Your first efforts to boost your search engine rankings will and should take place on your website’s own pages, as creating a well-crafted web page that adheres to strong SEO practices can be the difference to whether your site floats to the top of search results or gets pushed behind other, more relevant pages. But once you have the SEO basics down, focusing on off-page SEO and backlinking can be the extra stimulus your site needs to be more successful in search results.
What Is Off-Page SEO?
In a nutshell, off-page SEO is any practice or effort taken outside of your own site to improve your site’s ranking in search engine results.
Off-site SEO most commonly refers to backlinking and link building, but it can encompass other practices as well. These can include writing guest blog posts on other sites, any mention of your site or brand — whether it’s linked or not — on another site, and social media marketing.
These references to your site serve as a reflection of the quality of your website, which search engines use to improve your rankings. The more your site gets linked to and referenced by external sites or sources, the better chance your site will have of appearing higher in search rankings.
What Is Backlinking?
Link building is the core of off-page SEO. Link building is the process of building backlinks to your site from outside websites. When your site is linked from another site’s page, that tells a search engine that others are confident in the quality of your content, which then helps boost your website’s ranking.
Receiving backlinks from sites that are popular and trustworthy are more valuable to your SEO than those that are not, so if you are seeking out backlinks, focus on sites that are well-designed and reputable sources on the topic at hand.
You can seek out backlinks by reaching out to other sites in a personal, authentic manner to try and achieve a mutually beneficial relationship for both websites. Offering guest blog posts or reciprocal links is a great way to benefit both sites, as long as your content is related to their work, but not in the same industry. Creating high-quality, informational content is another way to obtain backlinks, as sites and bloggers will often link to pages that they believe will be useful for their readers.
If you’ve mastered the basics of on-page SEO, then off-page SEO is the logical next step to increase your site’s success in search engine results. For help creating an off-page SEO strategy for your site, the experts at Strunk Media Group are here to help you navigate the complex world of search engine optimization.