Any SEO practices performed outside your website that will potentially reflect in your search are known as off-page or off-site SEO. A very common way to perform off-page SEO is via backlinking. Placing links on the internet that lead to your website is what backlinking is all about. This involves research of the directories your site can be listed on or most importantly placing your links in blogs that state there’s valuable information on your site. This is a very important factor considered by search engines, as these backlinks prove your site contains information relevant to its readers. While the internet is filled with the benefits of linking in off-site SEO, it is way more than just that. There are many other off-page factors that do not involve links.
If you’re a local business owner seeking to improve your page ranking, or just a marketer trying to increase page ranking locally, then this article is for you. Off-site SEO can be further subcategorized into two main categories: link-related and non-link related off-site factors. Non-link related factors are those that mostly involve local SEO and this article speaks more on that. The following are the various non-link related SEO factors that may or may not be specific to local SEO.
1. NAP citations
This first factor is relevant to local SEO. NAP stands for Name, Address, Phone; and as the name suggests this includes online mentions of your brand/website in various directories over the Internet.
NAP citation Creometric Porvorim +91 123-456-7890
Citation signals are known to be one of the top local off-page ranking factors.
So if you wish to rank locally, and have your company be seen by Google’s search engines (especially locally) organically, citations are the right way to go.
There is a list of online tools you may use to find your online citations, eg. Whitespark or Ahrefs to strengthen your offsite SEO game.
TIP
Try to update your NAP information as often as possible. Consistency between citations allows Google to effectively tie these as part of your online profile.
2. Brand mentions
These can be both: linked and unlinked.
It’s obvious that linked mentions have SEO value, but wondering about unlinked brand mentions?
In one of Google’s patents, it’s indirectly mentioned that unlinked brand mentions as a system for effectively tallying up express links (linked mentions) and implied links (linkless mentions).
Hence, the only real difference between an unlinked and linked mention is that one is clickable and thus may result in more referral traffic.
So, how do you get more backlinks if brand mentions are an off-page ranking factor?
Here are a few ways to increase brand mentions as part of your strategy:
- Guest Blog Posts
- Guest speaker on podcasts
- Reach out to bloggers
- Try to create viral content (easier said than done)
3. Google My Business
Google My Business (GMB) is a free Google business profile and comes under your local SEO strategy.
It is important for every business to be listed on Google’s free tool. These are the profiles that rank in Google’s results that a user can see at the top of the search results.
However, just creating a GMB profile isn’t enough. You need to optimize it. Optimizing your GMB profile is considered as the most important ranking factor for showing up on a search engine’s first set of results and the fourth most important factor for regular local organic search
To make it simpler, if you want to rank high for queries with local intent (e.g., “best digital marketing agency around me”), then claiming and optimizing your GMB profile should be the first step of your off-site SEO efforts.
4. Reviews
Also part of your local SEO strategy.
The more genuine your reviews on GMB or any other trusted third-party sites, the higher you’ll rank in Google’s search engines. Similarly, negative reviews have the opposite effect.
5. Social signals
Although Google’s official stance is that social signals are not a direct ranking factor, some people think otherwise. This could be because of outdated studies stating that there is a correlation between rankings and social shares.
The main reason social shares don’t seem to have a correlation is that with today’s media it’s easy to shape social signals. People can buy thousands of social shares for a few bucks on sites like Fiverr, and hence it would be unfair to measure things that can be manipulated easily.
There’s no doubt that genuine social shares can have a positive influence on the ranking with an increase in readers who genuinely admire your content. More of such reads will lead to more links, mentions, and all those other off-page SEO factors that we know to have a direct effect on rankings.
Using these tips, go ahead and create a strong off-page SEO strategy. Are you looking for a Digital marketing agency to help you increase business and drive sales? Contact us today and get a free consultancy from experts on how you can increase your business.
