Do We Really Need Off-Page Optimization Anymore?

When we talk about search engine optimization, two of the most commonly used terms are ‘off-page’ and ‘on-page’ optimization. ‘On page optimization’ refers to all the steps taken directly within the website to enhance the search engine rankings. These measures could be the content optimization, improving meta description or title tags, etc. On the other hand ‘off page optimization’ refers to links, etc.Both on-page and off page optimization are essential for a successful online business as both are directed towards the same goal in different ways. The goal is getting your website found by search engines when a keyword relevant to your site is searched.

On-page optimization not only helps to enhance search engine ranking but also increases the overall readability of the site. However, the on-page optimization techniques undergone fewer changes compared to off-page. Any errors on the webpage can be corrected by tweaking them.

Steps taken for off page optimization are not visible on the webpage. The work done is mostly in the background. Off-page optimization entails acquiring backlinks from authority websites on your niche.

It is the process of optimizing a brand online and offline using content, relationships to attract the prospects and search engine crawl bots. Its objective is a positive brand image, improved search engine rankings, and increased traffic to your site and conversions.

Most people consider off-page SEO as Link building. But off-page SEO is not limited to just that. Although link building is important for SEO but not exactly how it was then.

Google aims to provide results that will provide value to the searcher. Therefore only relevant search results appear on page one based on the query.

Ranking on Google depends on:

1. Associate to authority websites
2. Linking to websites with high Page rank
3. Join to Niche based websites
4. Reach to websites having low outbound links

Hence off-page SEO is focused on accumulating positive signals and interactions with your brand. In order to achieve create a post that is accessible, interesting and useful, off-page works in three main areas:

1. Brand
2. Audience
3. Content

A well-structured off-page SEO strategy benefits website owners by:

Increased Rankings: It directly results in the higher ranking of the website in SERP which leads to more traffic.

Increased Page Rank: Page rank indicates the importance of a web page in the eyes of Google. It is one of the critical factors for ranking websites.

Enhanced Exposure: Once the ranking of the page is improved, it leads to more exposure of the site as it is in the top positions. The site gets more links, more visits, and social media mentions.

Off-page SEO is definitely one of the best ways for a website to reach out to a wider audience and connect with them.

1. Social Media Metrics (Facebook likes, Pinterest pins, Tweets, etc)
2. Comments by users
3. Social Bookmarking
4. Forum Posting

And other such factors.

Acquire quality backlinks

1. Blogging
2. Landing Pages
3. Email
4. Marketing Automation
5. Lead Management
6. Analytics
7. Website SEO
8. Social Media Monitoring
9. Calls-to-Action
10. Ads
11. Salesforce Integration

Backlinks are the key factor in getting rankings. Maximum sites that rank high in Google search results have a minimum of one external link pointing to the site.

For content marketers and bloggers, backlinks are one of the most important factors because search engines trust your website more if it has any authoritative relevant backlinks.

Whenever there is a fresh content, Google indexes the pages making them available for search users. Google ranks the content based on ranking factors.

These are:

1. Number of linking domains
2. Page rank of the linking page
3. Number of linking pages
4. Authority of linking domain
5. Count number of dofollow links
6. Contextual links
7. Links from homepage
8. Relevancy of links

Since Google considers the value of your site based on the backlinks from authoritative sites, the next challenge is “how to get the authoritative links?”

Here are a few techniques for getting quality backlinks:

1. Guest Blogging: This is a great way to avail quality backlinks. It basically entails finding out the top blogs in your niche and pitch your blogs based on those. If accepted, your article gets published.

2. Building Broken Links: If hosting expires while transferring files or migration of sites, links get broken. This way many links on authority blogs are dead. Although it does not impact your site’s ranking, it gives a poor user experience.

You can carry out a backlink analysis on websites of your niche and contact the owners of sites with dead links. You can offer replacement links. It is possible that these websites will include your link on their website.

3. Infographics: It is a well-known fact that “a picture speaks a thousand words”. One of the best ways to attract the audience and acquire authoritative backlinks is by using attractive infographics. Infographics can also be used for generating organic traffic by promoting them adequately.

4. Leverage Social Media: Evolution of Social Media has greatly transformed SEO practices. For enhancing your site’s off-page SEO, you need to ensure that you improve your social shares. Social media can be used effectively to reveal facts about your audience such as where they hang out and at what time, etc.

5. Answer Questions on Quora: Quora is a site where queries of any type can be answered. It plays a significant part in effective SEO. Whether you are looking to market your product/service, build links, or enhancing your brand online, Quora is the best community for you.

Answer questions on Quora on topics relevant to your business. If the audience accepts your answers in the form of upvotes, Google displays your answer for related queries. Therefore, it is vital that you provide detailed answers as this directly enhances the traffic to your site. Quora is a good avenue for generating leads because it gives you an opportunity to interact regularly with your readers.

