The off page SEO strategy that is best for your business depends on a variety of factors, but having some form of off page SEO is vital, and should compliment your on page content to help you climb the search engine results pages.
Twiddling, tweaking and tuning your website architecture and content to tackle troublesome search engine algorithm updates is standard SEO practice.
But on-page SEO is only one part of a robust strategy that grabs you great Google rankings and ensures you stay near the top.
For a holistic approach, it’s a game of two halves — your off-site SEO will also have to be top-notch to score spectacular SERP goals.
The types of off page SEO that you can utilise include:
- Local Citations
- Link building
- Social media marketing
What is ‘off-site SEO’ ?
Off-site SEO work takes place away from your website but is dedicated to increasing its search engine ranking.
Since it’s focused around the acquisition of ‘Backlinks’, you may have heard off-site SEO being referred to as either ‘Link Building’ or ‘Outreach’.
It can be easy to think that off page SEO is less important than your on page SEO efforts, and while of course nothing compares to having on page content that fulfils Google’s E-E-A-T requirements, your off page work contributes to the improvement of your organic search traffic and will lead to an overall successful SEO strategy.
From building links to local citations, learn more about off page optimization and how you can improve off page SEO.
Why is Off Page SEO Important and Do I Need It?
If you want your website to perform well organically on search engines, then every business, regardless of the industry, can benefit from off page SEO techniques.
Without implementing an off page SEO strategy, you’ll be relying entirely on how well optimised your website is, the quality of your on-site content and the user experience you provide both on site and within search results to increase your organic rankings.
As explained previously, this isn’t sufficient to achieve sustainable results.
Are There Different Ways To Do Off-site SEO?
There are a few ways to approach off-site SEO and generate backlinks for your website:
Local & Regional Businesses
If you have a business which relies on people near your location either walking through your door, placing an order for delivery of a product or booking a service you provide, then your off-site SEO focus would be on the creation of ‘Citations’.
Why? — search engines such as Google & Bing use ‘Citations’ as a resource for verifying which businesses offer which services in a given local area.
But What Is a Citation?
Well it’s a website (often a directory / trade or local business site that “cites” your details, typically Company name / Trading Name, Address Phone Number, and Website, often this may include a profile image and service listing too.
The power of having 10s of sites repeating your name and location reinforces to Google where you are and helps promote you for those local searches eg [search term] + [city, town, district etc] and those implied local searches where Google returns the map pack of local results anyway. It’s a bit of a free hit.
But do beware of some listings, and listing services as they can often promote low value sites that can look to google like they are a Link Farm ( which could be considered toxic and actually harm you).
Key Tip for Citations
Ensure your name, address, postcode and contact details are accurate and consistent across all citation listings that you create.
Helpful Site
Moz provide a great free way to check the health of your top Citations.
If the location of your customer is relevant because you’re a purely online business able to offer products and services anywhere in the world, you’ll need to pursue the creation of less localised backlinks for your off-site SEO strategy.
Ensuring that your Google business profile is up to date will allow customers in your local area who are looking to convert, better able to find you.
Link Building
What are the Benefits of Link Building and Why is it Important?
The process of Link building is often referred to as Outreach. It is the writing of content or having content written for authority sites that contain a link back to your site.
“The #1 result in Google has an average of 3.8x more backlinks than positions #2 – #10…”- Brain Dean
Why? Well Links to your site, particularly from sites that complement your site’s subject and are seen as authority sites too, give you kudos. Imagine you’re at a conference to learn something new in your industry space, do you want to hear from the top industry experts? Or from a passerby in the street?
This is Google’s way of seeing who agrees with your content, who cites your content for reference. It therefore will act as an amplifier for your content and help that content appear higher in google’s rankings.
Don’t try to cheat google with looks-too-good-to-be-true cheap links on supposedly high DA sites. Check, is the site still being used for purpose or has it been acquired to sell links; is it on subject? Does it have traffic? Can it be found on Google organically?
A link building strategy, when done properly in the ways of white hat SEO, requires some form of manual work off-site.
It involves sterling efforts to create content with natural links pointing back to your on page content.
The creation of content of this type must be methodical if it is to have the desired effect — it should ideally be unquestionably unique and radically relevant.
Writing for authoritative and relevant websites will ensure that not only does your trust flow increase, but readers of the post containing your link will be more likely to click back to your site and make a conversion.
Although you may hear chatter of ‘local links’ when discussing Citations, there are really no such things as ‘national links’ or ‘international links’.
When creating these links you’ll use a process called ‘Outreach’, which we believe can be split into two parts — ‘PR Outreach’ and ‘Webmaster Outreach’.
Always check the ‘topical trust flow’ of target sites is relevant to you & your industry.
Helpful Site
Majestic (you’ll need the paid version to access the most useful features).
Remember, you should stay away from link farms! This bad SEO practice has given link building a bad name. However, when done honestly, off page SEO links can do wonders for your trust flow.
Social Media Marketing
Increasingly, potential customers are connecting with brands through social media. So ensuring that you have a presence on a variety of social media platforms can help to increase awareness for your business.
From mastering the hashtags to optimising your social media content for keywords and links back to your own site, from influencer brand mentions to paid social media advertising, there are various ways in which you can boost your online reputation and referral traffic.
For more information on finding the right social media platform for your brand, we’ve put together a guide for you here!
Final Word
There are various ranking factors that when combined contribute to your overall search engine rankings.
When Google, and other search engines, are deciding where to rank you content, off page SEO factors play an important part in the position that your page takes.
While much emphasis in digital marketing is placed upon on page SEO efforts, earning more backlinks from trusted sites will boost your domain authority and help you climb the search rankings.
Following these core tenets of digital content creation will help you maximise the chances of creating engaging, link earning content:
Define your audience.
Who are you writing for? Make sure that the content you’re writing for a guest post is relevant to your product to create a natural link.
Create content in the format, style and tone your audience finds most appealing.
When guest posting on other websites, make sure that your content’s format, style, and tone matches that of the host in order to appeal to their audience.
Distribute it where you’ll have an audience.
When looking for a home for your guest posting ventures, try to pick a host site where the existing audience are likely to be interested in your brand.
Remember, it’s not just about the authority and trust flow that you’ll gain from placing quality links, you could also find yourself some new customers along the way!
It’s also important to keep on top of your links, and this goes for internal linking too. Over time you can end up with broken links. A broken link building strategy involves revisiting your existing link placements and providing the owner of the site with an updated link.
Whether you’re a local, regional, national or international business, the ideal off-site SEO strategy is one which leverages the aforementioned tactics most relevant to helping you climb SERP rankings, maintain your position and connect with target customers effectively.
Are you looking to improve your off page SEO?
Contact our team today and get a free Backlink Audit so you’ll know where to start! With the right blend of on- and off-site SEO, you’ll be a digital force to be reckoned with.
