a cool catchy post title can be really lacking in decent keywords. That way you have a very literal title tag for the engines AND a more artistic and evocative page title for the readers. Then everyone's happy.

[janeth]

Sounds like a challenge to me :P

But I already know what you can do Janeth

He does not seem to want to take me up on it.

[chrisJumbo]

Contests are all the rage. I would love to see Janeth and Terry go at it. I know I would be crushed. :O)

[janeth]

There are really only four things that all the major search engines look to form the bulk of their opinion about your site.

1. The Title Tag
2. Page content ( this includes the regular body copy as well as you global achitecture and anchor text)
3. Inbound Links
4. Outound Links

I've been optimizing since 1999 and the basics have alway held true. I pretty much ignore all the latest algorithm chasing and speculation.

As has been pointed out, your automated SEO blog plugin is really a decent SEO tool. Just utilizing that makes your website heads and tails above most websites that have title tags like "Welcome to xyzwebsite.com"...on every single page! Or better yet, "Untiltled".

You could probably do even a bit better by crafting a custom title for each post since quite often a cool catchy post title can be really lacking in decent keywords. That way you have a very literal title tag for the engines AND a more artistic and evocative page title for the readers. Then everyone's happy.

Yes, and I had it set up to do that but the meta tags kept getting messed up so I decided the heck with it.