What is Off-page SEO?

You might have heard of the term “off-page SEO” but what do you actually know about it? After today, you won’t ever have to wonder. Off-page SEO (or off-site SEO) refers to actions that are taken outside of your own website that has an impact on how your website ranks within search engine result pages (SERPs).

If you haven’t started with enhancing your on-page SEO, make sure you start there before diving into your off-page SEO campaign. If you’d like to know the difference between on-page SEO vs of-page SEO, we wrote a blog on that as well.

Off-page SEO is one of the most important aspects of your SEO campaign. There are a lot of variables that come into play when perfecting your off-page SEO campaign. Like anything in life, it comes down to a site’s popularity, relevance, trustworthiness, and authority. You can improve search engine rankings through other reputable places on the internet, such as sites, pages, people, social media, etc.

 

Creating popularity, relevance, trustworthiness, and authority

On-page SEO is doing everything you can to make your site awesome. You have a great looking and functioning mobile-friendly site, you’re writing great content and have a solid site structure. You’re off to a great start.

Off-page SEO, on the other hand, is focused around making your site an authority online so Google search engines rank you higher. 

One great aspect of writing quality content is ranking higher in Google’s search engines. Getting relevant sites to link to your content is going to increase your chances of increasing your ranking. As important higher rankings are, you want to make sure that you’re creating trust and a sense of authority with your visitors.

A great way of building trust with your visitors is with reviews, which can be found off your site. Reviews affect your rankings, which is why you want to make sure you have plenty of 5-star reviews on as many third-party review sites as possible. Popular ones are Facebook, Yelp, and Google.

Before we dive too deep into off-page SEO, let’s go over why it’s a must!

 

Why is off-page SEO Important?

 

Off-page SEO is tremendously valuable as it tells Google and other search engines that your website is more important than others on the web. The majority of any company that knows what they’re doing with SEO will have their on-page SEO fully optimized. Off-page SEO, on the other hand, is much more difficult. Think of it as a tie-breaker for websites so search engines know the best site to rank on search engine results pages (SERPs).

Although we don’t know the lengths of the full algorithm Google uses to rank, Search Engine Ranking Factors study show that off-site SEO related factors likely carry more than 50% of the ranking factor.

 

Links and Off-page SEO

One of the most important aspects of off-page SEO is building backlinks. Google and other search engines use backlinks to indicate the quality of the linked content. A site with many high-value backlinks will usually rank much better than the same site with fewer backlinks. 

There are three main types of links that can be used:

  • Natural links are given without any action being done on the owners part. Once a site has authority, other sites will want to link their content and pages to yours. Example: Entrepreneur.com is writing an article about an entrepreneur and they reference your company in their article backlinking it to your site.
  • Self-created links are created by the site owner when adding backlink from sites like an online directory, forum, blog comments, press release, etc. Just make sure you stay away from black hat SEO techniques.
  • Manual links are acquired through planned link-building initiatives. This can be done through many outlets. One major one is content syndication.

 

Links that have the most value are the ones that Google and other search engines will be ranking the highest. There are quite a few variables that define “value” to Google. Some of those are:

  • The authority of the linking site
  • The relevance of the linking site’s topic to the topic of the site that created the link
  • The “freshness” of the link
  • The number of other links on the linking page
  • The trustworthiness of the linking site

 

Non-link Off-page SEO

Links are by far the most popular term to talk about when discussing off-site SEO, but there’s much more that goes into off-page SEO. Nearly every activity that happens off your website is considered off-site SEO.

Other forms of off-site SEO are:

Social Media

Social media by itself is not essential for ranking high in search engines. It does assist with your rankings and more importantly, allows your visitors and customers to connect with you and your content. Your social media popularity will add to your brand’s credibility and trust factor, more so than your off-page SEO.

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Social networks like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, and other various forms of social media, help to get your content out there. This can then lead to other sites wanting to link to your site if you have authority in your space.

NAP Citations

NAP citations are online mentions of your business and the contact information (Name, Address, Phone).

All local businesses should be utilizing local listings. According to Moz, citations are one of the top 10 local off-page ranking factors. This is a great way to get into Google’s “3-pack.”

Brand Mentions

There are linked and unlinked brand mentions, which Google talks about in one of its patents. Google started to notice that many brands get mentioned without ever receiving links. They thought that brands who receive unlinked brand mentions should also be added to Google’s ranking algorithm, just like linked brand mentions would. You’d still want to prefer linked versus unlinked but both are now taken into account for ranking.

A couple of good options for linked brand mentions are:

  • Be on a popular podcast
  • Write guest posts for other sites
  • Launch a blogger outreach campaign
  • Press releases
  • Influencer marketing

Google My Business

Google My Business (GMB) is a free business profile from Google and essential to your local SEO strategy. Just creating a Google My Business profile won’t be enough. You will need to continuously optimize your Google My Business profile as it is the most important ranking factor to rank in the Google “3-pack” and the fourth most important factor for regular local organic search results.

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If you’re a local business, this is an absolute must for you.

Reviews

Reviews are an incredibly important factor for ranking in Google’s “3-pack,” as well as ranking for local organic search results. The most positive and genuine reviews you have on your Google My Business profile will not only make you rank higher but add trust and comfort when visitors are researching your business.

Grow Your Business With SEO

If you’d like help auditing how good or bad your off-page SEO is, you can use our FREE SEO Audit resource.

SEO: What It Is, and Why It’s Essential For Your Business

Search engine optimization (SEO) isn’t a marketing buzz phrase. It’s the strategy required to connect your brand’s online presence with your intended audience, and it drives your site’s design choices as well as its content development.

There is no off-the-shelf solution to SEO; your strategy must adapt to your industry, market segments, and brand. Here’s what you need to know to put search engine optimization into context. 

