Off-Page SEO – What Is It & Is It Safe to Implement?
What Is Off-Page SEO?
When we do SEO activities outside of our website to improve our search engine rankings, it is referred to as Off-Page SEO. It is not necessary to log in to our website to perform Off-Page SEO. Normally, creating social media profiles, business profiles, submitting to business directories, and creating backlinks fall under Off-Page SEO.
If you have executed your On-Page SEO perfectly, then Off-Page SEO can make a difference. Therefore, before implementing Off-Page SEO, you should finish On-Page SEO.
By the way, if you are looking for an SEO agency to handle your On-Page and Off-Page SEO, you may contact us or visit our SEO service page.
Off-Page SEO Elements
There are numerous Off-Page SEO techniques available in the industry, but many of them are no longer effective (such as blog comments, forum posting, and social bookmarking). Only a few of them are still reliable and safe to use. Let’s go over them one by one.
1. Popular Social Media Profiles
After publishing a website, it’s common practice to create social media profiles (such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, etc.) for branding purposes. This is perfectly acceptable according to Google. In fact, Google recommends opening popular social media profiles so that readers can follow you on those platforms.
When we create a social media profile, we are typically allowed to provide our website’s URL. By doing so, we can receive a free backlink from these social media sites.
Although these backlinks are often “no-follow” or “UGC” (user-generated content) and do not pass link juice, they still hold some value. Google considers this as an active signal, meaning that if you share your posts on social media, it shows that you are active and engaged on social media platforms. So, it’s a good idea to be active and share your website’s posts on social media.
Another benefit of sharing your website posts on social media is indexation. Google bots are always crawling social media sites, so when you share something on social media, Google bots quickly find it and index it.
2. Google Business Profile and Bing Places for Business
If you have a business website (such as a service or eCommerce website), it’s essential to list your business on Google Business Profile and Bing Places for Business. By doing so, you can display your business information on Google and Bing maps as well as their search engines.
This is an effective way to promote your business in your local area. If your business profiles are properly optimized and authoritative, search engines will display your business to relevant customers.
You can include your business domain, name, address, and phone number in these business profiles so that customers can easily contact you. Additionally, these profiles provide a powerful backlink to your business.
3. Local Business Directories
Local business directories are similar to Google Business Profile and Bing Places for Business but are specific to your local area. You need to find the local business directories for your area and list your business there.
Most directories allow you to include your business domain, name, address, and phone number. This provides you with a free and location-specific backlink, which is a powerful technique for local SEO that really works.
To find local business directories, simply search for your keyword (service + location, like: pest control in Stockholm) on search engines and you’ll see the listings on the search engine result page.
You can also analyze your competitors’ business profiles to get a list of local directories
- To do this, start by finding your competitors (search for your keyword and see who is ranking on the first page).
- Then visit their website and collect their contact information.
- After that, go to Google and paste the copied phone number in quotation marks (“”), like this: “phone number”.
- Finally, you will see all the business directories where they have listed their business.
By the way, make sure to use the same NAP (name, address, and phone number) information across all the directories to ensure consistency and help Google correlate them.
4. Niche Relevant Quality Guest Post
From the name, we can understand what a guest post is. When you publish content on another website as a guest, you receive a backlink in return. This way, you benefit from a backlink, and the webmaster benefits from free content.
Getting a niche-relevant quality backlink through a guest post is the most effective way to rank a webpage. If your competition is low, you may not need a guest post, but if it’s high, a guest post is necessary for ranking.
So how does Google view it?
Google doesn’t have a problem with it if the webmaster marks it as sponsored (using the HTML sponsored tag) to show that it’s a guest post and you’re not being referred to their website naturally. However, if it’s marked as sponsored, Google may not pass the page rank to our webpage.
Therefore, our primary goal is to get a niche-relevant quality backlink (Guest Post) without the sponsored tag so that we’re sure the backlink will pass the page rank and benefit us.
