Off-Page SEO Strategies for More Rankings!

[UPDATE: Though this post was written back in 2011 before the many Google SEO changes in 2012 and 2013, the content is still very relevant and will help you understand what is required for off-page SEO. Read with understanding!]

For over 3 weeks running we've been dealing with the very important topic of wordpress search engine optimization. However, much of what we have covered so far touched on what is commonly known as on-page seo techniques. In this article therefore we want to turn our attention to those seo techniques and tactics that happen outside your blog also known as off-page seo strategies.

Now, it must be pointed out that though on-page and off-page seo techniques are two sides of the same coin they are actually approached differently. You must understand is that while on-page seo is mostly under your control, off-page seo is not. The reason is because on-page seo happens on your blog and therefore can be easily manipulated by you but off-page seo happen outside your blog out of your control!

However, there are a few things you can do to ensure that your off-page seo tactics produce the right results. But before touching on these things it is important that we have a clear understanding of what off-page seo really means.

Off-site SEO tactics that gets results

What is off-Page SEO?

Here is my simple definition of off-page seo:

Off-page seo is a search engine optimization technique whereby you focus on building relationships between your blog and other blogs through links with the mind of enhancing your blog's search engine rankings in the SERPs.

The core of that definition can be simply rendered as, “building relationships with other blogs through links.”

Of course you know there are different forms of relationships being fostered online. Most of these are based on our interactions as humans using the social networking sites like twitter and facebook and through blogs or email. However, as much as these are useful to us as humans the online interactions between sites recognized by the search engines are the relationships based on the links between these sites.

The search engines places much value on these link relationships. For every inbound link pointing to your blog, the search engines count it as a vote for the quality of your content. It is a combination of these inbound links (votes for your content) and the on-page seo strategies (most of which we have touched in previous posts) that the search engines uses in ranking your blog in the SERPs.

The purpose of off-page seo therefore is to acquire as much inbound links as possible because the more inbound links your blog is able to acquire the more influence or authority it will have in the SERPs.

Off-Page SEO Techniques/Strategies

If you desire to effectively use off-page seo techniques to optimize your blog there are basically 3 things you must take into consideration . These are:

1. Who is linking to you?

2. How are they linking to you? and

3. How is your content being shared in the social networks and across the web?

1. Who Is Linking To You?

Off-Site SEO strategyFor sure, all links are not created equal. The reputation of the sites linking to your blog matters. For example, 30 inbound links from your friends’ blogs may be good but may not equate to just one link from a major publication or educational website. An educational website with a .edu domain or most of these major websites and blogs visited by millions of people every day provide more link juice than a simple blog that averages hundreds of traffic a month. Therefore a link from any of these major websites will give your blog more authority in the eyes of the search engines. Acquiring inbound links from such major sites and blogs should be something you will need to aim at.

Conversely, there are sites that you must avoid like a plague! These sites instead of helping your blog will only “tarnish” your blog’s image. Sites that fall into this category are content farms and adult sites (except you’re targeting that niche).  A link from any of these sites is always a suspect to the search engines. It is simply a matter of birds of the same feather flocking together if you know what that means!

The bottom-line? Be careful of who is linking to you or who you link to!

2. How Are They Linking To You?

How are the links pointing to your blog built? As I said before, you have little or no control over much of these off-page seo techniques and strategies. However, one essential factor that you must seek to have control over is the anchor text with which other sites link to your blog.

For example, if your blog is about photography and you’re able to acquire a link back from another site in the same niche with an anchor text like “expert photography tips” you’ll be getting more relevancy for your blog with those keyword phrases than a link like “visit Chadrack’s blog here.”

It must be pointed out here that as much as the idea of reciprocal links is good their value is certainly not as good as a one-way link to your blog. Simply exchanging links with other blogs is not of much value when trying to optimize your blog with off-page seo strategies. The strategies you should concentrate more on are one-way links and not reciprocal links.