 

 

The big-picture approach to SEO

2019 Top SEO Agency, Scottsdale, Phoenix

All the elements of effective website design appeal to user experience (UX), user interface (UI), and search engine rankings metrics—the latter of which determines where your site appears on search engine results pages (SERPs).

Google’s goal is serving its users with the most useful, user-friendly content. Your goal is convincing Google that your site delivers while keeping that promise to your visitors. 

It’s not enough to achieve high rankings if you’re attracting the wrong traffic. Google also takes into account how much time your visitors spend on your page (“dwell time”) and how often other sites link to your content as a source. Keywords and content must speak directly to your intended audience, and website design should be intuitive for your visitors.  

 

 

How site architecture affects SEO

The website interface is dictated by server quality, aesthetics, and interactive design. Start-up businesses often begin in-house with template-based websites on shared hosting services, or with all-inclusive plug-and-play platforms. Very quickly they find themselves limited by server performance, content management, and potential for custom coding. 

Fast loading times 

Attention spans are short, especially among younger audiences who demand efficiency, quality, and integrity from their information sources. Sites that take too long to load have higher bounce rates and lower dwell times. Google takes into account load speeds, and so should you if you want to keep your visitors engaged. Servers, site design, media management practices all contribute to site speed. 

Responsive design

All websites should translate seamlessly to whichever mobile device or platform the visitor is using. There is no excuse for a potential customer to have to scroll left to right to view the content on your sight (akin to a “keyhole” view) or click a “mobile version” link. Responsive content allows the user to scroll vertically, clearly read the text, and view scaled-down graphics and images with ease. Navigation menus also adapt to smaller formats on responsive websites. Truly “responsive” site designs communicate their status to Google crawlers, increasing their ranking potential. 

Searches from mobile devices have surpassed those made on desktop and laptop computers, and the gap will continue to increase.  

Ease of navigation

Visitors want to find the information they’re seeking without having to jump through hoops. Simplified navigation menus, clear page titles, and accurate, non-sensationalized blog headlines help shape your credibility with your visitors. 

Metadata 

The content contained in site title tags, URLs, and image metadata reinforces your site’s claim to its target keywords while making it easier for crawlers to interpret and categorize your website content. Less-experienced SEO managers often overlook these crucial steps. 

AVINTIV Media Metadata Example

 

Why quality content is important for SEO success

“Isn’t content just the medium for adding keywords?” It’s a common question and one that perfectly underlines the problems associated with internet SEO “gurus” targeting non-professional webmasters. Our philosophy is this: What’s the point of using the right keywords if your content doesn’t build relationships with your audience?

Good content, which may be written copy, infographics, video, or images, achieves the following:

  • Validates your claim to keywords by educating visitors on keyword-relevant topics
  • Engages your audience, increasing dwell-time and return visits
  • Establishes you as an industry authority, encouraging SEO-boosting backlinks and name mentions 
  • Pulls your prospects through the buying cycle, cementing brand trust along the journey
  • Encourages visitors to fill out contact forms and newsletter forms in exchange for even more useful information
  • Educates your audience, empowering them to feel confident when they’re ready to convert

 

Effective, engaging content, especially when it’s organized in topic-oriented clusters, appeals to both users and search engine algorithms. Create content for the user—not rankings—in mind, and you’ll achieve both goals with optimal success. 

 

 

An outside-the-box agency doesn’t use off-the-shelf solutions

Search engine optimization success requires top-to-bottom best practice implementation. There’s no single plug-in, tutorial, or template to fix existing problems, nor is there a one-size-fits-all manual for launching a new, perfectly-optimized website. But there is a way to get on the right track. Get a free SEO audit from Avintiv, and learn how you can increase your digital marketing ROI through targeted lead generation, sleek and efficient site design, and conversion-focused content.

Why Your HTTP Website is ‘Not Secure’ Starting July 2018

Most of us have heard the rumors that websites that stick with HTTP and don’t adopt HTTPS will be marked “not secure” come July 2018. We first hard about this through a blog post published back in February by Chrome Security Product Manager Emily Schechter.

Over the past several years, Google has moved toward a more secure web and user experience and have been strong advocates for sites that adopt HTTPS encryption.

What is HTTPS Encryption

You may be asking yourself, “What is HTTPS encryption?” According to Instant SSL by Camodo, “Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is the secure version of HTTP, the protocol over which data is sent between your browser and the website that you are connected to. The ‘S’ at the end of HTTPS stands for ‘Secure’. It means all communications between your browser and the website are encrypted. HTTPS is often used to protect highly confidential online transactions like online banking and online shopping order forms.

Web browsers such as Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome also display a padlock icon in the address bar to visually indicate that a HTTPS connection is in effect.”

Instant SSL by Comodo also shares, “When you request a HTTPS connection to a webpage, the website will initially send its SSL certificate to your browser. This certificate contains the public key needed to begin the secure session. Based on this initial exchange, your browser and the website then initiate the ‘SSL handshake’. The SSL handshake involves the generation of shared secrets to establish a uniquely secure connection between yourself and the website.

When a trusted SSL Digital Certificate is used during a HTTPS connection, users will see a padlock icon in the browser address bar. When an Extended Validation Certificate is installed on a web site, the address bar will turn green.”

What Does This Mean for You?

What does this mean for your business? Beginning in July 2018, as Google Chrome launches Chrome 68, Chrome will mark all HTTP sites as “not secure.” This means that your website will not be shown on Chrome which now owns 58.4% market share. That means that you could potentially lose 58.4% of your traffic. A good way to find out that exact number is by going to your Google Analytics reporting and figure out how much of your traffic is coming from Chrome. Otherwise you can use the same amount of time in getting your website an SSL certification. If you need help with this, make an inquiry on our contact page and we’d be happy to assist you.