Off page SEO techniques are some of the most vital steps in any good search engine optimization campaign. They are important because the higher you rank, the more website traffic you can gain from your target audience. Visitors who arrive at your site will view it as being more credible and legitimate. Which means they’re more likely to become customers if you offer them products or services they want at reasonable prices. The search engines also take off-page ranking signals into account. When making decisions about where sites should appear within their search results.
What is off-page SEO?
Off page SEO is a term used to describe optimization efforts that take place off of a website. It’s important to build up quality backlinks and other ranking signals, in order to rank high in search results. The more links you have pointing at your site from trusted sources. Like industry blogs or authoritative news sites, for example, the higher you will rank on Google.
This isn’t always easy, though. You need to find people who are willing to link to your content. Which can be challenging if you don’t know where to start looking. But there are some strategies you can use in order to attract these links. And improve your off-page SEO strategy overall. Here’s what you should keep in mind when building out your off-page SEO strategy.
Why is off-page SEO important?
Anybody can optimize their content for on-page search engine optimization (SEO). But it takes expertise to make sure your website’s doing everything it can to rank higher in search engines. Here are some of our most frequently asked off page SEO questions, answered.
If you’re looking for ways to increase traffic and boost ROI from your online marketing strategy. There’s no better way than by optimizing your website’s off-page presence. This includes things like link building, social media engagement, and even local citations.
The truth is that off-page SEO is just as important as on page SEO, if not more so. The goal of off page SEO is to bring people back to your site. When done right, will help you earn links and exposure that will improve how well your site ranks in search engines.
The Importance of Off Page SEO
You might be wondering why off page SEO is so important, especially if you already have a strong on-page presence. Well, aside from being an integral part of any comprehensive digital marketing strategy. It plays an integral role in making sure your business stays visible to potential customers. Who might be searching for relevant keywords and phrases. For example, let’s say your company sells clothing and apparel.
Now let’s say someone searches men’s polo shirts near me. Without off page SEO. They may never see your business because Google will only show results. Based on what it thinks is relevant to that specific search term or phrase. However, with off page SEO, you can ensure that those same searchers see your website come up in search results.
How to Optimize Your Website for Off Page SEO. When it comes to developing a comprehensive off page SEO strategy. There are two main components to consider. Link Building & Local Citations. It’s also worth noting that both of these strategies work best together. One isn’t necessarily better than another. But rather both should be used simultaneously for maximum impact.
Link-related off-page factors
These include things like links from other sites, number of backlinks, link diversity, and so on. The more authoritative (and relevant) a site is that’s linking to you, and/or how many high-quality sites are linking to you, and/or how diverse your backlink profile is (e.g., links from .edu domains vs. .coms), and so on—the better.
That said, it’s important to note that Google has gone out of its way in recent years to emphasize quality over quantity. When it comes to off-page factors. So while there may be some off-page tactics you can leverage for short-term gains. If they don’t add value in terms of making your website better or increasing engagement with users. Then they won’t help your long term rankings either.
In general, though, these are great ways to get your content in front of people who might not otherwise see it (including Google!). Which will increase its chances of being seen and clicked on by others. Is Link Building Dead? No! Do It Right? Yes! Don’t Spam; Don’t Get Caught – Or You’re Out – For Good!
If you’ve been involved in online marketing for any length of time. Chances are good that at some point someone told you about backlinks. They could have been talking about inbound links or backlinks or just plain old links. But no matter what name was used, there’s a pretty good chance that you immediately started thinking about getting free traffic from search engines.
After all, isn’t that why we do all of our work? To rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs)? Well, yes and no. A simple yes would be easy enough to understand, but I’m going to take it one step further than that.
Backlinks are only one piece of a much larger puzzle
When it comes to ranking well in SERPs. There are lots of pieces to that puzzle, and as we’ll discuss shortly. Each plays an equally important role in determining where your website ends up in SERPs. But first, let’s clear up a few common misconceptions about backlinks and then define exactly what we mean by backlinks.
What Are Backlinks?
Simply put, a backlink is simply another web page that contains a hypertext reference (i.e., link) to your own web page. This means that whenever you create a link to another web page, the other web page gets a backlink. Likewise, whenever somebody else creates a link to your own web page, your own web page gets a backlink.
This is true regardless of whether the source webpage is within the same domain as yours or not. However, there are two types of links. Those within the same domain and those across different domains. When you link to a page in the same domain, it is called a same-domain backlink.
