The Ultimate Off-Page SEO Guide
High ranking of your website translates to more traffic and the ultimate goal is to convert that traffic into strong leads and loyal customers.
The Rise of SEO
While the concept of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has been around for many years now (including that of off-page SEO), probably as early as the internet’s own creation, it serves as the Holy Grail to not just driving traffic to your site, but also for generating a new audience reach, and initiating strong growth.
Yet the dynamics with which SEO works has been updating continuously. The way SEO algorithms provide ranking factors allows for a solid and exclusive language through which webmasters are able to communicate with the search engines.
What is Off-Page SEO?
When looking into the main two forms of SEO- on-page SEO and off-page SEO, both play an extremely important role in getting a successful website ranking strategy. Your site will only be able to perform well when it is considered as a quality website through SERP.
In this guide, we are going to talk about off-page SEO mainly and look into why it is so important, and the tactics that will help you to rank high on Google, encouraging the growth of your website with traffic and audience reach.
When talking about SEO- off-page SEO, in plain words, focuses on optimization activities that are done ‘outside’ your website and blog posts.
It defines all those efforts of SEO optimization that are off-site. This type of SEO technique allows for an overview on how users and various institutions look at your website and rate its features.
When talking about off-page SEO, who will hear words like ‘link-building’. However, it isn’t just about links; there’s a whole more ways through which your website will be able to optimize its off-page SEO ranking.
In this guide, we will focus on all that, while emphasizing how all are interlinked to get you an A-list rating on Google and other search engines.
You want readers to share your content, to know that your site is authentic, and it can be trusted. Off-page SEO gets you that.
Let’s move on to know more:
Backlinks are effective votes. If a site links to you, they’re vouching for the quality of your content or business. But not all of these votes are created equal. The relevance of the linking website and web page also matters.
Why it is Important?
One of the major things to understand is that off-page SEO is synonymous to the term ‘authority’. Your website will not hold weight if it doesn’t hold an authoritative position on the internet.
And you won’t be able to have that authority if you aren’t ranking for competitive terms which are attained with off-page SEO.
Your site looks great but then that’s your statement. How do you get people to bear witness to this? You need to have your site outrank those that already hold higher authority. While ‘link-building’ is a major strategy to have your off-page SEO going (more on this will be shared in later text), it is important to know that there are various other techniques and tactics which must be utilized.
It’s interesting how it will not only drive you to success but also helps in building your brand too.
How is Off-Page SEO different from On-Page SEO?
Now that we’ve talked about SEO and briefly looked into how important off-page SEO is, let’s now shed light on how on-page SEO stands against off-page SEO, and why are they both parts of the same puzzle to a successful SEO high-ranking strategy.
If we stated it in simple terms, on-page SEO aims to look at what your site is all about and this part of the SEO which you have complete control over, whereas off-page SEO is the authoritative view on how popular site is and basically emphasizes features which aren’t really in your control.
On-page SEO focuses on the basic tactics, it takes into accounts those measures which will allow your website to have proper, quality content and a strong, prominent structure like optimization of keywords, meta description, tags, among others.
Off-page SEO optimization focuses on all that is done- not on the actual website- but activities which help in the site’s search engine rankings. In other words, it means all your efforts which you do to show to Google and other search engines how authentic and trustworthy your site is.
Top Off-Page SEO Tactics That Work
Now that we have a fair idea on what off-page SEO is, and how it stands against on-page SEO, let’s look into some of the winning strategies that you can implement to ensure your website is able to get a high ranking, a nod of approval from Google- which is based not just on content from your website.
Getting your backlinks
Did you know Google stated that link-building is one of the three most important ranking factors of a website?
Google aims to target and provide high-ranking to websites that are trustworthy and that trust factor comes when trustworthy sites create links to your site, giving you an authoritative standing.
Link-building tactics are important as they make your blog post authentic.
But the question arises- How can you earn quality links from other websites? To know that, you first need to understand:
What are links?
These are also called as backlinks or external links which actually point from a quality website onto yours. The more of these approving links you can for your site, the more authority and strong standing your website will have.
