12 Oct The Triple Beginner SEO Guide: Looking Around Through Off-Page SEO
It’s time to zoom out and take a look beyond the boundaries of your site; Off-Page SEO represents the off-site actions you take to boost your ranking on search engines SERP.
You must have heard it around; “Off-Page SEO is all about backlinking”, but it actually goes beyond that. There are many non-linking factors that contribute to the process, especially since Google is still using PageRank.
In this guide, we will cover most off-site ranking factors. But first, let’s establish the difference between On-Page and Off-Page SEO.
On-Page SEO vs Off-Page SEO:
Whatever tweaks you do on your site that are completely under your control fall into On-Page SEO. On the contrary, Off-Page SEO doesn’t involve any changes to your page, and rarely that you have control over it.
Why rarely and not never!
Because as we mentioned before, it’s not only about backlinking, there are other off-page ranking factors, like Google My Business, which you do have control over.
So when you find a page on the first SERP that serves you brilliant content and a better user experience compared to another one ranking higher; that’s Off-Page SEO playing in favour of the latter.
Now let’s take a look into off-site factors contributing to ranking, starting with the elephant in the room; Backlinks.
Off-Page SEO Link-Related Factors
Even though you can’t access Google’s PageRank like the old days, Google is still using it in its algorithm for ranking to assess the quality and quantity of a site’s backlinks; the reason why there’s a great emphasis on backlinks being the most crucial aspect of Off-Page SEO.
“So what is the big deal? I can just get as many backlinks as possible to rank high, right?”
Actually, NO!
See, Google is smart, its algorithm considers various factors before making a decision whether to rank your page or not and how high.
Let’s dive into each one of those link-related factors.
Quantity of Referring Domains – Outnumber Your Competitors
There is a significant correlation between the number of sites that link back to yours and organic search traffic, and in turn, higher rankings.
However, maybe all humans are created equal but links are not; which brings us to the following factors.
Search Engines Respect Authority
Consider it as someone putting in a word for you; the more power that someone has, the more likely you get what you want.
Again, maybe Google discontinued offering public PageRank scores, but it is still embedded into how it works. The more “Authority” a linking page has, the more it passes authority to your site.
And even though you no longer have access to Page Rank since 2016, there are still other tools to judge a link’s authority, like Ahrefs URL Rating.
Relevance Creates Stronger Links
Let’s say you want to buy a laptop … your friend – who is a tech geek – advises you with laptop A, but another one – who is a lawyer – tells you to buy laptop B; Which one are you more likely to buy?
Just as such, if you offer digital services for instance, a referral – backlink – from a tech company site would matter more than one from a law firm’s.
I know what you’re wondering; “which is more important to focus on, Authority or Relevancy!”
Well, that depends a great deal on the purpose behind building the backlink; it’s your SEO expert’s call.
To Google, “No” Means “No”
While navigating backlinking opportunities, make sure to prioritize links tagged with a “Dofollow” over ones with a “Nofollow”.
Not that you should cut the latter out of the equation because “Nofollow Links” can still indirectly benefit your SEO by driving traffic to your site.
Anchor Text is Like a Book’s Cover
You know how they say not to judge a book by its cover! Well, Google doesn’t, but it sure does take it into consideration.
Anchor Text is the clickable words that express a link between two pages. Naturally, it should be relevant to the overall topic of the page.
As a White-Hat person, anchor text is not so much under your control with an exception of Guest Blogging. However, the odds of the linking page to use a relevant anchor text are highly in your favour.
Traffic is a Good Thing in The Digital World
Popularity can’t last for nothing, if so many people are visiting a page then it must be doing something right; organic traffic gives authenticity.
As an Ahrefs study shows, there’s a noticeable correlation between high ranking pages and the sum of organic traffic of their referring domains.
Hence, backlinks from pages with high organic traffic have more weight than the ones from low organic traffic pages.
On the other hand, this doesn’t mean the latter is worthless; if the low traffic referring page is relevant and has enough amount of authority, it sure can make a difference.
READ MORE: The Triple Beginner SEO Guide: Starting Local with On-Page SEO
Now that we cleared backlinks out of the way, we can move forward to address the baby elephants.
Off-Page SEO Non-Link Related Factors
Most of these factors are of more interest to Local SEO; that is if you have a local business and wish to rank locally. However, they can still be categorized under Off-Page SEO along with the other factors since they take place outside your website.
Some of these affect your SEO directly, others indirectly, but they all benefit your site’s ranking one way or another, making them worth mentioning.
- NAP Citations:
This is an online mention of your business (Name, Address, Phone Number) and one of the most crucial Local Off-Page SEO factors. - Brand Mentions:
It is a no-brainer that linked brand mentions have more weight than unlinked ones. However, Google acknowledges and considers both of them in its algorithm.
You can use Google Alerts to track your competitors’ brand mentions. And you can get more for yourself by writing a guest post, being a guest on a podcast, doing blogger outreach, or GOING VIRAL – all caps for dramatic effect, after all, it’s not that easy – - Google My Business, GMB:
Another Local Off-Page SEO factor that is of significant importance; if you want to rank for queries with local intent, optimizing your GMB should be your first step. - Reviews:
If most of your friends got food poisoning from a certain restaurant, would you go eat there? The same applies to your site, positive reviews channel more traffic. - Social Signals:
It’s true, Google says that social signals are NOT a direct ranking factor since they can be easily manipulated.
On the other hand, real social signals put your site in the spotlight, generating more links, mentions, and traffic.
On-Page SEO seems like an easy task now compared to Off-Page SEO, right? Probably because the latter involves a lot of digging, spying, analysis, and strategy. Not to mention, not being able to fully control the outcomes.
SEO, in general, involves too many tactics to put effort and time in, you can always seek an expert for the matter. Here at Uranus Agency, we tailor our SEO services to your site’s needs for it to rank high on Google SERP.
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