3. How Is Your Content Being Shared?

With the explosion of the social media sites like twitter, facebook Google+, LinkedIn and other social networks sharing content online, the search engines have begun to gauge the authority and influence of any site through the amount of social activities on that site. In this wise, the search engines now regard a blog or site with its content massively shared on the social networks as more influential than one without any shares.

Of course this is understandable. Or is it not because someone like some content that he/she shares such a content online? So, the search engines are only trying to mimic humans and reward such content with high rankings!

The good thing is that you can capitalize on this by implementing social network sharing buttons on your blogs and encourage your readers to share your content with their friends, just as I'm doing here! 🙂

With a wordpress blog this is really simple with a plethora of plugins available to do so. But don’t forget the fact that your blog readers will be more open to share your content if they find it both interesting and useful. So again, the onus falls on you to produce useful and interesting content.

Ok, I’m sure you’ll want us to continue with this, or don’t you? Not to worry we’ll continue with it in our next post. In that post we'll look at some practical ways of putting these off-page seo optimization techniques into action. Ensure you are here when that post is published. One way to ensure that is for you to subscribe for our free updates. You can do so using your RSS reader or by email in the box below.

Alright let me practice what I've been preaching here by asking you to help promote this article by sharing it with your friends and bookmarking it to your favorite social bookmarking sites. I’ll truly appreciate that. Ok, thank you for sharing!

Over to you: How much of off-page seo strategies are you implementing right now? On-page and off-page seo which one do you think a blogger should give more attention to?  Let’s hear your voice in the comments below!

32 Comments
  1. Thanks for the post Chadrack. I never thought that SEO has a very complex process. You have to optimize your website and also do some link building on other high authority pages. Whew!

    • @Aiko,the truth is seo is a wide subject but as a blogger I’m simply focus on a few areas. If you want to do a comprehensive seo for your site you may need to hire an seo experts since handling all may be too much.

  2. Have you, yourself, seen any evidence that “a link from any of these major websites will give your blog more authority in the eyes of the search engines”. I know that all SEO bloggers make this statement, but where does the evidence come from or, like one of the apostles (Thomas), am I asking for evidence of a miracle when I should just have blind faith?

    • @Russell Davison, frankly, this is one of those things we have to accept with “blind faith” 🙂 However, one thing I’ll want to point out is that link popularity as a system built by Google is one of the secret ways the search engines rank sites. As you know they keep most of these things from us. But if Google says these major sites give more authority than less visited sites who is me to dispute them.

      As for evidence, I’ll simply point you to search results which I’m sure you may have experienced. Most times when you enter a keyword in google you’ll discover that wikipedia.com always come top on the results. Do you think wikipedia.com took care of all the seo details? What google is using to rank it up on the SERPs is link authority. You may have implemented everything about seo for your page but wikipedia will still beat you to the top because it’s link popularity is much high than your page’s. So can you see what we are talking about here?

      Like I mentioned in the post, when a another page link to your page it is simply saying it vouch for your content. I called it a vote for your content. And you know when two people act as your surety the personality or authority of the two people will determine how others will accept such a surety. It’s just the same here. So it’s not about just everyone is saying it but we’re taking it on authority from those who are matters,the almighty Google!

  3. Thanks for the detailed decription of offage promotion. This is a good article for those who oly starts SEO in general as the ideas experessed in the post can be of great help.

  4. I generally agree but I’m not sure you need to be so worried about sites linking to you. Google has made it clear that it can have hardly any effect whatsoever, otherwise you would simply use this technique to destroy compeition by getting a load of links to their sites from adult and warez sites…

  5. Just ot let you know I am following these posts with interest. I would think of myself as really clued up on the whole SEO thing but I think that applying it to wordpress is an art form.

  6. Obviously a backlink from a .edu or .gov website is going to be more powerful than a bunch of links from low PR websites, but the key is to have a dedicated backlink campaign over time. That will ensure success in the Google SERPs.