If you take this based on real-life examples, imagine you are visiting Italy on vacation and want to check out the best pizza place in town, you would ask around and get three similar nods to a single location- naturally you’ll go for that since it got the most votes.
Hence backlinks are considered as votes to your site. Meaning if a website is linking to your site, they are standing in unity to your testament that your website has quality content and structure.
So how does Google actually judge your backlinks? Google search makes use of an algorithm called PageRank: it looks at the quantity and quality of backlinks pointing to a web page.
Building Link authority
One major aspect to look into is that quality plays a strong role in link building- not all links are made equally. It is important to know that link-building should focus on quality links not quantity. Having quality links from 3 authoritative sites will be more valuable than 8 links from low-ranking websites.
While we should aim to get high-quality links, remember this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take links from smaller brands or businesses, if you feel the niche is suiting to your own business and site and the domains are good. Also know that having even sweet mentions from high-ranking sites, without backlinks can also be considered as links.
Social Media Power
It is the biggest truth of the world right now. Social media is playing a huge in our daily existence. It seems almost impossible to survive without it. And now aside from serving as our entertainer, social media is also acting as a search engine.
Your business has its strongest customer relationship platform on the various channels of social media. They act as discovery platforms and having a strong standing and presence on social media will allow you to engage with new customers, presenting your offerings in the catchiest way.
It can also help you to answer any doubts/inquiries that may have, giving a direct channel of interaction, building your popularity and authenticity. Remember, before your site, it is through how customers engage with you and your brand on social media that will form an ever lasting impression.
Make a strong impression and treat social as an effective brand channel.
Get into Guest Blogging
You may wonder how guest blogging gets the numbers rolling. But the fact of the matter is, guest blogging is the second-most important type of content for marketers. Did you know that even now, almost 60% of marketers are making use of blogging in their content.
Why?
Simply because you have well-know people speaking about something they feel genuinely about.
Take up the opportunity to blog or speak on a site- not just for the mere reason of having backlinks created, but to showcase your quality and professional capabilities to give fresh, actionable and honest options about the topic in hand.
When you give a great guest post on a highly ranking blog, it will be rewarded to you in the form of either a backlink to your website or through a strong mention in the article itself or in the author’s bio- you will get noticed and will get the attention from the targeted audience, trust me on that.
Getting a Share of Influencer Marketing
One of the major off-page SEO tools you need to invest into is tapping into the influencers’ reach. Having this kind of direct association will help in showcasing your brand, highlight the content and create a strong audience reach.
Influencers have come a long way in ensuring your business exists for a certain industry. They are the social media stars- celebrities if you will. Having their stamp of approval will serve in the long run.
It can be either paid- where you can pay or give them promotional product or it can be based on an organic agreement where a mutual beneficial setting is done between your brand and the influencer.
Aim for Quality Content
These strategies and tools will fall null if your site doesn’t have quality and shareable content to begin with. So it all comes down to having content that is wonderful- in all aspects.
So how do I get quality content?
Simply put, follow these 3 suggestions to make the most out of your SEO-optimizing strategies. Your base (content) will create wonders for you, when done right. Focus on:
*long pieces of writing, around 2000words for better SERP ranking
*make use of plenty of visuals
*look towards backing any queries from readers through the content on your site
So To Conclude…
Getting yourself discovered in the big organic search result is the ultimate dream. And it isn’t far-fetched.
It can be yours to own. When it comes to getting that strong Google ranking, these off-page SEO tactics will get the job done, when done rightly. But remember, off-page SEO is just half of the puzzle.
To get the absolute effect, you need to adapt all the measures of attaining a strong on-page SEO ranking too.
Moreover, it is important to keep in mind that for better search rankings, domain authority, anchor text, internal link, your page SEO strategy and on-page and off-page SEO strategy play a vital role in ranking in Google.
From impact-ranking to focusing on your content and having a high ranking leading to traffic leads and brand recognition, off-page SEO is becoming a part of a wider digital strategy and you can now master those techniques for your SEO success.