When you link to a page in a different domain, it is called an external backlink. An external backlink is sometimes referred to as an outbound link or inbound link, depending on the context. How Important Are Backlinks? Very. According to a study conducted in 2020. Backlinks are the single most important factor in determining your overall search engine ranking.
In fact, the study found that backlinks accounted for 65% of a web page’s overall search engine ranking. Another study, published in 2021, found that backlinks account for 58% of a web page’s overall search engine ranking.
Yet another study (published in 2022) found that backlinks are responsible for 52% of a web page’s overall search engine ranking. And yet another study (also published in 2022) found that backlinks are responsible for 44% of a web page’s overall search engine ranking. Where Should You Place Backlinks? While there is no hard-and-fast rule about this. It is generally accepted that you should place your backlinks in places that are relevant to the subject of your web page.
Guest posting
Do it! Guest posting provides more than a quick link to your site, and it’s one of my favorite ways to increase traffic. Write original, high-quality content for other sites in your niche. Then include a link back to your website at or near the bottom of your post.
When you write on popular sites with lots of readers, you’ll be able to reach thousands (or even hundreds of thousands) of people. Who might not otherwise have heard about your business. And if you can get featured on a top-tier publication like Forbes, Huffington Post, Inc., Entrepreneur or Mashable. You could see some serious growth from that one piece of content alone.
But don’t forget to add links back to your own site, too. It’s good for SEO, but also for brand awareness and building relationships with potential clients. It never hurts to give something away when you want something in return. That applies whether you’re giving away valuable information.
Creating an Online Course
If you really want to take things up a notch, consider creating an online course. This is an excellent way to showcase your expertise and demonstrate your authority as an expert in your field. Which means more leads, sales and opportunities down the road. Creating a course doesn’t have to be complicated. It can actually be quite simple if you set up everything right from the beginning.
The key is creating something that solves problems for others while positioning yourself as someone worth listening to and following. Think of what your audience needs to learn next, what they want to learn next and what they need help learning next. Then build a course around those topics. For example, if you run a dog training company, maybe you should create an email marketing training program. Or if you sell weight loss products, perhaps you should make a course called How To Lose Weight Without Fad Diets.
Once you’ve created your course, promote it everywhere: social media channels, blogs, forums and discussion groups. Wherever there are people looking for answers to their questions. That’s how you build trust and credibility as an expert. How you grow your list. And how you bring in new customers. And keep them coming back again and again.
Infographics distribution
Inbound marketing is a buzzword that gets thrown around a lot in B2B. But it isn’t anything new. It’s essentially about providing relevant content for people to read and share. With infographics being one of the most sharable formats. You can bet you are going to want to get your hands on some good ones.
The best way to do so is through distribution services like Outbrain or Taboola. For now, let’s take a look at how infographics work their magic. An infographic titled The History of Marketing was published by HubSpot last year and has been shared more than 10,000 times on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. The original post received more than 80 comments from readers. Who were intrigued by its content.
Let’s say that you found an infographic just as interesting and decided to repost it on your own site. You could then use Google Webmaster Tools to see how many links have been sent back to your site from different sources (see below).
By doing so, you can see which websites link back to yours frequently. In other words, if a website sends lots of traffic back to yours regularly, there’s a good chance they might link back again in the future. This is all part of building quality backlinks, or link juice, which we discussed earlier. As you can see, infographics come with a host of benefits for both marketers and businesses alike. Not only do they increase traffic, leads and sales. They also help build trust among current customers while attracting potential prospects.
Link reclamation
You’ve removed bad links and disavowed spammy links, but have you reclaimed your good links. Some sites like Tumblr will not allow you to control where incoming links go. However, there are times when we want to send our link juice to a new location. Whether that’s because we’ve changed URLs or because we want people to see an older post. When you find yourself in one of these situations. It’s time to reclamation those outgoing links! Here’s how to do it.
The Basics of Link Reclamation
There are three basic ways you can reclaim links for use on your site: redirecting through JavaScript, redirecting through .htaccess, and 301-redirecting (which is what most webmasters think about when they hear redirect). Each has its own pros and cons.
Redirecting with JavaScript: To make sure that all browsers support redirection, whether they support rel=canonical or not, use Google’s Redirection service. This allows you to put a small piece of code onto your page so that if someone clicks on a link from outside your domain, they are redirected to another page.