  7. Wow.. this is for sure.. a very complex process.. but thanks for detailing it our for us! Now we have to plan the strategy of getting quality and dedicated backlink for our site.. and create engaging content for the readers to optimize the momentum!

    • @Nasrul Hanis,

      That is really the idea. There should be a plan to follow. Once you get these things in place you can easily create the links you desire. I’ve just published another post that detail some ways of creating one-way links. It’s referenced below.

  8. @Nasrul Hanis,

    That is really the idea. There should be a plan to follow. Once you get these things in place you can easily create the links you desire. I’ve just published another post that detail some ways of creating one-way links. It’s referenced below.

    • @Ianira Baccino,

      You made a good point there. Even if you’re hiring others to do seo for you it’s definitely a good idea to also know the basics so when you’re negotiating with them you’ll be on a better stand. Thanks for the comment.

  9. I like the “on page” SEO strategies the best, because that’s one of the things I have control over. I can make changes and see the results. It’s the “off page” strategies I have less control over. I like how you’ve worded your article — it kinda makes the “off page” strategies seem less stressful. Like when you say that links can be considered as “votes.” I’m goin, “ya, that makes sense,” because when someone links to you, it’s like a vote of hey this page is cool. Anyway, I hope what I said makes sense. I appreciate reading a well-worded article (especially about SEO stuff, too — it’s fun to read).

    • @David,

      Indeed on-page seo tactics can be handled easily by you. But you need both strategies to make a head way with optimizing your blog. Thanks for adding your voice to the conversation.

  10. Off page seo is a long process after you will getting more stuff. If you generate more stuff and backlinks it’s major advantages your site.

  11. Hm.. THanks for sharing this. It’s a nice tips for SEO off page.

  12. Off page plays a vital role and I think this is very good definition and very useful for beginners.

    The detailed explanation is good to understand and put into action.

  13. You’ll still be able to flag comments for review if they’re abusive, because we don’t want those anywhere.

  14. Hey Chadrack, there is a lot of useful information here. It’s always good to see another persons take on SEO because seeing it written in another way sometimes helps you to get a different perspective.

    One of my blogs has a back link from a .gov site and I don’t know if it gives it anymore clout but it sure gives you a good feeling inside 😉

    • That’s simply the truth. That’s why I don’t just ignore anything even when I know something about the subject. With an open mind you can always pick up something new.

      Thanks for the visit. Truly appreciate.

  15. URLs shouldn’t be too long, nor should they be overloaded with keywords thus alerting Google to the possibility of manipulative SEO practices.

    • @SEO Company,

      You’re correct. Long urls have a bad standing with the search engines and it’s really a bad idea to use your keyword phrase, say, two times in the url. Do you really think someone will want to stuff the url with keywords?

  16. Link building is the vital part of SEO firm,Off page optimization use for linkbuiding purpose. blog commenting, forum commenting. article and blog posting there are many link building techniques available.Blog commenting are the most appropriate process but there are one thing always be remember that is,Do blog commenting on comment luv and keyword luv enables blogs.KeywordLuv and commentluv are the WordPress plugin that gives a dofollow links to the commenter with their preferred anchor text without the commenter being supposed as spammer. CommentLuv plugin that parses the RSS feed of the website that the commenter entered. It displays a link to the most recent post and typically makes the link do follow. Keyword Luv benefits you by improving not only your own SEO links, but those of your readers as well.KeywordLuv offers commenting and SEO efforts together so that we can interact more frequently, increase blogging community relationships and make our sites easier to find in the search engines which will increase our traffic, subscribers and potentially our incomes.

  17. I really dont know much about SEO and all. Thanks for sharing this article. Hope i can implement your ideas for my blog. And i would like to take suggestion from you for my blog for SEO. Hope i will get a guidance from you sir. Thanks

    ~ Amit Shaw

    Leave a Reply to Amit Shaw Cancel reply

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