One of the key reasons why you may be struggling to increase your ranking on Google, despite putting in all the effort, is due to the lack of off-page SEO. If you don’t know it yet, SEO is categorized into two types; on-page and off-page SEO.
While optimizing your website is called on-page SEO, every other activity that you do to promote your page outside of your website is known as off-page SEO. This article will discuss what is off-page SEO, how is it different from on-page SEO, why it is important, and what are the kind of tactics that make up an effective off-page SEO strategy.
What Is Off-Page SEO?
Off-page SEO refers to efforts done outside of your website that could help increase your page’s search engine rankings. While link building is a major part of off-page SEO, its scope goes beyond that.
Off-site SEO includes several search engine optimization techniques that can improve the ranking of your website or blog. However, unlike on-site SEO, off-site SEO does not involve optimizing your website. Instead, it involves links from other websites.
The SEO expert who works on off-page SEO creates backlinks on third-party websites and online directories that would point back to your webpage. These links can range from just one or two links per page, but brand mentions would also count.
LINK BUILDING Connect Link Communication Contact Network
Since off-page SEO is based on valuable links that point back to your page, its main aim is to inform the search engine of what others think of your website. This way, the search engine automatically assumes that the content provided by your website is useful for users. If this is still quite difficult for you to grasp, you can check out this infographic by SEMrush which provides informative visuals about off-page SEO.
On-Page vs Off-Page SEO
One of the main differences between on-page SEO and off-page SEO is that on-page SEO is something that you may have complete control over. Off-page SEO, on the other hand, is not in your total control.
On-page SEO refers to the internal efforts done on your site to make it rank on search engines. Mostly, this includes using the right keywords for your content so search engines would know what your website is all about and show them on relevant searches.
As previously mentioned, off-page SEO is more about link building or building backlinks towards your site. This may or may not be under your control because even though you can choose partner sites for you to put links on, some site owners or content creators can voluntarily link their sites to yours. And that’s a good thing!
There are various ways to increase traffic, and building backlinks is one of those. That’s because search engines like Google count these links as a vote of confidence towards your site. The more quality backlinks you build, the more it tells search engines that your content is relevant and high-quality.
Why Is Off-Page SEO Important?
One of the key reasons why off-page SEO is important is because Google takes several factors into account when it comes to ranking sites and pages. Since Google search uses an algorithm that evaluates the quality and quantity of backlinks pointing to your website, backlinks are also important factors when it comes to rankings and this is what off-page SEO is about.
The first rule of SEO is to make your content readable, relevant, and visible. Your website should provide quality content that people can trust and rely on. Aside from merely linking from other sites, you also have to ensure that your website’s content is well-written and optimized in the first place. This means that you have to use the right keywords and key phrases that people will search for when they type in search engines.
If your content is well-written and keyword optimized, then people can easily find your page on search results. When people are looking for a specific product, service, or information, they will usually visit a site or blog that has the information they need.
You also have to optimize the content on your website using techniques like backlinking and content distribution. This is where off-page SEO comes in. As mentioned, backlinks are a vote of confidence towards your site. With more backlinks, you build authority over that search keyword or topic, and search engines such as Google likes that.
Effective Off-Page SEO Strategies
Several factors are essential to ensure that your off-page SEO is optimal and yields good results. Off-page SEO tactics can be broadly categorized into two types; link-building off-page SEO and non-link building off-page SEO.
- Link building off-page SEO
When it comes to off-page SEO, link building is the most crucial aspect of it. There’s a clear correlation between domains that point to a website and its rankings. Having links in several unique websites and referral domains can increase your website’s organic traffic and boost rankings.
However, the aim of backlinking isn’t just increasing the number of backlinks, the quality of the link also plays a crucial role. That’s where authority links come into play. An authority link is a link from a high-authority page and is of more value than a link from a low authority page. Thus, having authority links can help increase your website’s organic traffic and can also influence its rankings because it gives a huge boost compared to backlinks from low authority sites.
To ensure that your page ranking is high, it’s crucial to build followed links instead of no-follow links. Thus, before you decide to pursue links from a particular website, make sure that the outbound links are followed.
When a website links to you, they are basically vouching for your content. However, when it comes to backlinking, relevance is also key. Therefore, it’s more beneficial for a wine company to get a backlink from a sommelier’s blog rather than a news site. Experts also suggest that backlinks from websites with organic traffic have more weight than links from pages with few traffic.
Link building remains the most important aspect in off-page SEO campaigns, simply because it’s very difficult to manipulate and people would only link to content if they think it’s of value to them. However, if you want to seriously pursue backlinking for your business, you may also acquire backlinks by buying them.
Non-Link Building Off-Page SEO
While link building is the most crucial factor of off-page SEO, there are several off-page factors that can also have an impact on your website’s rankings. Some of these are listed below.
- Brand Mentions
Brand mentions have SEO value for any website or business. There are two types of brand mentions, one is a linked brand mention and the other is an unlinked brand mention. A linked brand mention has a hyperlink that the user can follow to reach a target resource, whereas an unlinked brand mention doesn’t contain a hyperlink to the target resource.
However, when it comes to rankings, Google considers both types of brand mentions. The only difference between a linked and an unlinked brand mention is that a linked brand mention is clickable and can result in organic traffic to your website. You may also increase brand mention links by guest posting or doing a blogger outreach.
- Google My Business
If you own a local business and you want to increase your rankings in local searches, then Google My Business can be of great help. Google My Business is a free business profile that works like an online listing. These are the results that you sometimes see at the top of searches. Thus, if you want to increase your rankings for local queries, then Google My Business could be a great addition to your SEO efforts.
- Reviews
Reviews also play an important role in your ranking, especially in local organic searches. Having genuine reviews on Google My Business and other third-party sites will improve your website’s chances to be included in the top search results of Google.
Local SEO that comprises of Google My Business and third-party reviews are essential for off-page SEO efforts. One of the best things about reviews is that it also works like word-of-mouth marketing. When customers leave reviews on your page, Google also considers it to determine how well you’re doing, and if you are trustworthy enough. Consequently, this influences your rankings.
Conclusion
The most obvious benefit of off-page SEO is that your website gains more traffic and improve its ranking on search engines. However, this could take time to develop and the results are not always guaranteed. It may take some time for search engines to pick up on the backlinks you built. This means that you can’t be on top of search results overnight!
While backlinking is the main and effective off-page SEO strategy, other tactics like brand mentions, Google My Business, and genuine reviews also play a crucial role in your overall off-page SEO efforts.
Another thing to remember is that backlinking is more about quality than quantity. You don’t have to build hundreds or thousands of backlinks for your website. It is enough to have a handful of links from quality websites or authority pages that are related to your topic or niche. Quality and relevant links are kings.
