We all know there are certain things we need to do to website pages in order to optimise them for search engines. But did you also know there are many elements of off page SEO that can greatly influence your site’s ranking?
Here are some of the top methods for optimising your pages using the internet and its various opportunities – but only after you have completed on page SEO.
1. Off Page SEO – Inbound Links
Perhaps the number one to gain a higher ranking is to build a number of quality inbound links to your pages. This type of off page SEO can be achieved in various ways, such as leaving comments on other relevant blogs, exchanging links with a reputable site, and being added to blogrolls.
Conversely, outbound links are also important. Use trackbacks whenever possible and don’t be afraid to mention another authority niche site or blog in your content.
2. Social Media Marketing
In today’s world of online marketing, there is arguably not one thing more important than creating a presence at several social networking sites.
The top two are Facebook and Twitter, but more than that are literally hundreds of other places where you can create a profile and network with people who just might have an interest in your products or services. These include LinkedIn, bookmarking sites, Bebo, Flickr and YouTube (where you can add links to photos or video pieces), and many more.
Forums are another great place to interact with potential customers. Very specific forums or groups related to some aspect of your business provide an excellent opportunity to offer advice, listen to concerns, and drive traffic to your site via your reputation as an authority on a particular subject.
But don’t sign up at more sites than you maintain; you should be an active member to make social networking effective as a marketing tool.
3. Blogs
Of course you should have your own blog which links back to your website, but also consider guest posting. Blogs are a great way to create a lot of link juice, not only through links added to the text content, but comments, the blogroll, images, and video or audio content. A popular blog post with lots of subscribers is worth its weight in gold.
Don’t forget to submit your completed posts to social bookmarking sites, too. You can gain a lot of traffic by adding your well-written and informative content, along with a relevant and compelling description, to social bookmarking sites where you are an active member.
4. Article Directories
Submit articles you write to various article directories. Most article directory memberships base benefits on the status of the author, usually determined by number of articles posted. So do be careful of spreading yourself too thin.
Pick a couple good ones with lots of traffic, such as EzineArticles, and commit to providing content on a regular basis. Use the resource box to add links to your website. The more you write, the better your chances of becoming known as an authority and driving traffic to your site.
5. Local Directories
If your business provides services or products to a specific geographic area, don’t forget to submit it to local directories, such as those on Google and Yahoo. Some directories charge a fee for inclusion, but many of them are free. After you are listed, remember to ask clients to add their ratings and comments.
These are just some of the ways you can increase off page SEO for your website and it’s pages. Don’t forget to include these search engine optimisation methods after you have performed SEO on the pages themselves.
About Sean Rasmussen
Thanks for posting this – I came to your blog through finding you on Twitter. I was wondering if you could explain trackbacks a little more? What are they and how do they work? What is the trackback address I should list when publishing a post? And is this related to pingbacks?
I’m relatively new to blogging for my business and trying to figure it all out. Thanks for providing such great info. I’m bookmarking your blog.
Kate
Hi Kate, I have written an article on trackbacks that should give you a good idea on what they are all about
Thanks for this article on off page seo. It has inspired me to submit my site to DMOZ (at last).
My pleasure Wal, getting stuck into the many methods of off page SEO will give you greater exposure and higher organic search rankings over time. It is a never ending process, so stick with it
I have added a couple of my sites to my LinkedIn profile as well as a RSS feed from one of them. Not sure if I am actually getting any traffic from it yet as I haven’t seen anything on GA, however it adds that little extra to the profile…
Also, I think that the refreshing of the RSS feed helps to keep my LinkedIn profile ‘fresh’ in the eyes of the search engines – so its win win.
Win win sounds good to me Cemil. Don’t forget, like any social networking site, the more you interact (with questions and answers etc) the more beneficial you will find the service
First of all I would like to thank you for this informative post. I definitely agree with you when you said, “Blogs are a great way to create a lot of link juice, not only through links added to the text content, but comments, the blogroll, images, and video or audio content. A popular blog post with lots of subscribers is worth its weight in gold.” That is so true and online marketers should not overlook the power of blogs.
The way I see it blogging has emerged as one of the best marketing tool on the web. Every entrepreneur should realize the various advantages of blogging and use those to grow your online business.
You are welcome PV. I completely agree with you where you say “blogging has emerged as one of the best marketing tool on the web”. If you are not utilising the power of blogs, you are missing out on very powerful piece of the internet marketing jigsaw
Hi Sean,
I guess it’s easy to overlook all the opportunities that offline SEO offers to promote your website / product. There are so many that I am not still struggeling to work them all properly. Especially the article directories are a challenge for me. Still working on the technique to re-write articles and post them there.
There are many ways indeed Renee. Try not to get overwhelmed with it all, working on one piece of the puzzle at a time is the way to go in my opinion
hi ,
thanks for sharing grate blog .I am really impressed . I also doing this but my Website has not get well Ranking.So can you give me some suggestion to get good ranking?
Hi PeterMark
Achieving high rankings depends on many things, one of the number one factors is how competitive the keywords/phrases are that you are targeting. You could possibly be targeting very competitive niches and keywords within that niche. Here are a couple of articles that may help Long Tail Keywords and On Page SEO. It would be hard to give you much more advice without looking at your site and assessing your SEO and target keyphrases etc.
Hi Sean,
I find my off page SEO to be a work in progress. It seems like there are always areas that I can improve on. I think this is a good thing though as my blog is definitely not as successful as I want it to be.
At least this way I have things to work on and that feels a whole lot better than having done it all and not got the results I was looking for.
Off page SEO is a never ending work in progress Jazz! There is always something that you can be doing to improve it. One thing I noticed Jazz, is that you are not including your blog URL when you leave blog comments, any reason for that? There’s one way right there to increase your blog exposure
Hi Sean,
Thanks for your post.Off page seo strategies is definately something I can work on more. You have clarified a question for me that not to spread yourself too thin as you need to maintain a presence on each site. Just wondering if doing this via ping.fm would be ok.
Thanks Sean,
Off page Seo is really cool but one thing I have been interested in finding out is how to get .edu & .gov backlinks as they are high quality links to have right?
Hi Sean
Thank you for another great post. I realise that I will need to start getting links and reading other people’s blogs now and get more involved in microblogging. Do you think I should just follow people in my niche now? is it too distracting and time wasting to follow people who are interesting but not in my specialised area or is it good for me to cover a broader spectrum when I am just starting out as you never know who may become interested in my niche? (I hope that makes sense).
It certainly won’t hurt to pay a little more attention to people interested in your niche Elly. Targeted prospects will always be better than un-targeted prospects
This is certainly a great post. The more I read about this subject, the more I understand that I’m not doing as much as I could. You Aussie’s are way ahead of us Canucks!
I am new to this whole SEO thing. So, curious given that so many people are suggesting article marketing and I assume that a lot of people are doing that too. Isn’t Google going to discount them. What do you think?
Great article, demystifying SEO.