Off-page SEO techniques are often underestimated. When we talk about optimization, most people think about on-site activities like keyword placement, content structuring, media naming, meta tags, etc.
But the reputation of your site is built outside of it for the most part. User-generated content, reviews on big websites, the condition of your backlink portfolio all matter for the ranking and authority of your pages.
If you have a WordPress site, it’s relatively easy to optimize it, but the process is labor-intensive. You can hire specialists or use the following recommendations we have got from experts in the field.
We think it’s worth reading the tips, understanding what is off-site SEO and how to implement its strategies, and then contacting a professional service. A team of pros will do a quick audit of your site and help you optimize it.
Analyze Your Backlink Profile
First of all, you need a quality link-building process to have a healthy, respected website. Look at your profile and analyze its quality using some of the modern SEO tools. These tools can show you the backlinks of your domain using their backlinks API feature. See how many spammy links there are, how old the latest mention is.
Maybe it’s time to tidy up the portfolio and add some new credible links. After all, they help achieve so many goals:
- Brand awareness boost;
- Better reputation;
- Higher ranking, etc.
They show search engine crawlers that your source is credible as it’s mentioned on general and industry-specific websites. It’s popular and contains high-quality and relevant data worth sharing in their own posts.
If there are spammy links, they communicate the opposite to the crawlers, that your website is as spammy and you’re manipulating the profile to increase the number of links (for some reason).
If you find many low-quality mentions on the profile, it’s easy to disavow them using Google tools. Be careful not to add any valuable backlinks to the Disavow file, though, as you may lose all the benefits associated with it.
When you finish clean-up, it’s time to get some organic quality backlinks.
Build Links by Using Guest Posting Opportunities
We’ve established how important inbound links are for any off-page SEO strategy. Now, let’s learn about an approved way to build them.
Guest posting is available on blogs and websites on any topic. You can find enough by searching your focus keyword + “write for us“, “contribute to our blog”, and similar queries on Google.
Study the posts the sources already have and think about the ways you can contribute to them so well that all their traffic rushes to your site.
Then, create an offer and negotiate to insert a backlink to one of your posts or the homepage. Hire a copywriter or try to create an engaging text yourself. Add media if needed, and publish the post.
There you go! There’s one more backlink to your site on a relevant, credible blog you have chosen.
Build Broken Links and Use Unlinked Mentions
There are other methods that don’t require that much work but still improve off page SEO factors. We’ll review two of them here. All you need to use them is great communication skills and a couple of tools:
- Broken link building.
You have to research the Net for credible sites that have links to pieces similar to yours that lead to broken pages. Some people just remove content or even sell or close their websites. Each case like this is an opportunity for you to get another nice inbound link. Write an email to the owner of the site or its content editor. Highlight the broken link and offer a substitution. There’s a great chance you’ll get approval since no webmaster liked broken links on their pages. - Unlinked mention search.
Set up Google Alarms and get notifications about unlinked mentions of your business, website, persona, products, services, or industry-specific words. Look for websites that fit your link profile by rating and topic and contact their owners or editors. Prove that you’re a representative of the business mentioned on their site, pitch your content, and ask for a backlink. Most of the time, people agree to your terms because it’s beneficial for them to have useful additional material their visitors can read.
These two will almost effortlessly find you more links. Yes, you’ll have to communicate with people in charge and look for ‘link prospects’, but it’s very little compared to brainstorming a topic and writing an engaging piece of content.
Create Linkable Content (Text and Media)
Create highly linkable content:
- Guides;
- ‘101 method for…’;
- Infographics;
- Research;
- Statistics;
- Tutorials, etc.
All of these are suitable for mentioning in other pieces by other bloggers. Everyone likes some fresh stats or an infographic filled with useful data. Such content will not only get you inbound links but also:
- Rank higher;
- Increase organic traffic due to a higher ranking;
- Increase referral traffic due to the popularity of your links.
Of course, when users visit your website, it should be optimized as well. For WordPress sites, categories and tags are especially important. To harness the topic, look here and learn how to use them properly for better SEO.
Gain Reviews and Mentions of High-Authority Websites
One link on Yelp is better than 10 links on relevant sites with medium authority. One post on Reddit that mentions the name of your brand will start a thread about it. You can get both backlinks and chatter around the business, which is usually good (if your content is high-quality, as well as products and services). Many users look for sources to buy upvotes to get the target audience presence in a short time possible.
Bad reviews bring an opportunity to improve your site and show how polite and caring you are when it comes to your readers and/or customers.
Depending on your niche, try to get mentions on:
- TripAdvisor;
- Yelp;
- Clutch;
- GoodFirms;
- Trustpilot, etc.
Nothing proves your credibility as well as content from your customers and/or readers. Such pieces are also called social proof and they really prove your reliability to potential clients.
You get backlinks, chatter, praise, valuable feedback, reputation and brand awareness improvement, and many more advantages thanks to the users that decide to write about you. Always encourage them to do so and ask to share their reviews and other content to show gratitude.
Don’t Underestimate Off-Site SEO
Most people think of on-site and technical SEO when talking about website optimization. However, maintaining things off-site is equally important if you want to build a good reputation.
The examples of improvement actions are building links with guest posts, analyzing the existing mentions, substituting broken links, etc. These easy steps will get your web source more targeted traffic and improve its credibility.
Then, your job is to maintain it!
