Off-page SEO methods are critical for increasing your site’s reliability and visibility. Here are five tips for improving your off-page SEO and increasing your domain authority.
What is off-page SEO?
Off-page SEO refers to all of the activity that occurs away from your website and influences where you rank in search engine results pages (SERPs). Optimizing for off-site SEO ranking elements is critical for increasing your website’s relevance, trustworthiness, and authority. This is reflected in Google’s algorithm factors, with off-page SEO accounting for more than half of the ranking considerations. A solid off-page SEO strategy might be the difference between where you and your competitors appear in the SERPs.
How off-page SEO techniques can improve your Domain Authority (DA)
Improving your off-page SEO performance will have a direct impact on your Domain Authority score (DA). The DA of your site is a ranking number that determines your site’s ability to rank in the SERPs. This score ranges from 1 to 100 and is based on a variety of characteristics such as linking root domains and the overall number of links. Your site’s DA is not a number utilised by Google to determine where you rank, but it is a good indicator of how well your site is performing in terms of off-site SEO.
Here are five off-site SEO tactics you can use to give your website the best chance of increasing its domain authority and, as a result, ranking better in the SERPs.
1. Creating valuable backlinks
Creating backlinks is at the heart of off-site SEO and is a tactic that is essential for every site that wants to rank on page one. When Google evaluates where your site ranks, backlinks are the most important ranking element. If one domain has more backlinks than another, Google will likely rank it higher. Furthermore, Google considers the quality of this link; a link from a site with a higher domain authority (DA) is far more effective than a link from a site with a low DA. Nonetheless, Google’s algorithm takes the relevance of the link to your domain into account.
To improve your off-page SEO performance, you can create two types of links:
- Natural links: links that are formed without any action on the part of the user. This may be a blogger, for example, who likes your work and connects to it from their website. This type of link can be an excellent indicator of trust, respect, and endorsement.
- Self-promotional links: These links can be obtained by promoting or marketing your business online. This form of connection can be obtained by requesting clients to link to your site or by having an influencer share your material.
Creating authoritative and relevant backlinks in accordance with major search engine guidelines such as Google should be at the forefront of any digital strategy. Links will drive referral traffic to your site, and Google will regard your site as a trustworthy, dependable source of information. Building links is difficult and takes a long-term strategic strategy, but if done effectively, your website’s average ranking position in search results is likely to improve dramatically.
2. Social Media Marketing
Using social media is one of the most efficient off-page SEO tactics. Using social media channels to spread your material is an excellent approach to do it. Not only can social media increase the number of clicks on your most recent piece of content, but it can also be a great source of valuable backlinks from a site with a high DA:
- LinkedIn is a professional networking site (DA:98)
- Facebook is a social networking site (DA:96)
- Twitter is a social media platform (DA:94)
- Instagram is a social media platform (DA:93)
Google hasn’t explicitly stated that a link from a social media platform can help your SEO, but they have acknowledged that social platforms are crawled for data in the same way that any other website on the web is.
While the SEO impact of a backlink from a social platform is unknown, one certainty is the ranking of your social profile in the SERPs. Not only will your social profiles rank, but they will almost certainly rank at the top for any brand-related search phrase. Keeping this in mind, making sure your social profiles favorably reflect your company and what it stands for might affect a user’s first impressions, especially if they are unfamiliar with your brand. Furthermore, sharing smart content on social media is likely to increase visibility and the possibility of your work is linked to.
3. Guest Content
Another successful online marketing strategy that can result in off-site SEO benefits is to provide guest content on third-party websites. This might be anything from a thought-leadership post to ‘how to video material that will pique the interest of their readers. You should consider reaching out to third-party websites with a comparable target demographic to yours, such as niche online trade journals. In this manner, you will increase exposure and brand knowledge among potential buyers while also boosting the likelihood of driving referral traffic from that website. Of course, you will gain from a valuable backlink as well. Nurturing online relationships with informative content can be a significant source of qualified traffic and leads.
Remember that posting material on a website with a high DA needs you to give them with completely unique information or data that is likely to be in high demand from their audience.
Always remember to be strategic when targeting sites for guest post-placement, and to ensure that you are reaching out to sites that are trustworthy and relevant to your own target audience.
4. Forum Posting
A forum posting site is a type of online discussion board that allows users to have meaningful conversations through the use of posted messages. When done effectively, forum posting can provide numerous benefits to your company:
- New customer exposure
- Improved knowledge of your customers
Possibilities to answer any questions that consumers or potential customers may have
To establish a trustworthy reputation among other forum users, forum posting necessitates a long-term approach. Identifying forums with a ready-made community that are discussing a service similar to the one you provide. This is an excellent approach to interact with present or future customers online.
Determine forum threads on themes relevant to your business to which you may provide value, such as specialist knowledge on a certain area to assist in answering a user’s inquiry. Where appropriate, you may be able to include a link back to your website as part of a forum conversation. However, always use caution while engaging in this activity, and only provide a hyperlink to your website if it is very relevant to the topic and actually helps to answer another user’s issue.
5. Local Listings
Local SEO, often known as directory listings, has always been a constant off-page SEO tactic. When done properly, submitting your business to local listings can be critical for improving revenue, reputation, and ranks, especially in localized search results. Localized search results include those in which the user specified a place as part of their search, as well as those in which the results served are determined by the user’s IP address or location. The latter contains queries that frequently include terms like “near me” or “nearby.” Local listings are mostly free and can be quite effective.
Not only can your business gain from increased visibility and traffic, but listing in local directories also provides the potential to build a quality backlink from a high DA site. Many directories are well-known on the internet, and you are probably already aware of many of them:
- Google my company (DA:100)
- square foursquare (DA:92)
- Review site Yelp (DA:70)
- The Central Index (DA:58)
While submitting a local listing may appear simple, ensuring that you give the same information across all listings is critical for this off-page SEO tactic. Business information such as the company name, address, and phone number must be consistent across all listings. This may appear to be a straightforward task, but differences like as abbreviations or misspellings can have a significant influence on your rankings by causing Google uncertainty. In the event that this occurs, Google may display incorrect information or possibly not display your listing at all in the SERPs.
Local listings, on the other hand, can be highly strong when used appropriately, bringing in additional revenue from both national and international audiences.
How to begin your off-site SEO strategy?
Planning an off-site SEO strategy is not easy and requires a certain amount of ability and expertise. If you don’t have the necessary resources, we are here to help. Contact us to understand the best technique for optimizing your Sitecore website or to schedule a digital marketing audit to evaluate the effectiveness of your present website.
Since 1999, we have been assisting enterprise-level businesses in achieving their digital objectives. We specialise in digital marketing as a top-tier Google and Sitecore Partner, and we work directly with all of our customers on all elements of performance and search marketing. We would be delighted to assist you and discuss your project requirements.
Need help with getting your business found online? Stridec is a top SEO agency in Singapore that can help you achieve your objectives with a structured and effective SEO programme that will get your more customers and sales. Contact us for a discussion now.