On page and off page SEO: the precise split, which one is holding you back, and how to divide 90 days between them
What belongs in each column, where technical work sits, a three question diagnostic, and the effort split that suits a new site, an established site and a local business.
Published by AI Knows Us · Updated 12 October 2026
On page SEO is everything you change on your own pages: the intent the page serves, the title and headings, the copy, the internal links, the images and the structured data. Off page SEO is the evidence about you that exists elsewhere: links from other sites, business listings, reviews, brand mentions and profiles on platforms you do not own. Search engines use the on page material to work out what a page is about and the off page material to work out how much to trust it and what your business actually is. Both are required, and the order depends on your situation: a site with thin or mismatched pages gains more from on page work first, while a site with good pages stuck in positions 11 to 30 is usually short of off page evidence.
This page covers the split and how to divide effort between the two. For the task lists themselves, see the eleven on page techniques in order and the eleven off page techniques worth doing.
What belongs in each column
| On page, on your own site | Off page, everywhere else |
|---|---|
| Search intent and the one job of the page | Links from other websites, and their anchor text |
| Title tag, meta description, H1 and heading structure | Google Business Profile and other map listings |
| Body copy, depth and the sub questions covered | Directory and industry listings with consistent name, address and phone |
| Internal links and anchor text | Reviews, their volume, their recency and your replies |
| Image file names, alt text and compression | Unlinked brand mentions in articles and forums |
| Structured data describing the visible page | Profiles you fill in on platforms you do not control |
| URL wording and page speed on your templates | Guest articles, podcasts, sponsorships and press coverage |
Where technical SEO sits
Technical work is a third category in most people's heads and it mostly lives on your own site, so it belongs with on page in a planning sense while being a different job in practice. Crawlability, indexing rules, canonical tags, sitemaps, redirects and template performance decide whether your on page work is ever seen. The useful order is technical, then on page, then off page, because an excellent page that is blocked from indexing earns nothing and a link pointing at a page that returns an error earns less.
A three question diagnostic
- Do your pages appear at all for their target queries? If a page ranks nowhere in the top 100 for a term it was written for, the problem is on page or technical. Check indexing first, then whether the page matches the format the top results share.
- Do you rank between 11 and 30 for a lot of terms? That is the classic off page signature. The pages are relevant enough to be in the running and the site is not trusted enough to pass the incumbents. Count the referring domains for the top three results against yours and the gap is usually obvious.
- Are you missing from the local results while ranking normally in the blue links? That is a listings and reviews problem, which is off page work of a specific kind. Our page on local citations and consistency covers the sequence.
The split by situation
| Situation | On page | Off page | The reason |
|---|---|---|---|
| New site, few pages | 70 percent | 30 percent | There is nothing worth linking to yet. Build the pages, claim the core listings |
| Established site, plenty of content | 40 percent | 60 percent | Consolidate and improve the best pages, then earn the evidence that lifts them |
| Local service business | 40 percent | 60 percent | Listings, reviews and consistency decide the map pack, and the map pack is the revenue |
| Online retailer | 60 percent | 40 percent | Templates, facets, feeds and category pages carry most of the opportunity |
| Business to business with long cycles | 55 percent | 45 percent | Depth on a narrow query set, supported by credible third party coverage |
Treat the percentages as a starting allocation for the next quarter, revisited once you have a month of data. The split is a planning tool, not a law.
A 90 day plan that uses both
- Days 1 to 10, technical clearance. Confirm indexing, canonicals, status codes and sitemap coverage. Fix anything that blocks a page from being seen.
- Days 11 to 35, on page on the top twenty pages. Intent match, titles, coverage of follow up questions, internal links in. Do the pages that already receive impressions first.
- Days 20 to 45, listings and reviews in parallel. Claim and complete the profiles, make the name, address and phone identical everywhere, and start a routine for asking for reviews.
- Days 35 to 75, earn links deliberately. Pick one asset worth citing, such as original data, a tool or a genuinely better guide, and approach a short list of relevant sites and publications with it.
- Days 75 to 90, measure and reallocate. Compare the position movement on edited pages against pages that only gained links, and move the next quarter's budget towards whichever moved more.
The off page shortcuts to refuse
Off page work attracts sellers because it is the part a business cannot do entirely alone. Be wary of anyone offering bulk links at a price per link, a package of several hundred directory submissions, a private network of sites they also own, or a ranking guarantee. Google's own position on link schemes is published in its spam policies, and the pattern it describes is exactly what those packages are. Legitimate off page work looks slower and reads like public relations: a reason for somebody to mention you, and a person who asks them to.
Questions buyers ask about on page
Which matters more, on page or off page SEO?
On page decides whether you are eligible, off page decides whether you win. For a site that is not ranking at all, on page and technical work move things first. For a site stuck just outside the top ten, off page evidence is usually the deciding factor.
Can I rank with on page SEO alone?
Yes, in low competition and long tail queries, and that is a real strategy for a new site. The specific, narrow questions nobody else answers properly are winnable on page quality, and they are the right place to start building.
Is link building still part of off page SEO?
Yes, and it sits alongside listings, reviews and mentions rather than above them. For most local and small businesses, listings and reviews return faster than link building and cost less.
Where do social media profiles count?
Off page. They rarely act as strong ranking signals by themselves, and they do two useful jobs: they are often the pages that rank for your brand name, and they are a source of the consistent facts that engines and assistants read about you.
How do I know an off page campaign worked?
Track referring domains gained from relevant sites, position movement on the pages those links point at, and branded search volume in Search Console. Three growing together is the pattern you want to see.
How long before either shows results?
On page edits to pages that already get impressions can move within weeks. Off page work compounds over months, which is why the plan above runs them in parallel rather than one after the other.
Mentions, the third column
On page work sits in one column of your spreadsheet and links in the other. A third belongs beside them: how often assistants name you when a buyer asks. It moves for different reasons than rankings do, since it follows how consistently trusted pages describe you.
Build it simply. List five questions, ask three assistants, count the times your name appears, and note which pages got cited. Repeat monthly and the column fills in. AI Knows Us produces the same count across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and AI Overviews.