10 Ways to Improve Search Engine Rankings with Off Page SEO

No matter why you have a website or what your intentions are, you should always be striving to improve search engine rankings through the use of “off page” SEO. While most small business owners and webmasters understand that this is an important step towards online success, most still have no clue about how to achieve the results they’re looking for. In reality, there are many ways that you can go about your SEO but without a sound strategy in place before taking action, you’re just shooting in the dark.

The first strategy is what most people already know, and that’s on-page SEO tactics. These include things like keyword inclusion and internal linking within your website. The other side of SEO however (in my opinion) may actually be far more important to improving your search engine rankings and that is, off-page SEO – and it incorporates all of the work that you do to help improve your search engine rankings on other websites and through other sources and mediums throughout the web that link back to your site.

Below are 10 of the most important factors when it comes to off-page SEO and how to improve your search engine rankings. By following these strategies and incorporating them into your SEO game plan I’m confident you will have greater success. All of them will lead to increased results and ultimately, more profitability for your website.

1. Backlinks – The long story short is that the more backlinks you have leading to your website the better your website will rank. This is one of the most important elements of improving your search engine rankings with off page SEO.

2. Backlink Quality – While the more backlinks you have for your website the better, the quality of the backlinks you have also plays a role. Not all links are created equally, and ones that have more inherent value will provide a larger boost to your rankings. High quality links are from related sites, are one-way links meaning you don’t have to link back and are from high ranking sites.

3. Backlink Diversity – In addition to the quantity and quality of backlinks you have leading to your website, the diversity of backlinks you have also plays a role. It will help your rankings much more to have links coming in from numerous sources including blogs, directories, forums, articles, related websites and more than to just have links coming in from one individual class.

4. Backlink Anchor Text – Having a backlink is great, but having a backlink that includes highly targeted anchor text is even better. The anchor text used in a link leading to one of your web pages will help associate that page with the included term. This mans that it’s a great way to improve your rankings for your targeted keywords and key phrases.

5. Age of Domain – The older your domain, or the longer your website has been around, the more highly credible it will be viewed. Therefore having a long established web presence or purchasing an older domain in good standing is a strong and quick way to boost your search engine rankings.

6. Social Networking – The growth of social networking has been extremely high, and it’s a great way to improve your off-page SEO. You can build a large and diverse amount of backlinks to your site but you will also be able to reach out and connect with more prospects and potential customers and clients. Your participation will help lead to an increased web presence and stronger results across the board.

7. Visitor Quality and Interaction – Something that is often overlooked is the fact the way visitors interact with your site can affect your SEO and Google rankings. Your goal is to lower your bounce rate as much as possible, which shows that when people find your page, they like what they see and find it relevant. This will help boost your reputation and credibility within the search engine algorithms.

8. Sources of Traffic – Another thing to remember is that the sources of traffic for your website can also play a role in your standing. This is because there are both good and bad “neighborhoods” on the web, and if a lot of your traffic comes from bad sources that will reflect negatively upon your site. However, strong sources of traffic from related and legitimate sources will help to further prove your validity.

9. Traffic History – You need to think about website development as a gradual process. That means that you should be gradually and continually adding more pages and content, while gradually and continually adding more links and so on. A sudden, large boost can signal some sketchy behavior, and can end up costing you some position in the Google rankings. Therefore take your time and build slowly, naturally and continually.

10. Web Directories – Web directories are not as valuable as they once were for your Google rankings but inclusion in the top directories can certainly provide a solid boost and they still work great when you chose niche directories with a high page rank. Don’t worry about being listed in hundreds or thousands of directories with little to no value and instead focus on getting included in just a handful of the top directory sites.

There are many different off-page SEO factors that you can use to improve search engine rankings and your overall online success. The above 10 are just a starting point to help get you involved in what is necessary to improve your success without ever needing to touch your page or worry about anything in that domain of SEO.

In today’s world off online marketing (off-page SEO) is just as important as on-page SEO, and perhaps could even be more important – in fact, I would go as far to say that it IS more important. So, if  you want to improve your success with the search engines, it’s of the utmost importance that you follow the above SEO strategies.

Please let me know your thoughts, I’d be very interested to know what you can add to this list?

Several Top Off-Page SEO and Link Building Tools That I Regularly Use

Bookmarking Demon – Arguably the most powerful bookmarking software available – simply bookmark all your pages with this tool and watch your pages rank fast.

Unique Article Wizard – Submit a unique article to hundreds of blogs and directories to generate hundreds (or thousands) of quality backlinks to your site

Smart Media Innovations Pty Ltd – A professional link building company offering great “do it for you” SEO services