Imagine your website as a restaurant. You have designed a lip-smacking menu with all the right ingredients. The décor is perfect, and the wait staff is trained and raring to go.

If we put this back into the context of a website, then the menu, the staff, and the decor make up your on-page SEO. It looks good, is easy to navigate, and the content is great! But a popular, money-making restaurant needs more! It needs a good reputation and excellent reviews to pop up on the radar of food lovers. In the digital world, that, my friend, is provided by off-page SEO.   

Without off-page SEO strategies, search engines wouldn’t know that your website is worth recommending and would not be able to rank it based on its reputation and trustworthiness.

Understanding Off-Page SEO Strategies

Just like in the physical world, reputation is vital for success and visibility in the digital world as well. But how do you go about boosting your online reputation?

What is Off-Page SEO?

Off-page SEO is a set of activities you do online outside of your website to improve its search engine rankings, like getting reviews and reputation building geared towards Google’s algorithms. It is all about what your audience thinks of your website. Google uses signals from your users to determine or rank the authenticity and authority of your site, and this ranking feeds into the larger SEO goal of getting you to the top of search engine results pages (SERPs).

For most people, Off-page SEO usually refers to link building. However, it encompasses a whole set of strategies and techniques. You can visualize them as three main pillars: 

• Backlinks: Backlinks are like referrals from other websites to yours. When a credible website links to your content, search engines see it as a vote of confidence. Quality backlinks signal that your site has valuable information, which can boost your rankings.
• Social Signals: Social media is a huge source of SEO signals and is now actively considered by search algorithms to determine authenticity. When your social or web content gets shared and liked on social platforms, it tells search engines that users find your content engaging and relevant, leading to a boost in your reputation.
• Online Mentions: Another green signal for search engines is when your brand or content is mentioned on other websites, forums, or blogs, even without a direct link. While less valuable than a backlink, these mentions also contribute to your online credibility.

Importance of Off-Page SEO Strategies

Almost 70% of all online experiences begin with a search engine, and 90% of Google traffic comes from page 1 (Ahrefs). If that doesn’t give you a solid reason to focus on SEO, then you need to rethink your digital marketing strategy.  

However, let us detail a few quantifiable results of off-page SEO strategies to make an even more watertight case for investing in off-page SEO:

It Improves Page Ranking and Credibility

Ultimately, you want a spot on Page 1 of Google, and off-page SEO is the ladder that will get you to the top. Even small incremental steps can establish your brand as an expert and help you build trust with your online community.     

It Increases Visibility and Engagement

If you want to expand the digital footprint of your business, then you have to go out and showcase your expertise, engage with the industry, and generally build a positive reputation. Off-page SEO pulls you out of the narrow confines of your website and puts you in front of a larger audience.  

It Drives Web Traffic

Off-page SEO strategies help you exponentially grow your organic web traffic. Every backlink, every mention, and every social media share could potentially get readers and users to click on your link and discover your business. And all of these efforts snowball over time, driving more and more traffic to your site. 

Various Off-Page SEO Techniques

Let’s break down the three pillars of off-page SEO into actionable items that form the bulk of off-page activities:

Link Building

Link building is often synonymous with off-page SEO for a reason. Outside of having high-quality and engaging content on your website, your backlink profile determines your authority with Google and other search engines.

Link building involves acquiring backlinks to your site from external sites. Historically, this emphasis on backlinks led to a lot of clever manipulation by SEO professionals who flooded the system with low-quality backlinks from free directories or comment sections. That doesn’t quite work anymore. 

Now, search algorithms have tightened their systems, and the quality of your backlinks is even more important than the quantity. Only high-quality backlinks from reputable and relevant websites act as a vote of confidence for your content.    

So how do you acquire backlinks?

• Guest Blogging: Collaborate with other websites in your industry or niche to write free, high-quality articles in exchange for a backlink to your own site. Your partner gets excellent free content, and you get a valuable link!
• Content Marketing: Create extremely shareable, relevant, and engaging content that other websites can’t resist sharing and mentioning. People love high-quality infographics, videos, research papers, and statistics.
• Press Releases: Leverage noteworthy events or achievements with press releases that can be picked up by news websites and other online sources. Each news platform that publishes your press release or a story will generate a valuable backlink.
• Forum Participation: Take time to contribute to the online community in your niche. Engaging on discussion boards and forums is a good way to earn mentions and links from forum members and moderators.

