Off Page SEO

Posted on 20. Jun, 2011 by Anthony Sudbury in SEO - Search Engine Optimisation

Off Page SEO

Off page SEO is the external factors or influences which will have an effect on the search engine rankings of a website. The main notion of off page SEO is the use of linking from other websites and other pages to your own. This is explained below with both internal and external linking.
Internal Link

An internal link is a link from one web page to another web page within one website. For example looking at my website you will see many hyperlinks connecting each page internally, these are internal links and these help strengthen a websites SEO.

Off Page SEO – External Links (Backlinks)

External links otherwise known as backlinks are links connecting two different websites together. An example would be My Express Site being linked any other external website.

Off Page SEO Techniques

The main process of off page SEO is link building and this can be a very time consuming process.

Link building consists of naturally gaining links from external websites, this can be any form of websites on any platform, however certain websites have more importance than others. With Google’s Algorithm there is a hierarchy of importance for every category of website which is currently online. For example .edu websites generally have a very high importance and therefore give a large amount of SEO strength to sites they link to. Another example would be very reputable media sources such as Times Online or the Guardian; reputable sources are another strong indicator and if you are able to gain links through these websites this can help massively with ranking.

To find good external websites to link from they should be:

Relevant: Relevancy of the external website is important, a site that is relevant will be regarded much stronger than a site that is totally irrelevant, it will be perceived as being a natural link.

High Ranked: A high page rank can be a sign that the external website is a generally established site with a good reputation and strong SEO. For example, eBay.co.uk and Amazon.co.uk.

There are many ways you can increase the amount of links to a website, some believe it is best to let this happen naturally, where as others believe you should build links manually. Personally, I feel building links manually but with caution is the best strategy.

Before we start discussing link building strategies, it’s best we discuss what the anchor text is and how this will be used in conjunction with the keywords you spent your time researching before.

Off Page SEO – What is the Anchor Text?

Anchor text is the highlighted and usually underlined text within a hyperlink. For example – ‘My Express Site‘ – the anchor text here is My Express Site; you want to make sure your keywords are the displayed text in the hyperlink.

It is extremely important to ensure the anchor text is the keyword, otherwise the strength of the SEO being done will not be as effective.
Link Building Methods

Forum Signatures: A well-used technique which has two benefits is building links through relevant forums. I must highlight the strength of this type of link building is very weak since forums have thousands of external links. However forum signature linking also helps boost traffic immediately as people will click through the signature links.

Blog Commenting: Another well used strategy. Blog commenting not only helps build links but also helps boost traffic. Commenting on popular posts in relevant blogs will help build links as well as boost traffic.

Article Directories: Article marketing is an efficient way of boosting traffic and building links from reputable websites. Article directories such as Ezine articles are a highly popular article directory which can help boost traffic and links to a website.

There are hundreds of ways to build links to a website one thing I strongly advise is that you don’t over build links. It is much more effective to build a consistent amount of links, this looks natural and is far more effective.

As well as offering some tips on how to increase the amount of links to a website it is also important to highlight several things you shouldn’t engage with when doing SEO.

Do NOT engage in reciprocal links, this is the process of linking two sites together which are either on the same Class IP (server) or are linked together because of a deliberate attempt to build links.
Do NOT participate with link farms; they are never content related and will destroy any ranking for your site. Links farms are very effective ways to destroy any reputation a website has had in the past and they do not help strengthen SEO at all.
Do NOT participate in three way links. Last I heard Google finds circular links and deems them as reciprocal (not confirmed yet – but why take risks).

It is also important to note that Google doesn’t like you purchasing or selling links on a website. Any type of link building that does not look natural to Google will not help with the Off Page SEO of a website.