SEO being a fundamental part of Digital marketing, there are various strategies through which a website can successfully rank on SERP. One such aspect is the implementation of Off-page SEO. But unlike on-page SEO, off-page does not involve optimizing the content on your webpage. Off-page requires actions taken outside the boundaries of your Website. This is accomplished by building backlinks on various high Domain sites (directly or indirectly) to raise the authority of your domain. Also recognized as Off-Site SEO, this technique helps google trust the website which indirectly contributes to its weighted point system, the SERP ranking.
Primarily there are 2 major types of Backlinks
- Manually built Links: These are obtained through physically posting links of your website on various other high-quality domains through directories, forums, social bookmarkings, etc.
- Acquired Links: These backlinks are acquired without having to physically post them, but through article mentions, redirection of other domains to yours during company acquisitions, etc.
Techniques used in Off-Page SEO
- Posting on Backlinking Websites: In this technique, numerous sites help you gain Backlinks simply by posting on it. These varied sites usually consist of:
- Forums: A forum is usually a thread discussion page, wherein people post in their expertise on a certain topic. Hence, mentioning your brand related to these discussions will also help you gain the target audience along with backlinks.
- Social Bookmarking/Bookmarking: This includes posting links of your website on certain good quality bookmarking sites. Let’s say a reputed site links to you, then the search engine considers this as what we call in SEO, a “link juice” favouring your site to rank higher.
- Inforgraphic/Image Submissions: Infographic creatives that highlight necessary information or data of your website and can be quickly acknowledged by the audience can reach a wider crowd. While a Search engine cannot read the content of your images, but your audience surely can, providing your brand a greater reach. Such images then help in ranking through the images section of google.
- App/Website Directory: By choosing the right category and filling it with all the necessary information of your brand, directly proves to be an effective way of gaining backlinks that will sustain for a long time.
- Guest Blogging: Basically, this includes writing blogs on another website as a guest. A precise well-written content with images and internal linking them to your site help brands to gain referral traffic. This type of technique also helps in establishing relations with other bloggers and thus benefits networking. Moreover, being referenced by such reputable platforms help boosts your SEO ranking.
- Social Media Cross-Promotion: An in-direct form of link building social media majorly helps gain referral traffic to your site. By adding oneself in various groups on these social platforms opens doors for branding and recognition.
- Wikipedia Page: One of the most profitable tactics to gain backlinks is by creating and updating the brand’s Wikipedia page. Wikipedia could be a major source of your brand’s reputation. Hence revising the page with correct targeted external links and content according to Wikipedia’s guidelines, elevates your brand’s presence and Domain rating.
- Press Release: An editorial backlinking technique, Press Release is by and large an official statement given by a brand on various topics or events that have occurred for the sole purpose of providing valuable information. Press Release has therefore proven to be an eminent creator of backlinks that consistently places your brand into the limelight.
- Quora: A far-reaching platform where thousands of questions are asked and answered, Quora helps build trust towards a brand. These frequently asked questions usually rank in the initial pages of Google search. Thus, providing them with answers that lead to your brand, helps procure referral traffic and relevant audience. This then becomes a trusting factor for google to rank your site
Tools Required for Off-page:
Ahrefs Explorer: SEO experts will know how Ahrefs is one of the most vital tools used for Off-page activities. Ahrefs gives in-depth information by continuously monitoring every action of the brand’s off-page area. It also analysis and tracks the competitor’s backlinking sites that will assist you in availing worthy backlinks associated with your target audience.
Sucuri.net: To know whether a domain is spammy and comprises of malware practices, this tool is your go-to guide. Before building any backlink, checking the legitimacy of that site protects your brand from risky hacks. It also saves your brand from getting blacklisted by Google.
Keyword Planner: Google’s keyword planner helps your brand to target relevant keywords while writing down a blog or press release as your brand’s backlinking activity. The tool offers all the corresponding keywords along with their search volume.
SEOquake: While different tools provide with all kinds of important data, having a single tool can make your work easier. This plugin gives all the information under one roof like domain age, page rank, google index, social shares, and many more.
Link Building isn’t an easy job. It requires investing consistent efforts for your website to gain a standard authoritative score. Off-page seems quite difficult as it does not provide any control as to when and how a brand will surely receive a backlink. But forming a constructive strategic plan for your off-page profile can lead to a successful ranking of your website on the SERP.
Merkle Sokrati is your brand’s one step destination to strengthen and amplify the backlink profile. Here we provide a complete backlink audit of your website covering all the aspects thoroughly that includes Spammy Backlink analysis, broken backlink analysis, what kind of backlinks your website consists etc. Having said that, we then construct an effective strategic plan for your website that will boost a brand to steadily rank on the SERP.
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