Link building and on-page SEO are two halves of the same coin. In order to determine what a page is about, Google looks at the content of the page itself, in order to determine how popular / respected a site is, Google looks at the links going to it.
From an on-page or on-site perspective:
- To succeed, websites must have original, well written and unique content.
- The German Keywords must be used the right number of times in several different places (page URLs, titles, description and keyword metatags, ALT tags on images, in Flash animations (if there are any), in links and in the main body of text, to name some of the main ones).
- While Google may not 'see' images, having a high quality design helps aid the SEO process, as it is easier to gain quality links and leads to more people linking to a website naturally over time.