If you’re only focusing on on-page SEO, you’re really only looking at 1 side of the coin and missing the whole dollar.
In our last blog post, The Fundamentals of On-Page SEO, we covered all of the actions that you can take to alter your website in order to align with Google’s SEO requirements and improve your website’s rankings. In this blog post, we will be covering off-page SEO, which is everything that you can do outside of your website to improve your Google ranking.
Essentially, on-page SEO boils down to making sure your website is easy to crawl by Google, and that the content within your website is optimized for users by ensuring it is valuable and easy to navigate on all devices. While on-page SEO focuses on catering your content to user intent, off-page SEO refers to actions you can take outside of your website, to make Google view it as a relevant and trustworthy source.
The main off-page SEO tactics you can use include:
- Backlink building
- Citations
- GMB Management
Backlink Building
Backlink building refers to gaining links that direct users to your website from other websites. If you view your website as a source of information, Google views backlinks as a sign of trust. The more backlinks you have, the more trustworthy Google deems your website, and the higher Google will rank your website. However, not all backlinks are the same. Backlinks from websites in similar industries that have high Google ranking themselves are high quality backlinks that will improve your SEO. But, if a random website from a completely different industry links to your website, that wouldn’t be considered a high quality backlink, therefore Google would not reward you for it.
Guest blog posts, press and media outreach, and becoming a resource of information are all methods you can use to gain backlinks. Guest blog posting is one of the most common methods to gain backlinks as they allow you to demonstrate your knowledge on your respective industry to your target audience, all while linking back to your own website. Press and media outreach is another popular method to gain backlinks. If you’ve ever seen an article titled something along the lines of “5 Of the Best Cafes in Vancouver” chances are that those cafes paid to be featured in this article to gain backlinks. Unlike the first 2 methods, becoming a resource of information relies on other websites finding your content and sharing it to gain backlinks. For example, if you regularly create infographics with statistics and data pertaining to your industry, someone else will eventually use it as a source of information on their own website and link back to yours.
By backlink building, you are able to compile a long list of websites that view yours as a trustworthy source of information, and the longer the list, the more Google boosts your ranking.
Google My Business
Ensuring your Google My Business Page is set up and managed correctly is a simple off-page SEO tactic that you can use to improve your website’s ranking. Just as Google rewards websites that are shown to be trusted sources of information, Google also rewards businesses that properly set up and manage their Google My Business page as it reinforces Google as a trusted source.
Properly setting up your Google My Business Page means that all of the info listed, such as your business name, hours, contact information, and address has to be accurate and up-to-date. Furthermore, making the business information listed on your social media profiles match your Google My Business profile is another practice that will get your website ranked higher. For example, our business is registered as Panta Marketing on Google, as well as every other social media platform. But, if our Instagram listed our business name as Panta Digital Marketing, changing it to match our Google page would improve our search rankings. This is because it indicates that you are using Google as your primary source for information, therefore reinforcing them as the most trusted source. In addition, whenever there are changes to your business’ information, these updates need to be reflected on your Google page as well as your subsequent social media profiles to maintain or improve your rank.
Finally, managing your Google reviews and taking the time to respond to both negative and positive feedback from your customers will also contribute to an improved search ranking. Similar to how Google rewards businesses who prioritize Google as their main business directory, using the platform to regularly manage your reviews helps Google grow as a primary source of information.
For a more in-depth look on how Google reviews can positively impact your business, check out our previous blog post The Power of Google Reviews.
Citations
Citations are another simple way to gain backlinks as these links are self-created. Although simple, they are a key factor in improving your local SEO. Citations are basically backlinks created by adding your business to online business directories. For example, if you run a restaurant you can add your business to key directories such as Trip Advisor, Zomato, and Yelp to improve your SEO as all of these sites will now link back to your website. Also, since these directories are trusted sources of information within the restaurant industry, these backlinks would be of very high value, and will improve your rankings significantly.
SEO is a complicated challenge that can be intimidating to learn and as a long term growth tactic, it can be hard to tell if you’re doing everything right. But with that said, the payoff from on-page and off-page SEO is consistent and long lasting success. Let the experts handle it and contact us today to get started on your SEO journey.
