Does Off-Page SEO Matter? 7 Tips on How to Get Powerful Backlinks for Your Website

 

In the past, Search Engine Optimization was all about keyword research. You would simply search for relevant words which you wanted to rank for, then make sure you created the most relevant content to rank for those keywords. However, Google has launched a new set of algorithms. It has become more critical in determining what pages to rank. That is why you need to pay attention to every SEO component in order to launch successful content marketing. 

One of these factors is off-page SEO. It is the process of optimizing your website on other relevant sites for better search engine ranking and visibility. When used correctly, off-page optimization can be a powerful tool in driving non-paid traffic from other people’s websites to your own website. 

If you are not yet familiar with how off-page SEO works, worry less because I will be covering the key points that you need to know. So keep reading. 

What is Off-Page SEO?

Off-page SEO (also called Off-Site SEO) is a technique that is used in utilizing outside sources and platforms to help link-building efforts. Using various types of backlinks can increase your website visibility. These links are usually placed on other websites to link back to your own site. This can be done through various activities such as inbound links, broken link building, forums, social media marketing, guest blogging, and guest posting, unlinked brand mentions, newsletter, and influencer marketing. Backlinks persuade search engines to include the originator’s website in the results of searches for a given keyword.

Why Should You Optimize Your Off-page SEO? 

While there are thousands of posts out there about why people should optimize their website, most of these are focused on on-page SEO rather than off-page SEO. This is why only a few are paying attention to their off-page SEO. A lot of people think that simply having content can make their website stand out. But they failed to realize that off-page optimization matters in overall SEO strategy. 

Here’s why.  

Increase Your Page Ranking

Off-page SEO is known for being one of the backbones of any successful SEO strategy. Almost 80% off-page factors are used by Google as its search engine’s ranking algorithms. So, if you are not optimizing your site with quality backlinks, your website will not rank high on the search engines.

Improve Your Website’s Visibility

Off-page SEO focuses on the back end of your website and can help bring your website to the top of search results and increase your website’s visibility and ranking. Google bots use various types of links (internal links, outbound links, and inbound links) to find your content. Link building, as part of off-page SEO, is one of the most important ranking signals used by Google to rank a website.

Boost Your Website’s Credibility and Relevance

Pages with off-page links are 3.8 times more likely to rank in search engines over pages without external links. That’s because providing links to external sources makes your website more relevant and credible to users, and leads to an increase in the number of links pointing back to it.

Help You Build Your Site Authority

Off-page SEO is the method of increasing the credibility of your website by using the links of other authoritative websites which are linked to the site. These links are directly mapped to your site’s backlink profile. 

Drive Organic Traffic

If you want to get traffic from Google, you need to start building your backlinks. Ahrefs found out that 90.63% of websites never get organic traffic from Google simply because they do not have inbound links. Optimizing your off-page SEO can leverage the power of the web to drive traffic to your site. By link building, you are attracting new customers to visit your site which eventually increases your sales. 

Types of Backlinks

Backlinks are essential in the success of your off-page optimization. These are direct and identifiable connections that you place in other people’s websites to link back to your own page. The more incoming links you have, the more authority your website has and the more likely it is to show up in SERPs. 

There are various types of inbound links that you can use depending on the type of site you are trying to rank. I enumerated in this section the most common that you can create to improve your website’s domain authority and increase your rankings. 

Editorial Backlinks

Editorial Backlinks are one of the most powerful signals in the SERPs yet the most underutilized. These are links published by websites that are relevant to your industry but are not the primary source of the content you are linking to. These inbound links can be used to increase your authority “votes” on the website, which in turn can help build your authority. These are also designed to spread the word about your site, and they do so in a way that’s both measurable and actionable. If you’re not leveraging them, you’re leaving a lot of value on the table in your campaigns and your overall SEO strategy.

Guest Posting Backlinks

This type of inbound link is a great way to get established on a blog that will help you with your SEO. The idea is that you write a blog post that you submit to the blog of the site owner, and you gain a link from them. This is a great way for you to get your name out there, and it will help your blog to grow.

Backlinks from Webinars

Many people are turning to webinars for their business. A webinar is an internet-based presentation that allows you to teach your customers through video, audio, and/or text presentation. But aside from these, webinars can also be a great way to promote your website. 

