Off site SEO and why it can help your website
Charlotte Stephen - 10 August 2018
When we talk about optimising your website for the search engines most business owners would naturally assume that they should spend the majority of their time focusing on their own website. This could include working on issues such as usability, keywords and content. Whilst these are all really important elements of getting found online it might come as a surprise to find out that off site SEO is also a vital element of your SEO strategy and can play a significant part in helping your site to achieve a high ranking in the search engines.
What is off site SEO?
If you’ve not heard about off site SEO before then it basically refers to the optimisation work that takes place away from your website but which still has a big impact on how your page ranks. This can incorporate backlinks to your website from other sites, mentions and links shared on social media and even no follow links which can still have a positive influence on where you rank. It can also include mentions from influencers and guest blogs written by your company being promoted on other popular websites.
Why is off site SEO so important?
Off site SEO is all about improving how the search engines perceive your website. We know that Google is increasingly focused on how popular a website is, how trustworthy it is and how relevant it is to their search engine users. Of course they have detailed algorithms set up to help them judge how websites meet these criteria, and one of the factors they use is whether lots of other high authority websites choose to link to your site. When a site which is already trusted by Google decides to link to you or share your links online this confers a level of authority and reliability to your website (this is often known as ‘link juice’ in the SEO industry). This online peer recommendation is really important to the search engines. Even if you have great content and a highly optimised site, without reliable backlinks from other high quality websites you may not get the ranking you need from Google.
How can you improve your off site SEO?
There are lots of ways that you can improve your off site SEO but they will take some time and effort. Getting links from the right sites often involves building long-term relationships with online influencers, networking in the business community and running successful PR campaigns. However this hard work will reap big dividends over time as your business begins to be seen by the search engines as increasingly trustworthy and having higher levels of authority within your industry. Link building is at the heart of your off site SEO strategy but it’s important to get it right! Simply getting quick links from sites with no relevance to yours or getting spammy backlinks from forums or directories will actually have a negative impact on your website and could even lead to penalties from Google. We’ve come up with some tried and tested ways to help support your off site SEO which we know will get you great results for your website.
PR Campaigns
PR campaigns can be a powerful way of getting natural links to your website from other high profile sites. You are ideally aiming for organic links from people who are genuinely interested in your product or service and who want to share them with their users. A great PR campaign gets the word out there about what your business can offer and if you target the right people you can really help to generate excitement about your brand online. When you begin to plan your PR campaign think carefully about the type of sites that you want to link to your own and make sure that you think of some creative ways to gain people’s attention. Remember that even no follow links can help support your off site SEO so they are valuable too.
Social media
Social media is a fantastic way of getting links to your website content shared online. In fact if you get it right you could even find a post going viral and getting hundreds of online shares. Take the time to research the demographics of your social media fans and followers and think about the types of content that they would be more likely to share. Visual and video content is increasingly popular and works well to gain attention quickly in the fast-paced world of social media.
Guest blogging
Offering to write a guest blog for other websites is another successful way to get more high quality links pointing back to your website. The first thing you will need to consider is which sites you would like to host your guest blogs. Obviously they will need to be sites which Google already considers trustworthy so take a look at their domain ranking and authority score so that you can understand how valuable they will be in terms of ‘link juice’. You should also make sure that the website is not ‘spammy’ and doesn’t have lots of irrelevant links to other low quality websites. It is really important that guest blogs are relevant to the site that you write for and so you should look for complementary business sites or blogs. A good example of this could be a restaurant providing an article on healthy eating ideas to a wellness blogger.
It can often be hard to get guest blogs on other sites so you will need a focused strategy. You could use existing business networks to reach out to others within your industry who may wish to host a guest post. You can also make the most of social media to chat to influential bloggers and build up relationships with them before offering them a guest post.
Influencer mentions
Bloggers, Instagrammers, YouTubers, journalists and radio presenters are all popular and influential people who could help to boost your off site SEO. Many of these influencers have huge followings on both their social media pages and their websites which means that a mention or link to your site can boost your online profile exponentially. However it is important to remember that these influencers are frequently approached by brands so you’ll need to find a compelling reason for them to mention your product or service. You can build relationships via social media, invite them along to experience what you do, share and like their posts online and target them via your PR campaigns.
Off site SEO can be really beneficial both to your website and to your brand as a whole. When the search engines see links to your website from high authority sites it will help them to understand that you are providing a trustworthy and relevant option for their users. Not only this but increased mentions on social media and links to your site from key influencers will also help to boost public perception of your products or services leading to more website hits and more sales. Before you begin focusing on your off site SEO do some research on the websites and influencers who will work well for your customer demographic and make sure you only choose high quality websites who are already viewed positively by the search engines. Work on building long-term relationships with bloggers and influential businesses via social media and use innovative and targeted PR campaigns to get the word out there about your product. Offer guest blogs to relevant sites and utilise your social media pages to get your website content shared. The Wagada HQ team have a wide range of experience in helping businesses to boost their off site SEO. Whether it’s writing guest blogs, reaching out to influencers or putting together PR campaigns, why not get in touch to find out how we can wake up your website?
