SEO 104: What is Off-Page SEO or Off-Site SEO?

Off-Page SEO is what you and others do away from your website to raise your page ranking with search engines. These include link building, social media, engagement, guest blogging, reviews, linked and unlinked brand mentions and local SEO.

Off-Page SEO works hand in hand with On-Page SEO. Together they can bring more visitors and potential customers to your site.

The following diagram highlights some factors that impact Off-Page SEO.

Some Familiar Off-Page SEO Factors

1. Link building or Backlinks

Links are what make the web work. That is what search engines sprue out. And that is how people find your site. You need to build quality links to your site, not quantitative links.

Would you prefer 1000 links to one of your pages or one quality link from Google? Backlinks are vital to your business. As Joshua Hardwick said on Ahrefs, “Not all links are created equal. Quality matters.”.

Backlinks themselves have many factors. These are:

• Number of referring domains. A referring domain is a domain that backlinks are coming from. For example, if you have a link from CBC News and one from Tim Horton’s, then you have two referring domains.
• Link authority. The higher the “authority” of the linking page, the more authority it passes on to the page that is linking to it. Compare a link from CBC News versus an obscure site.
• “Dofollow” vs. nofollow. The rel=”nofollow” tag is a way to tell a bot not to crawl the page. All pages by default are “Dofollow”.
• Anchor text is the blue linked text on a page. They link to other content (preferably “trusted” content). They tell your visitors what or where that content is discoverable. They also tell the Google algorithm what your content is about.
• Relevance. Backlinks are quality votes to your site, where a site is endorsing your content. The “relevance” of the linking website effects your ranking. If you are a foodie website, and a Ferrari off-road blogger links to your site, is that okay? It will have less importance than if Jamie Oliver linked to your page.

There are some DONT’s as well. Things not to do, to stay away from. In the “old days”, people used to buy links, exchange links, and use automated programs to get links. These are bad practices. Be natural. Do not fake or cheat.

Besides the above list, do not forget fixing “broken links“. When you land on a 404 page, it means something is broken. Make a concerted effort to fix all broken links.

2. Social Media

Connect with people via social media. Link your content to whichever social media platforms work for you. If its Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter. Your focus should be to “engaging your customers with interesting content, promotions […], and polls and conversations that will increase their affinity for your brand“.

3. Local SEO

Local SEO is essential if you are based locally. In the “old days”, one got business by “word-of-mouth” and by people referring Company A or B, who did good work for them. Today it is the same, but online. Happy customers can leave reviews on your website, Google and elsewhere. Google My Business could be a starting point with Local SEO.

4. The Brand

Mentions of your “Brand” are what Google uses to establish your authenticity. One way to get more branded mentions is to do the following:

1. Write guest posts or blogs
2. Create research-backed content
3. Podcast or be a guest on podcasts
4. Get interviewed
5. Do blogger outreach
6. Partake in or create a “Roundup Post“
7. Partner with Bigger Brands
8. Create visuals that other blogs might use, like infographics. Infographics are powerful and can explain difficult concepts simply.
9. Invest in YouTube, as there are some 2 billion active users
10. Get positive online reviews
11. Get linked to from “trusted sites”
12. Get NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number) citations of your business

The above pointers are just some Off-Page SEO factors that you should get right.