Off-Page or Off-Site SEO is an essential search engine instrument that just might be the game-changer for your business. In this advancing world of digital marketing, it is vital for the businesses to keep up with the ever-changing SEO strategies and constantly aim higher. In order to survive, let alone thrive in this highly competitive market, one must thoroughly grasp the concept and inner mechanism of the search engine optimization. Considering how accessible the internet and digital channels are today, people rely heavily on the online presence of companies.
To kick start your brand’s journey online, customize an SEO blueprint based on your goals. You may be implementing several SEO tactics to improve your website’s performance and credibility, but it could go in vain if you’re underestimate the power of Off-Page SEO.
The strategic use of the key Off-Page SEO techniques will not only support your website’s efforts and add credibility it will also build long-term equity for your brand.
What is Off-Page SEO?
Off-Page or Off-Site SEO includes all the activities that are implemented beyond your website. It is an entirely separate concept from On-Page SEO and involves a wide variety of techniques that are done away from the website. Without Off-Page optimization techniques, your website will struggle to outrank its competitors in the search results. It builds your website’s domain authority and sites with higher authority tend to rank better, as search engines perceives them as more relevant, credible and trustworthy. So basically, Off-Page SEO’s ultimate job is to inform Google about your website.
Some of the important Off-Page SEO factors:
- Authority of Domain
It is crucial to measure the quality of a website. Factors like its age, popularity, and inbound links could be fair determining factors. A website with superior link-building activity is more likely to rank higher in SERPs than its competitors with low link authority.
- Link relevancy
Link relevancy is also crucial as Google acknowledges links from websites that are relevant to your content, it is to determine how your website will add value for searchers.
- Socials
While doing Off-Page activities such as social media, blogger and influencer outreach etc. it is advantageous to analyze how much traffic could potentially be driven towards you. If these activities are capable of driving enough traffic to meet your standard, it is fine to proceed.
Here’s a checklist of Off-Page SEO:
- Link Building
Link building stands as an integral Off-Page SEO strategies. Link building refers to acquiring valuable links from other websites to your own site and vice-versa. It is a productive practice with a primary goal of improving your website’s search engine visibility. Though it is beneficial to incorporate most possible links, always prefer quality over quantity. Remember the goal is to earn quality links. Moreover, you should prioritize links that are relevant to the topic of your page.
Type of links-
Internal – Links present on a webpage that navigates the user to another page of the same domain are called internal links. These links allow users to stay on your page for longer, and as a result, it increases your website authority and ultimately contributes towards ranking.
External– External links, or “outbound links”, are links that brings user to different domain while surfing through a website.
Backlinks– Backlinks are also called inbound links. They are links that connects your website to another website. These types of links direct the user to your webpage. created by another
- Content Marketing
Content marketing spans both On-Page and Off-Page SEO tactics. Publishing quality content on your website is only a part of content marketing. To put this in perspective, some of the OFF-Page content marketing include-
Blog posts
Infographics
Surveys, studies & research
E-Books
Social Media, etc.
- Events
It goes without saying events play a huge role in a brand’s online engagement, especially now more than ever. They can heavily contribute to your off-page SEO strategy.
Not only do events successfully engage your audience, but can also drive social engagement and even build links.
- Local SEO
Local SEO is a popular SEO strategy that allows you to capture local search territory to connect with searchers in your area. It’s no surprise that Google Business is majorly tied to local SEO. A recent report revealed that 46% of Google searches were based on local information and 4 in 5 consumers use search engines to look up local information. In addition, if you are a local business aiming to rank under geographically targeted search terms on the SERPs or maps, you cannot overlook citations. A citation is just a mention of your business online that usually references to a business’ NAP (name, address, and phone number). A key to achieve success with citations is by maintaining consistency.
- Social Media
Though it is obvious that social media or shares aren’t a direct SEO ranking factor, social media plays a massive role in the entirety of using the web and searching for answers. Now-a-days social media platforms are one type of search engine.
Having an active social media presence and posting reliable content on your feed ultimately impacts your EAT- Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness and makes your business appeal more credible to the eyes of Google. Your active presence across social media platforms can lead you to your potential customers and clients, so you must maintain a strong presence, communicate professionally when needed and treat it as another brand channel that can be discovered by both existing and potential customers.
- Public Relation
As opposed to traditional PR, digital PR is considered a constructive link-building tactic for many SEOs. Managing public’s perception of your brand is essential, thus, a good PR strategy is a valuable asset to Off-Page SEO. PR and SEO can work hand in hand to ensure that every message going out receives attention and leads to higher brand awareness and visibility. PR contributions to off-page SEO may lead to much more than just help building links. A great PR campaign can additionally increase your brand awareness and drive referral traffic. It also places your business in ahead of your target audience and instigates publicity.
- Forums
Forum postings is an Off-Page SEO technique and a popular way of generating quality inbound links by participating in online discussion forums. Since posts in online communities are written with the words of customers, they have a huge impact on SEO. A forum or community allows you to engage with your customers through your new posts and allows you to reply to queries which may drive traffic to your site. Forums can add real value to your marketing mix and is a great way to start building relationships and trust with your present and potential customers.
- Influencer Marketing
Believe it or not, social media has taken over the world by a storm and influencer marketing can be a phenomenal way to build and establish your brand while simultaneously reaching new audiences. A well-crafted influencer marketing strategy leverages digital creators with strong online influence to majorly target audiences in order for them to make purchase decisions. With a successful strategy, you can partner with influential individuals to introduce and promote your brand, products, and services. This marketing technique goes a long way to ensure your presence as a business on these platforms.
- Guest Posting
Guest posting is an Off-Page technique that involves submitting content to another website simply to provide them information and bring value to their audience. It is practice of submitting posts to another person’s blog as a way to build relationships, gain exposure, authority, and backlinks. With the right strategy, guest posting can do more for your marketing tactic than just building links. But more than that, it also puts your brand in front of the targeted audience, earns targeted traffic and position you in your field. Your primary objective of guest posting should be to build your brand, reach a new audience and benefit from a related site’s traffic.
Below are top Guest Posting sites-
What’s the difference between Off-Page & On-Page SEO?
Off-Page and On-Page are just two sides of a coin. You will essentially need both of these techniques to ace the complex game of SEO in this market. Apart from the obvious differences, both Off-Page and On-Page SEO aim to accomplish same organizational goals, which is to drive website traffic and ranking. So, to put it simply, On-Page SEO is what you can within your website while Off-Page SEO is what you can do beyond it. While it is important to thoroughly manage On-Page SEO in order to build your business and drive as much traffic as possible, it is even more crucial to consistently maintain it for long-term success, and this is where Off-Page SEO comes in. Off-Page SEO handles your business outside of your website, it is responsible for promoting your business across the digital channels to establish your business online. Both play an equally important role, where On-Page is needed for website building and Off-Page takes over after.