As an active Quora user, I’m often aske this same question: “What is off-page SEO?“
I’m asked so often, I wanted to share a recent answer here as a blog post. This isn’t the most comprehensive answer, this is the direct answer. No off-page approach will be the same, in terms of targets and needs, however following the basic outline below you will find yourself accomplishing off-page SEO.
Too accomplish off-page SEO, work on building the following:
- Citations
- Backlinks
- Mentions
Citations
Start your off-page SEO strategy with a simple citation sync. Why? Because its quick and easy, and adds value. We call that “low hanging fruit” in the SEO world.
Citations are great for local SEO, but they also help to boost authority for new domain names. You can use an automated citation sync service, such as Bright Local or Yext, to push bulk citations across the web for a small fee.
What are citations?
Mentions of your NAP (name, address, phone number) data across the web.
Note: You will want to have your Google Business Profile setup before running a citation sync service, as that will be the best central point of NAP (name, address, phone number) data to use for the sync. Most citation sync services offer an integration to GBP.
Backlinks
Next, move on to creating a link building strategy. You will want to focus on quality over quantity. Using a paid service, such as SEMrush, can be beneficial to identifying best case scenario linking opportunities. That is, they identify sites that relative to your content that might also be linking to a primary competitor of yours.
What are backlinks?
Backlinks, to put it simply are links from a 3rd party website that point to your website. Search engines think of backlinks from (high quality) websites as votes towards your authority.
Quick backlink tips:
- Avoid buying links – if you are going to buy links, you need to know what you are doing. You need to vet the sites you will be paying, and you need to know how to structure the link requests in a way that will result in maximum value. Note: Feel free to reach out to us if you need help with this.
- Only seek links from sites that offer content relative to your site’s content.
- Only seek links from sites that don’t offer high toxicity scores from 3rd party measuring tools.
- Reach out to webmasters – don’t offer to swap links, but make your case as to why linking to your page or article adds value to their page or article. Note: swapping links can be penalized by Google if they notice you are doing it repeatedly. That is “If I link to you, will you link to me?”
- Follow links are much better than nofollow links. Read this article for more information.
- Backlinks pointing to deep links add more value than backlinks pointing to your homepage. Look to get other sites to link to your informative articles, product, or service pages before they link to your homepage.
Mentions
Ok, now that your brand is established: your website is developed and you have developed citations, your content is developed and you are working on building backlinks to that content.
Now what?
Now its time to start formulating a social marketing strategy that is designed to reach your target audience. We will then share your content through this formulated strategy, which will eventually result in mentions. As users across social platforms begin to mention your brand, products, or services by name. These mentions will be identified by many modern search engines and interpreted into off-site value. Also, if someone mentions your product on a website, but doesn’t create a backlink, that is still valuable as search engines can interpret that mention as off-site value.
What are mentions?
Mentions of your brand, product, or service across 3rd party websites and social media. Much the same way that search engines consider a backlink to your website as a vote of authority, search engines consider mentions across the web of your brand, products, or services to be similar in off-site “votes of authority”.
Rinse and Repeat
Never stop working to build relevant citations, backlinks, and mentions. Because enterprise-level competitors will not ;)
Reevaluate your off-site SEO needs every quarter with competitive citation, backlink, and mention analysis. Attempt to keep up with anything your competitors are doing, and then try and surpass that level!
Reach Out for Assistance
Feel free to contact us for help formulating a much more targeted and systematic off-page approach. We can help you elevate your off page acquisitions, or we can discuss a comprehensive SEO strategy.
SEO Succor is here to support your organization’s growth online!
