Off-Page SEO : What You Need To Know

In this guide we will talk about off-page SEO and how it integrates the overall SEO Process and On-Page SEO Too. In this guide we answer more off-page SEO related questions like : How Backlinks Affect the off-page process, What is social signals and how to get them, E-A-T Compatible content and how to write it, how to increase your branded search queries, managing your online reputation and many more aspects.

Off-Page SEO Foundations

In this section we will talk about :

• The Foundations Of Off-Site Or Off-Page SEO
• How Important Is Off-Page SEO
• Difference Between Off-Page And On-Page SEO

What Is Off-Page SEO?

Off-Page SEO refers to set of actions done outside your website in order to boost the overall rankings in Google. Which commonly happens through well-known and common off-page SEO practices like : Link building or building backlinks, branded search queries, engagement metrics and social signals.

In Simpler words, Unlike On-Page SEO which is done as we mentioned earlier, at the page level. But Off-Page done outside your website to improve it’s exposure by big search engines like bing and Google. And to mark your website as the industry leader within your vertical.

 How Important Is Off-Page SEO?

Link Building AKA (Backlinks) and other off-page SEO factors, still carry the heaviest weight in Google Ranking algorithm.

By checking the top 10 results for a random sample of search queries, you will find that there is a direct relation between the top ranking spots and the total number of backlinks to each.

And they explicitly declared that Google still uses the PageRank algorithm after 18 Years ! Source

On Thursday, August 01, 2019 Google already said on their blog

“How pages link to each other is one well-known signal that we use. But we use many more, which we don’t disclose to help protect the integrity of our results.”

Google Search Central

Enough Said? Google only make use of backlinks as a single off-page indicator. In addition to, the usage of other off-page SEO signals to determine whether the website is trusted source or not.

Which is not the case in how Google see your reputation online and based on what it calculates the overall reputation. Mostly, Google make use of web reviews data as sign of positive reviews for the website. Such as :

• Reviews from major platforms
• Industry Experts Recommendation
• Unlinkable mentions (Links Without Actual Linking)

And ?

All of those signals are put together to decide whether your website can be a trusted source or not. Before stepping into the other off-page SEO signals. Let’s quickly spot the difference between : On-Page And Off Page SEO. 

On-Page Vs Off-Page SEO : The Difference ?

Our On-Page SEO Guide discussed the practices that done within the website or at the page level all of those practices refer to On-Page SEO. Like optimizing your title tags, meta description, image alt text and the depth of content. Those factors mainly controls and affects the SEO efforts done within your website.

Unlike Off-Page SEO

Which involves all the activities done outside the website like : links and mentions from other websites to yours.

For example

This page is optimized around the keyword “Off-Page SEO” . Take a look at the Title, meta description , headings across this page. If you notice that naturally the keyword Off-Page SEO was inserted a reasonable couple times, as well related synonyms in headings and in the URL of the page itself.

This keyword is pretty competitive, so content only won’t help that page crack to the first page or even the second.

So?

Here it comes the role of Off-Site SEO, through promoting this page across Social media (Social Signals), Guest Posting on other relevant websites (Link building), Claiming unlinked Mentions (Brand Mentions). If all those things done the right way.

Reaching the top 10 results will be just matter of time. As I already proved to Google that this page have :

• In-Depth and rankable content
• High-quality links
• Social Media Shares (Social Signals)

Voila ! I paved my way easily to the top 10 results for such a monsterous keyword.

This was the main difference between the two aspects of Search Engine Optimization.

Enough bragging, let’s jump into some actionable tips for Off-Page SEO improvement.

Backlinks In Off-Page SEO

On the top of the factors mainly affecting Off-Page SEO, Backlinks. Backlinks remain the biggest player in Off-Page SEO and the most important factor. As, Links just like votes from other websites, the more votes the more rankings you will get.

Links are about Quality not Quantity. Not another cliche talk, but quality matters in backlinks.

For instance,

If you have a blog about Android Phones, the best and most strongest links you will get for example can be : Android Authority and Android Central.

Why?

Because, they are relevant websites to yours, they have high authority and high quality content. Which equals to, the strongest links you will get, from relevant and high-quality sources.

How To Be Cited?

Editorial or Journalistic-Style content, is a links magnet. Which means, content that is backed-up with statistical data attracts organic links from journalists.

Good Example

A Journalist will write a story about Tiktok, he will search for keywords like : Tiktok stats, Tiktok audience stats, a few to name from such queries. Your chance here to build a page backed-up with informative data about Instagram audience, demographics, their geos and interests.

All of these will poured into beautiful and well-structured landing page targeting all of these queries. Thus, this page once indexed will find it’s way to the top spots. Accordingly, it will gain organic backlinks from Journalists.

For example, Hubspot published Tiktok Stats Page on 15, Aug 2022.