Redirecting with .htaccess: If you don’t mind editing your website’s htaccess file, then you can easily set up redirects using mod rewrite rules. The downside here is that you need to know some code, which may be intimidating if you aren’t familiar with server configuration.
301-Redirecting: A standard redirect sends visitors away from your page entirely; however, sometimes you might just want to change their destination without sending them offsite altogether. That’s where a 301-redirect comes in handy. With a 301-redirect, you tell search engines that they should update their records to reflect your new URL.
It’s important to note that while both 302 and 307 redirects pass along information about your old URL, only a 301 tells search engines to remove any trace of your old URL from their index. For more information on how each type of redirect works, check out our guide on permanent versus temporary redirects.
Quora answers
Once upon a time, Quora was a terrific platform for off-page SEO. If you’re unfamiliar with it, Quora is basically an online forum where you ask people questions and get answers from experts. When you ask a question on Quora, your answer can go viral pretty quickly—if enough people like it or agree with it—and once that happens, Google takes notice.
As such, if you want to rank high in search engine results, writing popular Quora answers is one of the best ways to do so. Nowadays, however, Quora has become stricter about its rules and policies; as such, I wouldn’t advise using it as a primary source for off-page SEO.
That said, it can still be helpful to write content there from time to time (especially when answering questions about your industry), but don’t expect anything too dramatic out of it anymore.
Directory listings/citations
You don’t have to actually rank in Google; you can also get some of your content indexed just by being listed on other authority sites. This is known as ‘directory listings’ or citations, and it’s essentially a sign that Google trusts you to be a reliable source of information.
Getting directory listings is easy—the hard part is making sure they’re high-quality (that means no spammy directories). There are several ways to do so: Include links back to your site from other authoritative sources. It doesn’t matter where these links are placed, but make sure they point directly to an important page on your site (like your homepage) rather than another random page within your site. The more important/relevant the link is, the better.
Don’t forget about local business directories! If you own a brick-and-mortar location, there’s a good chance you can get listed for free at most local business directories. Just look up your city name plus business directory in Google to find one near you.
List yourself at free online directories like Free Business Listing Sites. This will help drive organic traffic to your website and build trust with search engines too. Make sure to only list yourself at reputable websites though.
Forum Postings
The main off-page SEO technique you need to focus on is generating high-quality inbound links. The more of these you have pointing to your website, and the better those links are, generally speaking, from a quality point of view (e.g., do they all originate from good sites?) – then generally speaking, that’s going to help improve your overall site rankings for keywords important to your business.
Comments on Forums
One of the most underrated link building techniques out there. You can post relevant comments on forums related to your niche or industry; if done right, people will start linking back to your site as a result of your contribution. It doesn’t matter how many posts you make or how often – just as long as it’s relevant and interesting content, people will be happy to link back.
And remember, don’t spam! If you contribute something of value to forum threads, people will naturally want to share your content with their own audience. This is one of my favorite SEO tips because it works so well and has such a low barrier to entry. I wouldn’t recommend spending too much time doing forum posting, but if you can spend an hour every day doing 5-10 posts across 2-3 different forums in relevant communities/niches – then over time you should see some results.
Social Bookmarking Sites
Social bookmarking sites like Reddit, Digg, Delicious and StumbleUpon are another great way to get free traffic by sharing your webpages with other users. Simply find relevant social bookmarking websites within your niche, submit them (you only need 1 submission per site) and wait for people to vote up your content. It’s really that simple!
Press Releases: These are another fantastic way of getting exposure online – but only if written correctly! A poorly written press release won’t get picked up by any news outlets. So, if you want to write press releases yourself, make sure they follow best practices and keep things short & sweet.
Reputation Management
Having a strong reputation online goes hand-in-hand with having a strong brand identity. If you show up at Google and someone else is using your name, address or phone number, what happens? You lose control of your brand.
That’s why it’s important to monitor your online presence on a regular basis and ensure that everything about you looks professional. Make sure there aren’t any old listings out there which could cause confusion among potential customers. As a general rule of thumb, if you’re not the only person who shows up when you search for your name, you probably need to take action. Also, check your email inbox regularly and respond to messages promptly. Don’t let anyone think that you’re ignoring them.
Incorporate Videos and Images
Adding visual and video content to your articles is a great way to get your message across. Google (and people) love images and videos; they’re more likely to engage with you and share what you have written. Using relevant images within your articles will also boost your SEO. This is especially true if you use image alt tags for descriptive words, as search engines can see those keywords.
