On-Page SEO Versus Off-Page SEO
It’s important to maximize the number of visitors to your website by ensuring that it appears high on the list of results returned by a search engine. There are multiple approaches to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) that include both on-page optimization as well as off-page optimization. Both are important, but the off-page tactics are often taken for granted as a means to improve SEO.
What’s the difference?
On-page SEO deals with the technical aspects of the website that can be optimized for search engines (meta descriptions, responsiveness, site performance, etc). Off-page SEO refers to techniques that drive traffic to the brand site from other external websites.
How you can improve off-page SEO
- Blog Posting: Remember to include links to your website in posts, especially if your blog doesn’t live directly on your website.
- Article Marketing: Seize the opportunity to write short educational articles and submit them to industry newsletters in your market. These aren’t the same as advertorials that are very promotional, but rather something that is primarily educational, and may subtly direct readers to the solutions you offer.
- Press Releases: Submit press releases to local industry news outlets to announce new product launches and remember to include links to your site.
- Social Media: Regular posting on social media networks will help to increase page rank. Not all posts will require a link back to your site, but links should be included for posts about specific products and solutions.
- Blog / Forum Commenting: Google is wise to companies that are making irrelevant comments for the sake of getting links back to their website. First you have to establish yourself as an avid reader of a blog or forum and comment periodically before dropping in a link to your website. It’s a time-consuming process, but can have great results in the end.
- Shareable Content: Creating content that people want to share is a great way to improve SEO. An example of this could be an infographic for social media or your blog that eventually becomes indexed on Google Images.
- Social Bookmarking: Social bookmarking websites are sites on which Internet users save and share links to their websites, articles, blog posts, images, and videos. Examples of these sites include Reddit, Digg, and Mix (formerly StumbleUpon).
- Blog Directory Submission: Similar to the old-fashioned yellow pages, you can submit your blog to directories along with information about your topics and target audience.