Comment Backlinks

One of the most effective ways to improve the volume and quality of your site’s incoming links is to start posting comments on other sites. Most of the time, comments are the only way visitors can interact with the site. As such, it is important to ensure that your blog’s comment section is the best it can be. This means you need to select relevant and engaging comments so that your blog will attract more visitors and increase your number of organic visitors. 

Press Release Backlinks

These types of incoming links are links from a press release website to a site with relevant content. Most of the time it is a link from a PR Web site to a blog, a site with quality content, a guest post, a product review, or a news site with relevant content. The key to getting backlinks for your press release has always been to find a newsworthy story that your readers will find interesting. You can then use that story to land backlinks on the press release on news sites that are relevant to your topic. 

Badge Backlinks

Badge inbound links are linked to social bookmarking sites such as Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, and Technorati. When people bookmark a website, they usually leave a link to the webpage so the website owner can gain more exposure and traffic. If a webpage is cited often on bookmarking sites, this will often give the webpage more exposure and traffic than it would have without this type of exposure. However, these links seem to be less relevant with the latest Google algorithm updates.

Acknowledgment Backlinks

Acknowledgments are among the most powerful and almost completely overlooked backlinks that can help you rank higher in search engines. It is the type of inbound link that is posted on someone’s profile page that is of more significance than the link that is posted on your blog. Usually, these are created when you sponsor an event. 

Relationship-based Backlinks

Relationship-based backlinks have been getting a lot of buzz in the SEO community, especially among agencies that help clients get more leads and traffic from their websites. One component of these backlinks is what we call “relationship backlinks”. It is a type of incoming link which is generated from one partner to another rather than from other websites.

Infographic Backlinks

Infographic backlinks are a very specific type of incoming link that is generated from a blog article that contains a graphical image or a table. When these links are created with good quality, they are sometimes even more powerful than the original content. Infographics are becoming more and more popular and so, more and more infographics are created on the Internet. Almost all infographic designs on the Internet today are static and need external links to be viewed.

Where to Find Backlink Opportunities?

Backlink hunting is one of the most important off-page SEO tactics. If you’re not working on backlinks, you’re missing out on one of the most underutilized resources for search engine rankings, ranking your website higher in organic search, and increasing traffic to your site. Based on my experience, backlinks from relevant sites are stronger than powerful general or irrelevant websites. That is why I advise that you find websites or pages that are relevant to your site more than just powerful irrelevant websites. However, to spread out your profile, try to have some powerful irrelevant backlinks. But avoid having too much of this because it can be bad for your link-building efforts. 

While there are lots of ways to get backlinks, most of them are just spammy backlinks and useless. Also, finding opportunities can be challenging especially if you are a newbie to the world of link building. But do not worry because, in this section, I am going to share with you my methods for getting backlinks.

• Guest Post

Guest posting is the most common tactic to have a quality backlink. You can offer a high-quality post to authoritative sites in exchange for backlinks on the post to your site. Site owners get more content which attributes to more keywords indexed. Usually, you can do guest posting for free. But sometimes, you need to pay the site owners. Free guest posting usually has very low traffic but their site traffic can improve over time if the site owners are actively building their sites.

• Broken Links

Broken links are backlinks opportunities from a dead or broken domain. If you use Google Search Console to assess backlinks, you will find that many links are “broken.” Or, at least, the server that the site owner uses returns an error message when you try to visit the site. Such links are valuable for you to use in your profile because they prove that the owner of the site is still active and they provide you valuable contextual information.

• Online Forums

Online forums are quality backlinks. By just focusing on forum backlinks, your site can get on page 1 already. These are common ways to increase a website’s search engine citation juice. They allow you to ask questions, post a topic, and connect with other people- both from the company and from the community. They can be used to share tips and search out answers, as well as to promote a company’s products and services to the visitors who frequent the forums. They can also be used to find prospective customers.

• Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is also a good option to try especially if you are building your local SEO. Good quality blogs can help you to rank up the search engine very quickly and their traffic is highly converting. However, you may need to pay the influencers in exchange for backlinks. If you are on a tight budget, can offer them a free product. You can also negotiate with them to advertise your product both on their blog and social media pages. 