6. YouTube Videos: YouTube has become the most popular search engine after Google. Links from the meta descriptions of YouTube videos give a great boost to your off page SEO. YouTube has great power to attract the audience.

1. Analyze the trending ideas in your niche.
2. Create high-quality original videos.
3. Create videos which depict how you are different from others.
4. Upload videos on a daily or weekly basis.
5. Gain subscribers to your channel and then promote it.

However, getting subscribers to your channel is a time taking process. Hence, you need to keep on creating and wait patiently for the results.

7. Participate in Blog link roundups: Link roundups are one of the best ways to promote your blog and get traffic. It is a means to connect with other bloggers and get attention towards your blog.

8. Secure your site from Google Penalties: There are algorithms such as Google Penguin which penalize spammy links. It was introduced to penalize websites which used “Black Hat” SEO techniques to boost their ranking.

It is critical to save your site from Google Penalties because recovering from them is difficult.

In order to protect your site conduct an audit to check which links are good and which ones are not.

9. You can ensure good backlinks to your site by: Audit your site using tools such as SEM Rush.

1. Optimize your content by using keywords effectively. Enhance your content by using visuals and infographics.
2. Use different keyword phrases such that your links do not match the anchor texts exactly. This way Google will consider your links as natural.

10.Submit to Directories and Forums: There are certain directories and forums where if you submit your content, its visibility is enhanced.

Social Bookmarking Sites: Promoting content on popular social bookmarking sites such as stumbleupon, slashdott, dig, technorati, etc. increases traffic to your site.

S.No	Social bookmarking sites	DA	PA	PR
1	https://delicious.com	98	96	8
2	http://stumbleupon.com	98	90	8
3	http://digg.com	99	96	7
4	http://slashdot.org	94	95	7
5	http://diigo.com	92	65	7

Forum Posting: Forum posting enables you to build connections with the community related to your niche. You can submit on dofollow forums such as blokube, Blog Engage, Indiblogger, bbpress, Warrior forum, etc.

S.No	Forum Submission Sites	DA	PA	PR
1	https://www.flickr.com/help/forum/en-us/	98	61	9
2	http://www.addthis.com/forum	100	57	8
3	https://bbpress.org/forums/	79	64	7
4	http://www.careerbuilder.com	88	90	7
5	http://www.chronicle.com/forums	88	44	4

Blog Directory Submission: This method takes time to yield results but it is one of the best ways to build quality back links.

S.No	Blog Directory Submission Sites	DA	PA	PR
1	http://www.boingboing.net	91	89	8
2	http://technorati.com	99	95	7
3	http://www.networkedblogs.com	91	92	7
4	http://www.elecdir.com	36	42	6
5	http://www.a1webdirectory.org/	49	57	5

Article Submission sites: Submitting quality articles on your niche with appropriate use of keywords is an effective way to improve the visibility of your website.

S.No	Article Submission Sites	DA	PA	PR
1	http://www.thefreelibrary.com/	78	82	7
2	http://www.magportal.com	54	61	6
3	http://ezinearticles.com	89	92	6
4	http://hubpages.com/	87	89	6
5	http://www.brighthub.com/	68	73	5

Image Submission Sites: You can submit optimized images with the correct URL and title tag on Flickr, Instagram, Picasa, etc.

S.No	Image Submission Sites	DA	PA	PR
1	https://www.flickr.com/	98	97	9
2	https://instagram.com/	97	96	9
3	https://picasa.google.com/	100	91	8
4	https://www.tumblr.com/	98	96	8
5	http://www.deviantart.com/	92	93	7
6	http://imgur.com/	95	93	6
7	https://www.mediafire.com/	89	91	6
8	https://www.shutterfly.com/	84	87	6
9	http://www.fotolog.com/	74	79	6

Infographic submission: Creative infographics can be submitted to sites such as visual.ly, Reddit, etc. Provide reference links to your website.

S.No	Infographics Submission Sites	DA	PA	PR
1	http://visual.ly/	84	87	7
2	http://www.reddit.com/r/Infographics	99	55	4
3	http://submitinfographics.com/	44	50	4
4	http://www.nerdgraph.com/	38	48	4
5	http://www.infographiclove.com/	26	38	2
6	http://www.infographicsarchive.com/	40	49	2

Since all the above sites have high Page Authority (PA) and Domain Authority (DA)they provide a better ranking to your page in Google Search.

The significance of off-page optimization in enhancing the ranking of a website cannot be denied. For effective search engine optimization, both on-page and off-page optimization are essential. A company that provides professional SEO services is well equipped to plan the best SEO strategy to ensure that your website ranks high in SERPs.