11 ways to master off-page SEO in 2021
Ready to amp up your brand in 2021? If you work with a content marketing team, you’re likely already very familiar with SEO — search engine optimization — and what it can do for your brand. Good SEO generally starts with on-page SEO, the optimization of a brand’s website.
That includes helping a brand improve its SEO to get better crawl accessibility, a.k.a. Is easier for search engines to read. Smart, compelling content helps answer searcher’s queries. It contains easy navigation, keyword optimization to lure searchers, and exciting topics that will be shared. All of these elements result in great SERPs — marketing speak for search engine results pages.
But did you know that’s only half the battle when it comes to SEO?
If you don’t have off-page SEO as well as on-page SEO, you’re missing enormous opportunities for your brand.
What is off-page SEO?
Off-page SEO (also known as off-site SEO) is the term content marketers use to describe actions outside of your website, resulting in better SERP rankings. This is the internet version of a virtual endorsement. Off-page SEO helps improve your site’s trustworthiness, relevance, and authority.
Sounds great, right? So how do you do it?
You need to get other legit online people, sites, and places to link or promote your website, thereby giving it a stamp of approval.
Why you might be wondering, does off-page SEO matter? It can be the keys to the kingdom when it comes to ranking on search engine results. What brand doesn’t want to be the top listing on Google? But getting there takes a strategic process of pairing good on-page SEO with robust off-page SEO to rank well. And it’s an ongoing process that doesn’t end the minute you get a share on, say, an influencer’s blog.
Can it be mastered? With planning, good execution, and intention, it can. And in this guide, we’ll look at 12 ways to master off-page SEO in 2020.
Take a Look at Your Backlink Profile
What is a backlink profile? It’s a profile of all the sites that link back to your site. Just as you’d want reputable people to endorse your brand, the same rule applies to your backlinks.
A bad sign would be a backlink profile filled with spam sites. Search engine algorithms likely don’t find those sites trustworthy, which could diminish your SERP level. But if you have ample, reliable backlinks from legit sites, you’re in good shape.
To gauge where your brand stands, there are tools designed to excavate your backlink profile information. For instance:
You should not only check which sites are included in this list, but you should also look at home many times the link to your site and pages that get the most clicks.
Then check your competitor’s Backlink Profile
Smart content marketers know that the key to making intelligent insights is having all the data. So checking your own backlinks isn’t enough. You need to look at your competitors’ backlink profile information as well.
Understanding how competitors stand up to you will help inform how you improve your off-page SEO moving forward.
Update Your internal links
Internal links aren’t just an excellent way to keep people on your site (although there’s that too). They also feed Google and other search engines and help them understand how your website functions. They also give individual page value and help improve your SEO.
To set yourself up for great off-page SEO, you need to start within, and that means linking your own content on your site.
For instance, does your brand blog have a three-part series on a certain topic? Then be sure each subsequent post links back to the original post and the second post and maybe to another similar topic. Content marketers generally shoot for at least three internal links per page.
Tidy Up Your Site
Have broken landing pages? Users, who keep getting 404 Errors? Or just a wonky design? Tidy it all up. You need a smooth, easy to navigate site before you can earn excellent off-page SEO. So do some housekeeping now and enjoy the benefits on the backend.
Create Amazing Content
If you want to get links to your site from other reputable brands, thought leaders, or sites, you need to produce content they’ll want to share. What’s impressive content look like? Think of it this way, why do people share recipes? Because they taste so good, they want someone else to enjoy them.
The same goes for content. Good content is so fascinating, entertaining, titillating, or informative that a person feels compelled to pass it on and give someone else a taste.
But good content isn’t limited to the written word. It could be videos, images, or even music. Whatever is authentic to your brand, is the content to invest in.
Reach out to Influencers
There’s a reason marketers encourage brands to partner with influencers; backlinks from these powerful individuals can have a big impact on off-page SEO. Archive this by reaching out directly or finding that an influencer already uses your brand’s product, asking them to link back.
Put Your Experts Out There
Expert authors are a great way to increase off-page SEO and only require that you have a staffer — it could be a CEO or department head — volunteer to guest blog on another site. Almost always, these arrangements result in backlinks with the host blog link to the brand’s site.
These are a great way to build authority both with the blog’s audience and within search engine algorithms.
Talk It Up on Social Media
So you have a Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok brand account. Great. That’s step one. Step two is using those platforms to engage with your audience to build your brand and your off-page SEO.
By engaging with your audience (or assigning one staffer to do so), you can grow your backlinks.
Become a columnist
There’s a reason you see so many major CEOs and business owners writing op-eds, and it’s not entirely because they feel the need to be heard. Writing a column for a local, regional, or national paper often includes an online edition that will almost always include a short bio of the author with a backlink to their business.
This is a great opportunity not just to get a backlink to a reputable paper, but an opportunity for the content to be shared to a wider audience who may not know of your brand or business and might lead to backlinks in the process.
Submit Your Images
Why does Pinterest turn up so high in searches for images? Because it’s a great way to increase backlinks. Optimizing your images with the proper URL and title tag, then submit them to sites like Pinterest, flickr.com, or imgur.com
Test Content Partnerships
Want to double your content promotion? Team up with a partner to share the love. When either of you publishes something, share it on both sites and you’ll get twice the audience and, naturally, double the backlink opportunities.
This mutually beneficial opportunity should be made wisely. You want your partner brand’s identity to align with yours. That means ensuring that you both have similar goals for your campaign and agree to follow through on both ends so that you b oth win.
Does all of this sound amazing but exhausting? Rather have someone do this for you? You’ve come to the right place. Zen Media specializes in savvy, sophisticated content marketing. We know the SERP and CTR acronyms, so you don’t have to. We have the content writings, strategists, and developers on our team, so you just need to hire one agency, not a dozen independent contractors. We can help you master your off-page SEO this year. Just reach out.to our team.
