As discussed in Beginners Guide to SEO Basics, On-page Optimization and Off-page optimization are the two main components of SEO.
Now, let’s see what is off-page optimization and what are the advantages of it in this blog.
What is Off-page Optimization?
Off-page optimization, referred to as off-page SEO, is a set of techniques to be undertaken on behalf of the website to improve the search ranking for increased traffic. As the name suggests, these actions are taken outside the website aimed at search engines.
Off-page optimization refers to link building, social media marketing, social bookmarking, etc.
Search engines strive to provide the most relevant results when searched for something. For the same, they look at a variety of factors including the links. High quality website likely to have references from other sites in the form of backlinks. It is also likely to have mentions on social media, bookmarked and shared among the groups of similar interests too.
Off-page Optimization includes building on the above said with the links, bookmarking and social media marketing.
In the nutshell, off-page optimization factors include improving the trustworthiness, relevance and authority of a website from the user as well as the search engine perspective.
Advantages of Off-page Optimization
Off-page optimization not only improves SEO but also triggers a subsequent search engine optimization cycle with greater exposure resulting in a continuous upsurge in search rankings.
Higher Traffic with Increase Rankings
Off-page optimization increases the traffic to a website with a better search ranking. The better the search rank the higher the traffic.
Greater Exposure
If the search ranking is higher, it automatically attracts attention. It is followed by more clicks, more visits and also more visits.
It would even attract the social media mentions leading to increase in the domain authority, backlinks and overall perception form the search engine and the user perspective.
Off-page Optimization Main Activities
Link Building
Link building is the core of off-page optimization. It is nothing but building links to your website from others in different ways. Search engines consider backlinks as approval for the quality of content. Higher the links greater the acceptance of quality for the search engines.
Different link building activities can be clubbed under three broader categories.
These include:
A) Natural Links: The links which are given on the same subject matter as reference or source, without any interventions from the page can be said to natural links.
For example, a post detailing a particular recipe pointing towards the particular foods types used in the recipes by links.
B) Manually Built Links: These are the backlinks which are manually built with an aim to increase the backlinks. Getting linked by the customers and influencers fall under this category.
C) Self-created Links: Links which are generated by the practices like adding the link in directories, blog, forum comments and signatures, etc. come under this category.
These kinds of self-created links were largely used to manipulate search rankings in the past. Now search engines have become smarter and such links are not being rewarded. But still, it constitutes an SEO practice.
D) No Follow and Do Follow links: In order to avoid black hat SEO where links as generated to manipulate the search ranking and to safeguard the search engines from the spammers, the search engines devised new techniques by refining the algorithms. One such outcome is No Follow and Do Follow links.
A No Follow link is given to webmasters to link the pages without attracting any penalty from the search engines or getting marked as spam. While creating a link, you have to add a particular tag to the link, which is not considered as an approval for the website being linked.
For all the comments links for blogs and forum, this No Follow link with the tag should be created. These do not pass link juice and prevent form credit passing to other sites.
Do Follow links are considered as ‘juice link’ from SEO perspective. All the links otherwise added a tag of No Follow link can be said to be Do Follow Links.
These allow search engines and users to follow the links thus causing the traffic.
Social Media
Social media mentions are gaining over the last few years as a ranking factor. All the social media shares and mentions is a part of off-page SEO link building but these are mostly the No Follow links. These have a value for overall SEO even though these are No Follows.
Social Bookmarking
Social bookmarking was once the most sought after off-page optimizations but not as popular anymore. Still, it is a way to attract traffic, particularly form the same domain directories.
Sharing content at the sites which have high domain authority in the niche fields helps to get good traffic.
On-page combined with off-page optimization is required for the successful SEO campaigns. In the changing times and with different algorithms, if you can build a good website and with little bit off-page optimization, you can increase search ranking significantly.
On-page optimization and the factors influence it has been discussed in the previous post.
