What is Off-Page SEO?

Off-Page SEO also called “off-site SEO”, and “off-site optimization” is the process of improving your website’s search engine rankings by using online promotional strategies outside of your own website, utilizing third-party websites to build your website’s overall authority.

This can be done through various methods such as: Adding relevant content to your site – Providing value with links from other sites – Creating useful infographics and images – Producing videos and audio files.

Off-page SEO helps improve rankings by using various methods:

Why is Off-Page SEO Important?

Off-page SEO is one of two core areas of SEO (the other being, of course, on-page). The purpose of off-page optimization is to influence the websites that are linking to you, and their link texts, anchor texts, and link positions. Your on-page SEO work can be undone by bad off-page optimization.

There are several reasons why you might want to improve your off-page SEO:

In fact, off-page optimization is so important that its effects can impact your search engine rankings more than your on-page optimization work. That’s why it’s essential to focus on this area as well.

Essential Off-Page SEO Elements

The off-page elements are very important for your ultimate goal which is to increase organic rankings. The overall purpose of off-page SEO is to improve visibility and accessibility of your website.

There are five types of off page optimization elements that can be used to improve the visibility of a web site:

1. Content

This includes text, images, videos, audio clips, links, meta tags and other elements on a webpage. Content is what users see when they visit a particular URL. It also includes how well the content is organized and formatted.

This includes text, images, videos, audio clips, links, meta tags and other elements on a webpage. Content is what users see when they visit a particular URL. It also includes how well the content is organized and formatted.

2. Website Structure

The structure of a webpage can affect its perceived quality as well as the way it ranks in SERPs. For example, if you have an unorganized layout with many small sections that don’t relate one another or aren’t linked together logically then this will negatively affect your overall ranking potential.

The structure of a webpage can affect its perceived quality as well as the way it ranks in SERPs. For example, if you have an unorganized layout with many small sections that don’t relate one another or aren’t linked together logically then this will negatively affect your overall ranking potential.

3. User Experience

A good user experience means that people find your website easy to use and want to return there again and again. If your site has a bad user experience, then users are less likely to link to it or talk about it online because they had a negative experience.

4. Backlinks

The more quality backlinks you have (e.g. other websites linking to yours) the higher your page rankings will be. Backlinks can come from a wide range of sources such as newspapers, news websites, discussion forums, guest books, blogs and social media websites.

5. Social Equity

This is similar to backlinks in that the more social equity a webpage has, the more likely it is to rank higher in SERPs. There are several types of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, LinkedIn and YouTube that can be used individually or together to promote your business or website.

How Does Off-Page SEO Work?

Once you have put all your on-page optimizations into place, you can start thinking about off-page optimizations. There are many off-page optimization techniques you can start using, such as creating social media accounts, advertising your website, and participating in online forums. However, note that the exact methods you use will depend on what type of website you own and who your target audience is.

Off-page SEO works in four stages:

1. Research your target keywords

You need to know which keywords you want to rank for before you can start doing any off-site SEO. Use the keywords you found in your key phrase list and do some research on what people are searching for.

For example, if you’re a plumber then you might find that people often search for ‘local plumbers’ or ’emergency plumbers’ in certain areas.

Once you know which keywords you want to rank for, you can start looking into what the competition is like for those keywords.

Find out what websites are currently ranking for your chosen keywords . You can do this by using search engine listings such as Google’s advanced search function or their Adwords tool.

Find websites that are displaying in the results pages and take a note of the keywords they are targeting. This will show you what you are up against and give you ideas on how to outrank them.

2. Check your competitors’ backlinks

To improve your own website’s rankings, you need to understand why your competitors are ranking so high in the first place. To do this, you can use a tool such as Majestic SEO or Open Site Explorer to take a look at their backlink profiles.

Both tools show you the number of backlinks and the quality of backlinks that your competitors have. Find out what they are doing right and wrong, then apply these learnings to your own website.

3. Build authority to your webpages

When you create a page targeting a competitive keyword, it would be really difficult for you to get it ranked on search engines results pages (SERPs). The only time I see a website ranking really well for a keyword instantly after publishing it’s content is if the website has high authority score of it’s own.

Good example of this would be Wikipedia, a powerful site like Wikipedia can rank their newly published pages easily as it already has a good trust and authority score by search engines.

This does not apply to most of the websites, thus we all need to build our website’s and webpages authority.

You can achieve this by building niche relevant links, branding your website with brand mentions along with link backs from other authority sites, press releases, creating evergreen content, and focusing on building high quality links to all web pages.

3. Keep track of your progress

It is important to keep track of your SEO efforts if you want to see real improvement on your website. Use online tools such as Moz Analytics or SEM Rush to keep track of your progress. These tools will show you things such as the keywords you’re ranking for, the traffic your website is receiving and even the places that traffic is coming from.

By keeping track of your SEO efforts, you will be able to see what is working for you and what isn’t. You will also be able to see your website’s growth over a period of time, which is great for motivation.

What is the difference between on-page SEO & off-page SEO?

On-page SEO focuses on building up a strong presence by creating quality content for your site, then tweaking each page to ensure it sends the right signals to the search engine bots when crawled. Off-page SEO will focus more on gaining links from other sites so that when people click on your link they get redirected to your own site instead.

This distinction is important because it means if you want to be successful with both, you need to know which one is going to give you the best return on investment.