This page as per Ahrefs attracted more than 1k Backlinks from 200+ Referring domains including big news websites. Makes sense, right?

Long-Form Content = Organic Backlinks

People tends to link to long-form content more than shorter pieces of content. As Long-Form content more alike to answer specific set of logically-related keyword together.

Which Google favors all the time like the big text corpus Wikipedia.

Guest Posts

In Essence, Guest Posting is about publishing content on other people’s websites or blogs as an Guest Author. With link back to your website in return. This is Guest Posting or Guest blogging in simple words.

Guest Posting or Guest Blogging boosts the off-page process a lot.

There is a double benefit from guest posting , which we will discuss in more details later. Guest Blogging, gives you two important things : Backlinks and Referral Traffic (New Audience Unlocked). 

Like Roger Montti Author Box on Search Engine Journal post about off-page SEO.

When you publish content on such a big and relevant publication. You will unlock new audience, which implicitly can generate unlinked or unclaimed mentions (The Term we mentioned above).

From my own experience , on the client’s we have worked with. Through providing Our SEO Services since we are a SEO agency Based In Egypt.
Guest Posting, helps a lot in improving their rankings and the more relevant the targeted website, the stronger your Guest Post will be.

Brand Signals Correlation With Off-Page SEO

On OCT 8, 2008 , Wired Magazine published a story about the internet from Google’s CEO at the time. The lesson from that story, is Google seeking brands to stand out of the competition. To spot whether your business is legit or not !

In this specific chapter of our Off-Page SEO Guide, we will talk about how Brand Signals directly affect your SEO journey overall.

Branded Queries Auditing

As the title suggests, is a term defines how many people searches your brand name in Google. If you are store or local service provider. Either those queries will be Directly your brand Name Like “Brandria” or concatenated with a service your provide like “Brandria SEO Services In Egypt“.

Luckily, Google Search Console allows you to filter your performance by queries or Search words. Follow these steps

• In the Search Console Home Go to Performance tab on the left
• Select New From above the chart
• New Query – > Type In Your Brand Keyword -> Queries Containing.
• Hit apply.

You will find keyword listed having only your brand name associated queries.

Use Youtube

Youtube is gold mine for traffic. Having a channel about your brand name publishing regular and informative content, will attracts visitors eyes.

People loves visual content like videos, investing in Youtube will lead to increase in branded search traffic in Google too. Since, the two algorithms are connected together through logical nodes.

Using Youtube effectively in your Off-Page SEO campaign. Can take things far away from your mind, the more views you will get on Youtube, the more branded traffic you will have.

Track Your Brand Mentions

It’s way to track how people actively interact with your brand name over the internet. Mention.com and Buzzsumo Alerts feature are a very good example of tools for doing so.

Even, with those tools you can check the historical change of your branded traffic trend overtime.

E-A-T Signals Improvement

Improvement of the E-A-T signals are not easy, since they happens outside of your hand and off your website too.

And in this chapter about E-A-T signals we will talk more about than adding Author Box for extra legitimate view.

As Google mainly relies on off-site signals to determine whether you met E-A-T Content guidelines or not.

But First What is E-A-T.

What Is E-A-T Content?

E-A-T is shorthand for Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. Which is type of content that Google mostly favors of others types of content.

And to be more precise, it’s a concept rather than a term. After the famous 2018 Google’s Update, the concept of E-A-T was born after. Link to the tweet

After that update, links and mentions were the two main big players in the E-A-T improvement. In conclusion building links and investing in branded search increase your only way out in the E-A-T algorithm.

Plus

Having unlinked mentions can be a good opportunity to reach out to those websites and ask them gently to link to you with your brand mention. This way you turned mentions into actual backlinks from relevant and trusted sources from Google.

Build Foundational Links

Foundational Links in Off-Page SEO refers to cleanest and strongest batch of links. Which comes from trusted websites that Google favors. Example of foundational links can be : Profile Links, Social Fortress, Business Citations, Submission in business directories, local magazines mentions.

In Core, getting links from high authority websites like big news outlets. Helps a lot in SEO , specially off-page SEO, and getting links from websites having backlinks from authoritative websites. Improves Your E-A-T.

Online Reputation Investment

As per Google Quality Rater Guidelines, Google looks for reviews across the web to know what people say about your brand online through reviews platforms like Trustpilot , G2 and Capterra.

Simply Put, They like your brand and services, you will get positive reviews and vice versa.

Directly, online reviews impacts your E-A-T in someway. Since, Google always seeking for external signals to aggregate to calculate how trustworthy your website is. Including, industry expert recommendations too Google takes this into account while assessing your E-A-T.

Related Sources And Services To Off-Page

On-Page Ranking Factors

Search Engine Optimization Meaning

SEO Services In Egypt