• Profile Linking

Profile linking is another great opportunity for backlinks. It is also a good way to way to improve your website’s ranking and drive traffic. Here, you create an account on various websites and add your website links along with your personal, professional, or business profiles. You can also use Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for profile linking and to get referral traffic. However, I don’t recommend this because Google does not use these social media platforms to index your site. Instead, look for high-ranking websites that would allow you to create your profile link. 

• Niche Edits

Niche Edits is almost similar to guest posting because these both use the content for link building. However, in niche edits, backlinks are being added to an old blog on other people’s websites. For example, you can type in your niche in Google to look for websites with existing content that covers your same niche. Then, you can contact the site owner and ask them to use the keyword that you want as an anchor text and link it to your website.  

• Experts Roundup

Link roundup is basically a blog post that has a collection of interviews from experts in your niche. Here, you search for the most talked topics or frequently asked questions, then you will interview influential people or experts to get their thoughts about the topic you will be working on. Then, you can ask them to promote your blog by posting on their own websites or social media pages. 

• Top X List

Another backlink opportunity you can try is the top X list. Here, you are going to write new content that features the top things in your niche. For example, you write a topic on Best SEO Tools 2021 and you want to feature tools such as Ahrefs, Frase, and MarketMuse. You can contact these companies to inform them about the topic you will be writing on. Then, you ask them if they want to be listed as number one in the article in exchange for a backlink. 

5 Simple Tactics to Off-Page Optimization

Content marketing is the most effective way to capture new leads for your business, but if you’re not using off-page SEO techniques to increase organic reach, then you’re missing a big opportunity. No matter how great your content marketing is, if it doesn’t get picked up by high-authority sites, it will not do you any good. Fortunately, there are simple tactics you can include for your SEO checklist to increase organic reach for your content, and they all have a single commonality: they focus on helping your content get picked up by sites that have authority.

• Check Your Backlink Profile

When it comes to off-page optimization, one of the most important factors is the link profile of your website. A link profile is the combination of the keywords of the domain and the sites that link to your site. All the links in that profile are seen by search engines as highly relevant and essential so that it will increase the ranking of your site in the SERP. You can use tools such as Authoritas, Ahrefs Backlink Checker, Ubersuggest, Google Search Console, and Moz Link Explorer to do your SEO audit.

• Evaluate Your Competitors’ Backlink Profiles

A great way to improve your rankings is to do a backlink analysis for your competitors. You want to see if they’re taking advantage of the link-building opportunities that are available to them. You also want to know exactly where they are getting the links. Evaluating your competitors’ profiles allow you to gain 20% more links to your site. Backlink profiles are the most common targets for link building. 

Moreover, by evaluating them, you can see which link profiles Google is giving more weight to and which are not, and that can lead to significant improvements in your rankings. You can also use the tools I mentioned above to evaluate your competitors’ profiles.  

• Optimize Your On-Page SEO

The ability to properly optimize your website’s on-page SEO is vital to effective off-page SEO. Too many business owners or marketers simply assume that off-page SEO is the only possible way to improve SEO rankings. But both on-page SEO and off-page SEO are equally important in the overall success of your SEO efforts. That is why as you work on your off-page SEO, you should also pay attention to your on-page optimization. 

• Always Look for Guest Posting Opportunities

Guest Posting is another off-page SEO strategy you can try. It is basically the act of publishing content (either written or video) to other websites in exchange for a link. The link itself isn’t the goal here. The goal is to get your content in front of an audience that might lead to an organic search result. You can also use guest blogging to build your profile which will, in turn, lead to more opportunities (and more guest posting). 

• Post Your Content on Social Media

Social media can help your website get more eyes. There are several different benefits to this strategy. The most prominent of which is the potential for your content to spread throughout the social media community. However, there is a downside to this type of promotion in that you are likely to find your content reposted on other sites without your knowledge.

Final Thought

The digital marketing arena is changing fast. It is shifting from a search-driven world to an engagement-driven world where marketers are creating content that is engaging and relevant to users instead of just selling their products and services. That is why if you are not optimizing your off-page SEO, you are definitely missing out on the biggest opportunity for quality link building and traffic generation. 

Off-page SEO plays a critical role in the process of ranking your website on the search engine results page as well as in reaching out to a wider audience. Anything that can help increase your search engine ranking can also help increase leads. People buy what they can get from what they see in search results, so a higher-ranking website is more likely to show up in the SERPs. That’s why you should always optimize your off-page SEO.