For example, let’s say I wanted to build up my blog as an authority in the niche of personal finance. If I were only concerned about ranking well in SERP search results, then I would just create a series of articles that explain how I make money online and link them all together at the end.

When people searched for “how to make money online”, my article would appear at the top, and provided I used good on-page SEO, I would get a lot of visitors.

However, say I only had enough time to focus on one or the other. Would it be better to spend that time writing articles about making money or trying to earn backlinks from other websites?

That’s where off-page vs. on-page SEO comes into play.

What are the top Off-Page SEO Techniques?

Right now, we’re going to be looking at the top off-page SEO techniques that you can use to help your brand and business grow. These are the types of things that you really should focus on because not only do they help with raising brand awareness, but they also lead directly to more sales and conversions.

1. Link Prospecting

This is a huge part of off-page SEO, and it all starts with finding websites that you want to get backlinks from. There are many ways to prospect for link opportunities, but a lot of it really just comes down to spending time doing research and reaching out to people.

Here are some places you can look to find prospects:

You get the idea. The point is that there are many places you can look so don’t just settle with the ones I’ve listed.

2. Network and Collaborate

When it comes to link prospecting, don’t be afraid to reach out and offer a helping hand. If you see someone in a forum that has a broken link or is looking for suggestions, offer your services if you can help. The same goes for other marketers in your industry. If they have a broken link or a missing image, you can either reach out and offer help or do it anonymously and ask for a link in return.

Regardless of what you do, these sorts of things build up so keep in mind that the larger fish tend to eat the smaller ones, so if you can help someone out then do it. Whether that means writing a description for their e-book, fixing a broken link on their website or anything else you see that needs updating, do it now because you’ll certainly be calling upon others in the future and you don’t want to be turned down due to lack of trust.

3. Link On Your Own Website

This is pretty easy and you probably already have plenty of spots on your website to add links. The best way to go about it is to simply add a few relevant links on your internal pages to other websites related to yours. While this doesn’t offer as much SEO value as external links, it’s still worth doing because it does help your brand while also offering more opportunities to get backlinks from the sites you link to.

4. Guest Posting

The thing about guest posting is that you aren’t necessarily doing it for the links. Well, at least not primarily. When you write a guest post, your main goal should be to provide as much value to your readers as possible. So when you do get a chance, make sure to link back to your website where you think it makes sense to do so, but don’t overdo it because it defeats the purpose of providing quality content for your audience in the first place.

5. Scour For Broken Links

You can find broken links on any website in a variety of ways. The easiest way is to simply do a Google search for “[Website URL] broken link” and see what comes up. You can also browse through forums and look for URLs that have “#brokenlink” after them. It can be tedious, but it definitely offers you the most results so it’s always good to try this method first before doing anything else.

Of course, when you’re checking for broken links, try to think about what their niche is and then try to find content related to that niche as well. For example, if you’re looking at a Make Money Online forum and one of the broken links is titled “Make Money by Blogging”, then you can be pretty confident that a post talking about how to make money with your own blog will be well received.

6. Offer Something Of Value Before Linking

If you were to suddenly request a link on a large website, they’re probably going to be more reluctant to do so (or not do so at all). It won’t hurt to try, of course, but don’t be too disappointed if your first few requests get denied.

Instead, try providing some value first. This takes a bit more time and effort than simply sending a link request, but if you think about it, your time and effort is worth quite a bit as well.

Why not offer to write something for them first? Provide them with a guide or how-to post that their visitors would find useful. As long as it’s relevant and high quality, they should be much more willing to return the favor by linking to your website.

7. Submit Your Site to Directories

While it’s true that most directories don’t hold as much value as they used to, there are still some that are worth submitting to. You can start by searching through sites like Yahoo’s directory or BBB and go from there.

Many of these directories offer a free submission option. All you need to do is try to fill out all the required fields and you should be all set.

Frequently Asked Questions

You have learned every aspect of off-page SEO in this resourceful article. Now, it’s time to look at some of most frequently asked questions about off-page SEO optimization.

How does Off-page SEO differ from Onpage SEO?

On-page SEO refers to tactics occurring *ON* your website, such as site structure, content creation, code optimization, etc. By contrast, off-page SEO refers to techniques taking place *OFF* your website, typically on other sites across the web.

Off-Page SEO Vs On-Page SEO which is more important?

This is like asking “which is more important, your shoes or your socks?” Both are valuable and necessary for the success of your online presence.

On-page SEO is necessary to surround your off-page optimization with the meat of your website. This combination is essential for success.

What are the best ways to get off-page SEO links?

The most common way to build an external link is to contact bloggers and website owners relevant to your niche and offer a free service, report, or research in exchange for a link back to your site.

What is the biggest issue faced during off-page SEO?

The biggest challenge of effective off-page optimization is gathering an initial pool of sites to link to your own.

And to ensure, that only niche-specific high-quality sites link to your website and its pages.

You can begin engaging in activities that build long-term momentum for your website.

What kinds of off-page SEO are beneficial?

The most beneficial forms of off-page SEO involve generating incoming links from external websites and social media. However, you should be wary of engaging in link schemes, spamming forums and websites with “Like this” or “Add to Cart” buttons, scraping content from other sites, buying or selling links, sending shady paid links, and over-optimization.