What is Off-Page Search Engine Optimization?
As we discussed in our SEO Basics post, Off-Page Search Engine Optimization refers to all techniques that can be effectively used to improve the ranking of a website on the search engine result pages (SERPs). Off-page SEO is accomplished using the sources other than your website. Usually it is achieved “off the pages” of your site to boost its search engine ranking for target keywords that exist in off-site direct links and are also related to your “on-page” content. Some people associate off-page search engine optimization with link building but it’s much more than that.
High search engine ranking is usually not possible without some kind of quality link building activity. Actually, it is an important off-page search engine optimization strategy that your SEO agency should implement for your site.
If you want to achieve long term high search engine ranking for your niche keywords and dominate your competition, it is important to do proper off-page search engine optimization. The ranking of your site depends on SEO authority and this authority is not established just on the basis of your content. It also involves a fine combination of outbound links, inbound links and number of websites linking to you for you to have successfully established SEO authority.
Why is Off-Page SEO so Important?
Big search engines with millions of users have been trying for decades to find a perfect way to return most relevant results to the searcher. To accomplish this, they take into account various on-page SEO factors and off-page search engine optimization.
Off-page search engine optimization gives search engines a good indication on how other websites and users perceive a particular website. A website that is useful is more likely to have large number of references (links) from other sites. It is also more likely to have many mentions on to social media sites (Facebook tweets, likes, Pins, +1’s etc.) and it’s more likely to be shared and bookmarked among communities of like-minded users.
What are the Benefits of Off-Page Search Engine Optimization to Website Owners?
- More Exposure – Higher online rankings means much more exposure because when a site ranks high on search engines, it gets more visibility and clicks and more social media mentions. It’s a never ending sequence of events where one thing leads to another and then to another, and so on.
- Increase in PageRank – A website PageRank is between 0-10 which indicates the importance of a particular site on Google. It’s a system which was invented by Larry Page, who was one of the Google’s founders. It’s the reason why Google is so successful in showing the most relevant results to the searcher. Today PageRank is just one of the 250 factors that Google uses to rank websites.
- Increase in Rankings – With proper off-page search engine optimization a website should rank higher in the SERPs and this will bring in more online visibility and traffic.
Let’s Have a Close Look at Few Off-Page SEO Techniques:
Social Networking Sites
Social Networking sites are widely popular these days. There are more than 987 millions users worldwide on various social media sites. By getting involved with social media sites, you start advertising, marketing and building your online reputation within your niche. You will have to sign up with popular social media sites, such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc. With this step, you can extend your online network of contacts, connect and interact with others. share things. and most importantly promote your blog/site which will help to build your online reputation.
Blogging
Blogging is one of the best ways to promote your site online. By writing a blog for your site, you give reason to visitors to keep returning to your website and keep up to date with all your latest posts. It also helps big search engines to crawl your site more frequently, as they regularly update your site’s most frequent entries. This will ultimately help you rank high on SERPs. You should produce and include lot of unique content for your blog, such as Top Lists, Infographics, Viral videos, How To, etc. Be clear and concise to get the best response.
Blog Marketing
You can post comments on other blogs in your niche, particularly the ones that allow you to add links to comment section. All these links can be crawled by search engine bots helping to point them towards your website. Usually these blogs are referred to as “Do-Follow” blogs.
Directory Submission
You can submit your website to general directories manually under proper categories and subcategories. For better results, submit to niche directories. Take care to ensure you are submitting only to quality directories however. Submitting to low quality, spammy directories can actually hurt your rankings.
Search Engine Submission
Most search engines will eventually find your website online, but it may take a while. While search engine submission isn’t necessary, you can speed up the process by submitting your site to the big search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.
Forum Marketing
Search for forums online that are directly linked to your niche and try to get involved within that community. Make it a point to reply to the threads, offer advice and answer to peoples questions, etc. This will help build your online reputation as someone who’s an expert within that niche. For best off-page SEO results try to use “Do-Follow” forums as you can include a link to your site within your signature field, so search engines robots can crawl to your site.
Link Baiting
This is another popular way to promote your website. If you write an informative post for your website, others would want to link to it. This is best way to increase your link popularity. If you copy/publish another site’s content on your website, add the website’s link as a reference.
Social Bookmarking
Social Bookmarking is good way of promoting your site. You can submit your latest pages and blog posts to the most popular bookmarking sites, like Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Delicious, etc. Search engines love these sites because content on these sites is updated frequently.
Photo Sharing
If you’ve used any of your images or photos on your website, you can share them on photo sharing sites such as Picasa, Flickr, Photo Bucket, etc. Others would be able to see them and also comment on them, hopefully following a link to your website.
Business Reviews
Write reviews about other online businesses or ask your friends/customers to write a reviews about your business in big business review sites like Yelp, Angie’s List, Insider Pages, City Search, etc.
Video Marketing
If you have some videos on your website, you can submit them to sites like Vimeo and YouTube allowing others to find your site in other ways. One thing to note however, while YouTube is completely free, Vimeo does charge for business usage.
Another great benefit to this, it you can link back to your site int he video description. This can be particularly helpful when linking to your site from YouTube as it is a Google property, and well, Google loves it some Google.
Link Exchange
You can also exchange links with other service-related sites (Thematic Link Exchange) that will help in increasing your link popularity, which is a big factor in Google’s algorithm.
Local Listings
Depending on your website’s niche, you might find that listing in various local directories may be helpful. You may have a site promoting your local business, therefore instead of going global and facing big competition, listing your site locally so that search engines can easily view your site and fetch its content, will be much better. This will definitely help you to reach your targeted audience. Submit your website to sites such as, Google My Business, Yellow Pages, Yahoo Local, etc.
Press Release Promotion
If you are a service provider/business then go for PR submission in popular PR websites like Open PR, 1888pressrelease, and PR Leap. This will help you to publish your site on Google News.
Conclusion
Off-page search engine optimization is nearly as important as on-site SEO. If you want to ensure the success of your SEO, you’ll want to do both. When thinking about link building don’t take it the easy way, but try to get most of your links from hard-to-get places. The more difficult it is to get a link, the more value it has.
