Off-Page SEO

Off page SEO explained

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) requires us to implement different techniques in order to improve our rankings in the search results and eventually appear among the top sites for targeted keywords. These techniques are further divided into On-Page SEO (also On-Site) and Off-Page SEO (also Off-Site) techniques to make our site search engine friendly. However, this post will focus only off-page techniques. Stay with us till the end of this post to know more about off-page SEO.

What is Off-Page SEO and Its Aim?

As compared to on-page SEO, off-page SEO focuses on those SEO techniques which are outside the boundaries of a website. Some of these factors might be in control of the website owners, while others are completely out of control such as ranking policies of search engines. The aim of off-page SEO is to create a positive repute of your site with the help of other relevant sites, content and following. Normally, off-page SEO includes:

• Link building (various techniques of building links)
• Using Social Media
• Social Bookmarking
• Other completely off-page (or off-web) techniques

Link Building

The most important factor of off-page SEO is link building. What happens is that link building helps you to gather ‘votes’ the better and the more links you have coming from other websites is going to get your website rank high and eventually surpass your competitors. For instance, a website puts a link to your article saying that it contains good information. Hence, giving a ‘vote’. There are various methods of link building and the major ones are:

• Blog Commenting –commenting on relevant posts and leaving links to your site
• Article submission (with links)
• Directory submissions
• Blog directories

Social Media

The way everyone has been using different social media sites like Facebook, Google Plus and Twitter in the past few years and the numbers keep on jumping, we cannot ignore the importance of social media to promote anything – good or bad. It has certainly some effect on the people. Therefore, it has now become a compulsory component of off-page SEO as it can help you to reach your audience in a much more effective way.

Social Bookmarking          

Social bookmarking might not be the best way to build backlinks to your site now, but it still plays some part in helping you to build a good reputation on the internet. Therefore, you should not completely knock it off your off-page SEO strategy. You can select sites depending on your niche, you can use sites such as, digg.com, scoop.it, stumbleupon.com, reddit.com and delicious.com (to name just a few) to promote the content of your site.

Completely Off-Page Techniques

This is a self-made term not a word in the market but the techniques or practices are not something really new. So, what do completely off-page means? Well, you don’t do anything on the internet. You can promote your site by word of mouth as your friends and family and other acquaintances would further spread the word. You can also get your website’s domain and tagline printed on t-Shirts, bags, shopping bags and so on. These are just a few of many other ways to promote your site and drive some direct traffic to your site. However, you might not be able to get any backlinks to your site.

These off-page SEO techniques are necessary part of SEO, therefore it’s suggested to not ignore them or undervalue their importance.