Off-Site SEO

Off-site SEO aims to strengthen your online reputation and increase the number of visitors to your site.

So how does off-site SEO work?

Off-site SEO provides search engines with a clear indication of how people around the world (i.e. other websites and web users) perceive your website and its value.

Some of this value is determined by Google, and the other search engines, by measuring the number, and most importantly, the quality of links that point to your website, the number of mentions on social media (Facebook likes, Tweets, Pins, +1’s and so on) and the number of bookmarks to your site and the amount of content on your site that’s shared by others around the world.

However, off-site SEO has changed a lot in the past few years. Traditionally, off-site SEO focused on improving keyword. But from 2012 when Google introduced Penguin, this virtually put an end to traditional off-site SEO.

So, now that you can no longer rely on off-site SEO for keyword ranking, how should you be managing your off-site SEO in order to improve your rankings in search results (SERPSs), and build your brand’s credibility and appeal?

At digitalpact, our off-site SEO services are contained within separate sections:

• Link Building
• Social Media
• Local SEO
• Local Citation and NAP consistency
• Business Reviews

Link Building

Off-site SEO tells search engines how websites and human users perceive the value of any given website. A valuable or useful website is more likely to contain links from other sites, mentions on social media (Facebook likes, tweets, Pins, +1’s and so on.), and, importantly, it is more likely to be bookmarked and have its content shared among online communities of people with similar interests.

What are the benefits of ‘off-site SEO’ to website owners?

A dedicated off-site SEO strategy should generate these key benefits to website owners:

An increase in rankings

• Your website will rank higher in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) and this means more traffic to your site.

An increase in PageRank

• The PageRank is defined by a number between 0 and 10 which indicates the value which Google assigns to the importance of your website. The system itself was invented by Larry Page (one of Google’s two founders) and is one of the reasons that Google has been successful in showing relevant results to the person searching online.  However, today PageRank is just 1 out of 250 factors that Google uses to rank websites around the world.

An increase in exposure

• With higher rankings comes greater exposure, because when a website ranks at or near the top positions in the SERPs it is more likely to get more links from other sites, more visits and more mentions on social media.

So, how do we build links to your site that comply with Google’s guidelines to boost your rankings, Pagerank and exposure?

There is a growing number of options of where to build links to your site from, but the below provides an overview of the most powerful tools we use:

Directories:

Although bulk link acquisition through low-quality or paid directory listings is no longer an option according to Google, many directories still deliver great link juice (reputation, traffic and relevance) to a site.

Yahoo! Directory, Yell and Thomson Local are some of the obvious ones, but securing links on local business resources, such as a town council’s directory of local businesses, can also give your site a boost up the rankings. These directories support local business citation which in turn helps to improved your site’s ranking in local searches. However, what’s even more important is that listings in relevant directories will also help potential customers find your business. And this is the main purpose of any business directory listing!

Competitors:

A competitive link analysis of your main competitors’ websites can be a great way to expose and leverage link opportunities from sites that have listed or mentioned your competitors. This is one of the first tactics we put into place to replicate your competitors’ best backlinks, to build your own business!

This tactic means we can build powerful and natural link profiles over time which continue to generate steady traffic to your site.

Guest Posts:

Despite Google’s focus on guest blog networks, Guest Posts are still a great way to build up your link profile, it all comes down to how you post.

If you’re an industry expert, and your posts are full of relevant, informative content and posted to trusted and relevant sites, which then link to related content on your own website (such as research), then you are well on your way. This approach earns you links based on merit, relevance and integrity.

We work closely with all our clients on guest posting to create a strategy for content creation, distribution and follow up that generates high-quality links to your site.

Your Industry:

One simple means of building your link profile, and this the traffic levels to your site, is to acquire credible links from your suppliers or other companies in your industry. Such links are often mutually beneficial to both companies, and to your customers.

Our approach is to identify your key industry contacts and propose mutually beneficial links and content ideas which can generate more traffic to both sites, while increasing brand awareness and relevance in your industry.

Other link-building tactics to improve off-site SEO:

• Online press releases through paid press release services.
• Your own site blog and other relevant blogs.
• Thought leadership articles and whitepapers
• Useful interactive online tools that others will want to link to.

This is only an overview of some of the ways to build up a solid, Google-approved link profile, so do get in touch to learn more about how we can help you fully optimise your site.