Online Mentions and Social Media

Apart from link building, another critical off-page SEO activity is to get people to talk about you and share and engage with your content. Here are some ways you can keep your brand buzzing:

• Social Media Marketing: Over time, social media has become a powerful tool for off-page SEO. Creating and publishing high-quality content consistently can lead to visibility on social channels as well as boost your search engine ranking with positive social signals such as likes, shares, and comments. That’s having your cake and eating it too!
• Influencer Marketing: Partner with industry influencers and experts to promote your content or products. While this is usually a paid marketing activity, it also results in increased visibility and web traffic as they share your content with their followers, giving you exposure to a wider and more targeted audience. Think of influencer partnerships as endorsements from celebrities in your industry. When a renowned chef recommends your restaurant, food enthusiasts are more likely to dine at your place.
• Active Content Promotion: It’s not enough to create great content and bury it in your website. Use organic as well as paid advertising to spread it on social media, via email newsletters, and in relevant online communities. Your chances of getting mentions and backlinks increase when more people interact with your content and discover your offerings.

Online Directory Listings and Reviews

And finally, one last critical step is online directories and local listings. Don’t ignore your Google My Business profile, and add your organization’s profile to relevant online directories and local listings. This is especially important for businesses such as stores and service providers that rely on local customers in an area.

These listings are also highly critical for getting online reviews. So make sure you get your profiles set up and ask customers for reviews!

Off-Page SEO and Your Competitive Edge

Yes, SEO – both, on and off page – is hard work and lots of it! Despite understanding the benefits of it, you might still be wondering if it is worth it.

Well, the answer to that is YES. Your competitors are already doing it (and if they are not, then they are certainly considering it), and you cannot afford to fall behind.  

Getting your SEO strategy up and running will help you thrive in the highly competitive digital landscape. Here’s a look at why off-page SEO is important for SMBs:

1. Keep up with competition with better online visibility

Building a strong SEO presence will put you ahead of your competitors and even give you an edge over more established players in your industry. To be discoverable in a virtual world with billions of websites, you need off-page SEO, where quality backlinking and content will gain you recognition and establish your brand, especially against peers who are not prioritizing off-page techniques.

2. Shine as a credible expert

Trust is a precious commodity in the digital realm. Off-page SEO, especially through quality backlinks from reputable sources, can boost your website’s credibility, making users more likely to trust your business. Ultimately, this leads to search engine algorithms following their cues and ranking your site higher.

3. Drive targeted web traffic

As a small or medium-sized business, you need to focus on revenue, and with off-page SEO activities that focus on quality over quantity, you are more likely to attract visitors who will convert into customers.

This is especially important for businesses whose success is often tied to their local markets. Off-page SEO, such as getting local recommendations, listings in online directories, social media signals, engagement, and reviews from satisfied users, will get more customers into your physical stores.

4. It Creates Long-Term Sustainability

A good backlink or high-quality shareable content has the potential to last the test of time. On-page SEO elements may require frequent updates, but good reviews and backlinks are like a golden goose that keeps on giving.

5. Improve Adaptability to Algorithm Changes

Search engines are constantly updating and changing their algorithms, and diversifying your SEO activities with off-page SEO will prepare you to handle algorithm updates better. For an SMB with limited resources, off-page SEO provides evergreen value.

Partnering with a Full-Service Marketing Agency for Off-Page SEO

While you can implement many off-page SEO strategies independently, working with a marketing agency can save you time and resources. Let an agency handle the hard work of SEO so you can spend your valuable time growing your business while leveraging the expertise of SEO professionals with years of hands-on knowledge.

We respect the fact that budgets might be tight; however, before you make a choice, do consider the benefits of outsourcing your off-page SEO to a full-service marketing agency:

1. Expertise: The biggest benefit of working with experts like Asset Digital Communications is the fact that we are experts! With dedicated teams and specialized skills in ALL aspects of SEO, you will get the best SEO plan tailored to your business.
2. Save time, effort, and resources: SEO can be time-consuming. By outsourcing it to experts, you can focus on your core business activities.
3. SEO that works for you: SEO is an investment, but not every activity might be right for you. With deep knowledge of the entire landscape, agencies like ours can tailor an SEO strategy that works for your business goals, target audience, and budget.
4. Use SEO insights to better your business: Every keyboard stroke generates data, and this can quickly become overwhelming. Marketing experts can cut through the chaff and give you actionable insights that can help you improve your overall marketing plan.

Get a Free SEO Audit

Ready to harness the power of off-page SEO for your business?

Whether you’re a manufacturing company, an insurance agency, or an e-commerce store competing with giants, off-page SEO can become your weapon of visibility in the digital ocean. Embrace it, refine it, and partner with experts to make sure you get the most out of your resources.  

Contact us today to explore how our SEO team can help you get the reviews and recommendations your business needs to build trust and showcase its offerings.

Suggested Reads: 

• Understanding the Role SEO Plays in the Sales Funnel 
• Ultimate Guide on How to Set SEO Goals for Business Growth 
• How to Track SEO KPIs: Important Tools We Use