Off-Page SEO

Off-page SEO factors

Here are a few common, high-value off-page SEO factors:

• Link building
• Social media marketing
• Local SEO

How to improve your off-page SEO

Off-page SEO factors can often improve your search rank, because Google monitors how others interact with your website. The more others engage with your content, like it, reference it, and link to it, the more your domain authority and search ranks will improve.

Here are a few high-value off-page SEO strategies you can apply to your website.

Link building

Link building occurs when another website links back to your website. For example, you might create a blog article and another company reads it and links to it in a blog post of their own. Google interprets this as a positive action signifying that the company trusts your website and perceives your content as valuable.

Your domain authority and search rank will improve as you garner more links from more domains. This is best done organically, where others link to your content because it is high quality and of high value to their audience. A Black Hat SEO practice is to engage in paid link building, where one business pays another company to link to their website. This is highly discouraged and can actually result in penalization from Google. True, credible link building takes time, effort, and patience. But the results are worth it. As your domain authority and search rank improves, so will your website’s visibility and organic search traffic.

Social media

While social media presence doesn’t directly influence your search rankings, it most certainly plays an indirect role. When you engage in social media marketing across a variety of channels (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.), you are getting your brand and your content in front of more people. And, if you create engaging content that people like, they are likely to visit your website to learn more about your brand and what you have to offer. Someone might also discover your content on social media and then link to it from their own website.

YouTube SEO

As video content has increased in popularity, so have the opportunities for businesses of all sizes and from all industries to engage in video marketing on YouTube. Video content may not provide the same opportunity for keyword inclusion as written content, but you can still create targeted video descriptions and content tags that help Google match your content with relevant search queries. And as your audience increases, so does the chance that your audience will visit your website to learn more about your brand and explore your offering.

Local SEO

Search engines use IP addresses and geolocation to determine the most appropriate search results to display to users. Local SEO is an off-page SEO strategy that optimizes your website’s visibility locally.

One of the easiest and most effective ways to optimize for local search is to set up a Google My Business (GMB) account. GMB is the company profile that shows on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) when someone local searches your company name or terms that Google has determined to be relevant to your business. GMB displays information like company name, description, address, contact information, hours of operation, website link, Google map location, Google reviews, and photos (submitted by your business or by others).

Having a Google My Business account is an excellent way to increase your website’s visibility to Google and provide users with valuable, easy-to-access information about your company. It’s also an effective way to encourage people to leave reviews and ratings about your business. These help build credibility and can help future prospective customers decide to engage with your business over a competitor.