Search engine optimization (SEO) is critical to a website’s organic traffic.
But not all SEO is the same.
There are different types of SEO, with on-page and off-page being the two categories in terms of tactics.
Off-page SEO refers to all the things you can do outside your website to help improve your search engine ranking results, while on-page SEO refers to everything tied to your website directly.
Related: Find out more about the difference between on-page and off-page SEO or check out Chrome extensions for SEO.
The following are nine tips and tricks to help improve your off-page SEO and increase your relevancy in the eyes of search engines.
Reach out to influencers
Whether you’re creating content in the form of a website blog, a YouTube channel or another format, it’s important to seize the opportunity to reach out to relevant, well-known influencers in your industry and ask for their feedback, review or more.
Of course, reaching out before you publish gives you the opportunity to incorporate them or their thoughts in your content. Reaching out afterward can still be fruitful, though. If the content is relevant to them, they might share it with their networks or engage with it in another way.
We recommend you go beyond just tagging the influencer in the post. It’s fine to do, but consider that you’re likely not the only one doing it. Go that extra mile and directly message or contact them via email or even the phone. Start the conversation like you’re starting a new relationship. Hint: Because you are. Don’t just start off by asking for what you need and leave it at that. Consider what you can offer to them and how a relationship would benefit you both. More than anything, be a human when you reach out.
Find out more about influencers and influencer marketing.
Embrace social media
At this point, the importance of social media likely is a reality versus an arguing point for most brands.
Choosing the social media platforms that make sense for your brand, the type of content you’ll be sharing and the audience you want to engage with is just the first step. You’ll also want to develop a full strategy where you decide frequency, timing and the specific content tied to each post.
Remember that social media includes more than just Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. There’s also YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitch and more to choose from.
Dig deeper into what social media platform is right for your company.
The more social media users who engage with and click through to your shared content, the better it is for your off-page SEO.
Google pays more attention to social media platforms than some might assume.
Encourage brand mentions
In the simplest of terms, brand mentions refer to people across the internet talking about your brand. While this typically involves traditional social media platforms, it doesn’t have to. It could be mentions in forums, blog articles and so on.
These mentions signal to search engines that people are interested in you.
Obviously, you can’t force quality brand mentions. However, you can actively engage with social media audiences across platforms. Meaningful interactions grow your online trustworthiness and branding organically.
Invest time in social bookmarking platforms
Similar to traditional social media, there are several websites that would more accurately be categorized as “social bookmarking” in their purpose.
Think Reddit, Digg and StumbleUpon, among others. It’s a place for communities to share links and discuss topics.
While success can be an instant boost to your website traffic (and a good off-page SEO signal), some effort is required.
For instance, Reddit is guarded against potential “link dumpers,” whom are considered to be spam-like in their effort to post links without engaging in any conversations.
A good rule of thumb is to be a true user of these sites before you post your first link. Reply to comments with your thoughts. Ask questions. In other words, (again) be human. Then, when you do post your first link, it’s seen as coming from a community member, not an “outsider” trying to get clicks. Then, balance each time you post a link with at least 10 times that you’re just commenting and replying without any links. That balance will keep you in good favor of those communities.
Commenting on blogs
While commenting on another website’s blog will no longer give you more backlinks, that doesn’t mean that there is no value to commenting in general.
As long as you’re commenting in a relevant way and engaging the right audience, you’ll ultimately build a relationship with that website and other commenters.
Again, it’s about interaction with others in meaningful ways.
Dive deeper into content marketing.
Participate in forums
Forums are still a viable platform where you can find and engage with others who could be interested ultimately in your products and/or services.
Locating forums that are related to your expertise and then offering advice or helping to solve problems is a great signal to Google, which loves discussions. There also are question-and-answer-specific websites, such as Quora.
Depending on the forum, make sure that you complete your profile appropriately in addition to including an anchor in the signature. That means that whenever you comment, the signature displays with your anchor.
Also consider looking for forums that offer “do-follow” links, which are a signal to search engines.
Guest blog on other websites
If you’ve never done it before, guest authoring on other websites is easier to achieve than you might assume.
Try a few of these Google searches to find potential opportunities for you and your brand, where you include a relevant keyword and:
- “Contribute”
- “Guest blogging”
- “Write for us”
- “Become a contributor”
Then you can reach out and apply. Just remember to include a link in your author bio that goes back to your website. This is more a signal to search engines (in the sense of backlinking), but it can also throw some referral traffic your way as well.
Focus on backlinks
This method of off-page SEO is considered fairly critical to improving your search engine ranking. However, it’s definitely about quality over quantity.
Backlinks are when other websites link to pages on your website. The more this happens (especially from trusted, highly visited websites), the more trustworthy your website appears to Google.
From seeking out broken backlinks on other websites so that you can suggest your own as a replacement to guest blogging (like we suggested above), there are a number of ways you can help grow your backlinks. Check out our seven specific tips.
Send email newsletters
Having a weekly (or other timing frequency) email newsletter not only packages your best content and delivers it to an engaged audience of subscribers, but it also can help encourage those subscribers to click on links and visit your website regularly.
This, as we definitely know by now, is a good signal to search engines.
Remember to keep your newsletters clean and direct in their design and content. Give the recipients a reason to click on your links. In other words, don’t give away the entirety of your content in the email newsletter. The reader should want to find out more.
See our eight tips to create an email onboarding sequence that converts.
While you’re improving your off-page SEO, consider what your digital marketing process could be doing for you. DailyStory features automation, audience segmentation and more. Schedule your free demo with us today.