Videos are another great resource to improve your ranking and engagement on social media sites like Facebook or YouTube. Video marketing has grown by leaps and bounds over the last few years. It shows no signs of slowing down. If you want to be part of that trend, then incorporating video into your writing could be beneficial for both traffic and branding purposes.
And don’t forget about Slideshare! We all know that long-form content performs well in search engine results pages (SERPs). But it turns out that slideshows do too—if you optimize them correctly. SlideShare is one of the top ten most visited websites globally. So it’s definitely worth paying attention to if you want to increase traffic from search engines like Google. If you create an account on SlideShare, there’s no limit to how many presentations you can upload, nor how many views they receive. You can even embed your slideshow on other websites. So go ahead, give it a try!
Reach out to Influencers
Influencers are often overlooked when it comes to marketing, but they can be your best tool. They have the power to reach a large number of people in a short amount of time. It’s important that you know who these influencers are and what their audience likes. Reach out to them with valuable information and see what type of response you get from them. If there is no interest, don’t force it. If there is some interest, follow up with more content for them to share.
You want to make sure that the influencer is telling their followers about your brand because if not, then all of this effort will be wasted. If you do find an influencer with a lot of followers. Remember to ask for permission before using any pictures or quotes from them. You don’t want any legal issues on top of everything else you’re working on!
Once you’ve gotten someone’s attention, continue sending them new updates. So that they stay interested. Another way to keep those influencers happy is by giving them special offers and deals just for their subscribers. Maybe offer them exclusive access to a beta launch, offer free shipping or 20% off of one item.
These small gestures could go a long way in building relationships with influencers. Try offering something completely different than what other companies are doing. And see how many influencers take you up on your offer!
Guidelines for Link Building
The more links you have from high quality sites, the higher your site will rank in SERPS. Here are some guidelines for link building. You need to look for niche relevant sites that have a lot of authority and page rank and contact them about adding a link to your website. You can also get backlinks through guest blogging on other blogs by writing articles. That are relevant to their blog’s audience and then including a link back to your own blog or website in the author bio box.
Remember to always include keyword rich anchor text when linking out. If someone reads your post, watches your video or shares it on social media you should always thank them by linking back to where they found it with relevant anchor text. If you’re thinking about buying links from companies that sell them be careful because Google has penalized websites for doing this so it might not be worth the risk.
Keep your Link Building as Natural as Possible
To avoid being penalized try to keep your link building as natural as possible. Consider looking into link reclamation which is where you reach out to businesses who already linked to you but removed the link and ask if they could put the link back up. You can use tools like Majestic or Ahrefs to find broken links pointing to your site and then reach out to webmasters asking them to fix it. Sometimes these types of requests don’t go well but don’t give up hope.
Find out how long ago the broken link was created and try contacting webmasters again later on down the road. Avoid linking to any pages that seem shady and instead focus on finding genuine content creators who want to work together. As mentioned earlier guest blogging is a great way to generate high-quality backlinks and establish yourself as an expert in your field.
Try joining Facebook groups related to your topic of interest and share posts occasionally with a link back to your website at the end of each one. Look for forums related to your niche too and participate in discussions as much as possible.
Write blog posts based on industry trends and events, roundups of useful resources or testimonials from happy customers and include a link back to your site at the bottom of every post. Another thing you can do is submit articles to directories that are relevant to what you do but make sure there aren’t too many thin or duplicate listings before submitting yours.
Think about what keywords people might search to find your type of content and create a list of those keywords that are relevant to your business or service. For example, let’s say you run a beauty company and would like to increase visibility on popular search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo!, etc. By following these steps listed here you’ll see significant increases in rankings for relevant searches very quickly!
Number of referring domains
It’s easy to forget about off-page SEO, but the more sites that link back to your site, the higher you’ll rank in search engine results. The more links you have coming in from high-quality sites, the better your chances are of ranking higher. You can look at tools like Open Site Explorer or Ahrefs to see how many external links point back to your website.
Of course, the quality of these links is also important. If a site has a low domain authority and they’re linking back to you. This won’t be as beneficial as if a top authority site with a good domain score is linking back to your content. Links are typically passed along through anchor text (the words in bold or highlighted when clicking on a hyperlink) and it’s worth bearing this in mind. When considering which keywords to use for link text. Avoid overusing a single keyword throughout your anchor text. Try to mix them up so Google doesn’t detect this and penalize you.
