What is Off Page SEO?
Off page SEO references any activity done outside the framework of your website that aims to impact your site’s ranking in search engine results pages(SERP).
Off-page SEO comprises many activities; some of the most common are link building, social media marketing, guest blogging, citation building, and podcasts.
In this blog post, we will explain how each of these activities impacts the performance of your website in SERPs.
Why is Off Page SEO Important?
Search engines don’t just index and rank the content on your site. They also index and rank content from all over the internet. This includes social media platforms, podcasting platforms, news outlets, and many other platforms and content.
When your company name or a link to your website or social media shows up on other sites and platforms, search engines track this. Search engines use brand mentions, social shares, reviews, and links to your site to form a picture of your brand’s popularity and perceived quality.
If your brand generates a lot of positive or negative chatter online, it impacts your website’s performance in search.
Off page SEO is a vital digital marketing strategy and should be a part of any SEO campaign.
Now that you know what off page SEO is and why it’s important, let’s cover a few examples of off page SEO.
Examples of Off Page SEO
Link Building
Link building is the process of acquiring links from other platforms and websites to your website. These links act like votes for your website, which search engines interpret as a sign that your website has quality content.
In the early days of SEO, this ranking factor was pretty straightforward; the more links you had, the better. But in recent years, search engines have been updated to evaluate links by volume and quality.
Just getting any old link for your website won’t cut it anymore. To get the best results, you should focus on getting links from high-quality websites that produce content relevant to your website’s focus.
For example, if your website’s focus is home renovation, a great link would come from a website that also focuses on some aspect of home renovation.
Social Media Marketing
Social media doesn’t impact SEO performance directly, but if used correctly, it can affect the performance of your content.
By building a following on social media, you create a channel for distributing and promoting your content.
This allows you to share your content directly with consumers that are already engaged with your brand and subject matter. Those consumers may share your content with their social following or people in their network.
Content shared widely on social media has a longer lifespan, more engagement, and generates more natural backlinks for your website.
While social media doesn’t impact your SEO results directly, the increase in engagement and link generation does.
Additionally, a solid social media presence can do wonders for building trust for your brand.
Guest Blogging
Guest blogging is the process of reaching out to blogs within your niche with the offer of writing a blog for them.
This can be a very effective strategy for building brand mentions online and links to your site.
Unfortunately, many highly rated websites are flooded with guest post offers and often won’t respond.
If you want to implement this tactic in your SEO strategy, we suggest contacting smaller websites in your niche; you will get a much better response rate.
Note: Google does not recommend guest blogging for links and devalues links generated in this way. However, these links do have a positive impact.
Citation Building
A citation is an instance of a company name, address, and phone number that can be found online. Citations are an essential part of local SEO.
These listings help search engines and users understand the location of your business and provide information for contacting you.
Having a large number of citations increases the certainty that your business information is correct in the eyes of search engines. As a result, your position in local search rankings will improve.
Citation Examples:
- Google Business Profile
- Yellowpages.com listing
- Yelp listing
- Facebook Business Page
This tactic is super simple and easy to implement. If you don’t currently have citations for your business, we highly suggest you start creating them now.
In most cases, citations are free and only take a few minutes to set up.
Podcasts
Podcasts are another great way to build your off page SEO.
By distributing your podcast across various platforms, you increase your company’s total number of brand mentions and increase your chances of gaining links from high-authority websites.
Podcasts can be a great way to build brand authority and visibility; just like social media, they are highly shareable and allow you to create an audience for your brand.
You should check out the Contractor Growth Network Podcast if you’re looking for a great podcast dedicated to helping contractors grow!
Key Take Away
As you can see, off page SEO is a broad category that includes various seemingly unrelated activities.
But these activities are all connected because search engines see it all. Search engines see your company reviews, they see your social media, and they track mentions of your brand on other websites.
Your website doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It is connected to the rest of the world wide web and exists in relation to all other websites and platforms.
If you focus solely on your website, you limit your SEO success.
If you want the best results from SEO, you need a holistic approach that considers off-page factors.