You might find it useful to create lists of potential anchors and then randomly select one each time you want to link back to another website. Use all sorts of different phrases – including those related to your niche – instead of just repeating the same phrase again and again.
Another thing to bear in mind is that you should link to other websites within your own site pages rather than only linking outwards. Internal links send signals to Google that tell it what pages on your website are most important and valuable, so this will help boost rankings too.
“Dofollow” vs. nofollow
Both links that point to another website. Dofollow links always pass the link juice. Nofollow links, on the other hand, do not pass any link juice. SEOs use these two types of links for different purposes.
Dofollow links are mostly used by site owners who want to show a little appreciation for someone else’s work. While nofollow links are mostly used by site owners who want to hide the fact that they’re linking back. Links in blog posts, on social media sites like Facebook or Twitter, or anywhere online. Where you can see when somebody has linked to your content are often marked as dofollow.
Google takes this into account and credits those links accordingly. You should also be aware that many search engines don’t support nofollow links at all. So it is important to have more than just dofollow links if you want to rank well in search engine results pages (SERPs). You will probably find yourself having some links that are either dofollow or nofollow. It’s important to know what type of link you’re using in order to get the best ranking possible.
NAP citations
It is important to include your name, address, and phone number on your site. This information is called a NAP citation. It provides the visitor with all of the contact information they need for you and it helps search engines index your website more effectively. Your NAP citations should be consistent across all of your web presences including websites, social media accounts, business listings, email signatures and so forth.
The most common way to do this is by listing them in the footer of each page on your website or just one spot that you can remember such as the bottom left corner of every page. Be sure to include everything from your street address, city and state (and zip code) to any other relevant information about how people can find you. Include your phone number with area code too! If someone wants more information about you but doesn’t know what company you work for, their NAP citation will help direct them there!
Google My Business
If you want to rank higher in Google search results, make sure that you have a Google My Business account set up with all the information necessary (location, hours of operation, phone number) and create some great quality photos for your page. You can also add links from other sites to your Google My Business page if it’s relevant.
The most important thing to remember about Google My Business is that only one per business owner is allowed to manage it. They are especially concerned with verifying ownership so they know that they are ranking the right company when someone searches for their services.
The benefit to adding links back to your Google My Business page is that it tells Google you care about this property and want people to see what else is out there on the internet. As long as you’re linking back to high-quality pages on topics related to your business, this will help your rankings in general because Google values a variety of sources over just one source.
One more way to get more eyes on your Google My Business page is by using social media – share your link and website with friends, family members, customers, followers, etc. as often as possible. All of these tactics together should help you get ranked higher in search engine results!
Social signals
Social signals have a huge impact on how well you rank in search engines. It’s crucial to get people talking about your website, and the best way to do that is to create great content that they want to share with their friends.
Once you’ve created content, the next step is to promote it through social media and other networks. So that people are not only reading it but also sharing it. One of the most effective ways to do this is by using hashtags.
A hashtag can help your post show up in searches for those tags. For example, if you’re writing an article about Paris Hilton and would like people to find it. Then use #ParisHilton or #RichKidsOfBeverlyHills in your post. The more popular a tag becomes on social media, the higher it will show up when someone uses that tag as part of their search query.
By adding relevant tags to posts and pages on your site. You can give them additional visibility and drive traffic back to them. Hashtags are used widely across all major social media channels. Including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Google+.
You’ll notice on these sites there is a search bar at the top where you can enter keywords. You may notice that hashtags already show up as suggestions when you start typing something. To take advantage of this, include popular tags into your posts so that others might see it and retweet/like/comment on it.
Final thoughts
It is important to remember that your website’s rank in the search engine does not solely depend on the quality of your website content. Your site’s rank also depends on how well it is optimized and promoted. If you follow these guidelines, your site will have a much better chance of being ranked higher than the competition.
The key is understanding what ranking higher means for your business and adapting a strategy accordingly. A strong off page SEO strategy could help ensure that your site will continue to be seen when people are searching on Google or other sites. Keywords need to be carefully chosen. So they are relevant and helpful for searchers who are looking for information about your product or service.
Content needs to be engaging so visitors stay longer and share it with others through social media channels or emailing their friends about the great read they just discovered.
Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter should be used to promote articles as well as blog posts. You should make use of some paid advertising as well because this can also help reach new audiences. That may not have heard about your company before.
Finally, blogging regularly is an excellent way to provide fresh content on a regular basis which keeps visitors coming back for more!