Now that we understand what a guest post is and why we need it, the problem is that we can’t get links from any website. If we get a backlink from a bad website, it can harm us in the future. Therefore, we need to get backlinks only from niche-relevant quality sites to ensure our safety. Let’s now understand the criteria for a quality site for backlinks.
a. Minimum Organic Traffic
The main criterion for a guest post is its traffic. If the site does not have a minimum amount of organic traffic, then it will not benefit us. The site should have at least 1000 visitors. You can check the traffic of a specific website by using Ahrefs or Semrush
b. Traffic From the Same Intended Country
Traffic alone is not sufficient. The traffic to the website also needs to be from the same country that we are targeting. Otherwise, it will not provide us with any benefits.
c. Same Language
The language should be the same. If your website is in Swedish, you cannot get a link from a website written in Chinese. If you do so, Google will automatically recognize it as an unnatural link.
d. Long Stable Traffic / Domain Age
The older the domain age, the better it is for us. Google typically gives priority to older domains as they have already established their reputation. Therefore, when choosing guest posts, we will prioritize domains with a long-term stable traffic record of at least three years.
e. The Traffic Graph Should Not Be Downward
The traffic graph should be stable or showing an upward trend because if it is declining, it could be hit by a Google algorithm update. As a result, it may not provide link juice in the future.
It would be wise to abandon a website if traffic is declining because it is uncertain what traffic levels will be like in the future. If there is little or no traffic, it will not benefit you.
f. Pure Niche (Can’t Be Multi Niche Website)
The website should focus on a single topic rather than including everything. For example, there are sports websites, physical health websites, mental health websites, kitchen niche websites, home and appliance websites, and more.
However, you may come across some websites that talk about everything, such as health, sports, kitchen, politics, news, lifestyle, and more. It’s best to avoid such sites for guest posting because they lack topical authority, which includes expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.
The primary purpose of creating such websites is often to sell backlinks or generate revenue from ads. Therefore, it’s wise to avoid them as they may be penalized by Google’s algorithm updates in the future.
g. Traffic From the Same Topic
You should aim to obtain backlinks from sites that have traffic relevant to your topic. If you acquire a high-quality, relevant backlink from a pure niche site, the traffic will likely be from the same topic. This can become problematic when obtaining backlinks from a multi-niche website. For example, if a website is receiving traffic from health-related topics but you are obtaining backlinks for the kitchen niche, it may not provide as much benefit.
While it’s not to say that you won’t receive any benefit, it will likely be significantly less. As a result, it’s wise to avoid such backlinks as they may not be worth your time and effort.
h. See Their Top Ranking Keywords
The quantity of traffic is not everything, the quality of the traffic also matters. Sometimes you will find some websites pushing their traffic with illegal techniques. You will understand this when you see their top-ranking keywords. You will see there will be some keywords that should not be a keyword. Like:
- A keyword could be::
- basketball hoop
- buy basketball hoop
- basketballhoop
But a keyword could not be:
- Basketball_hoop
- buy. “Basketball hoop”
- Basketballhoop365436
- Basketball hoop “example.com”
You will never see people searching like this in Google. That means to increase their traffic they search with these keywords and intentionally click on their website from different IPs (using VPN).
So you should avoid these types of websites that are pushing their traffic with these illegal techniques.
i. Can’t Be a PBN (Public Blog Network)
Avoid guest posting on PBNs (Public Blog Networks), which are websites primarily created for the purpose of selling backlinks. These websites are not legitimate and may not maintain their traffic in the long run.
You can recognize a PBN website by looking for the following characteristics:
- They discuss multiple topics (multi-niche)
- They are not active on social media
- They do not use real or unique images
- They have a write-for-us page
- They charge a low fee for guest posts
- They rank on non-valuable keywords
- The design of these PBN sites is often similar
It is advisable to avoid guest posting on PBN websites as they may compromise the quality and legitimacy of your backlinks.
j. Can’t Have Overloaded Ads
Be cautious of websites that have an excessive amount of ads which obstruct the view of the main content. These ads are often of low quality and can compromise the user experience.
Avoid posting on websites that overload their pages with ads, as they are more likely to receive penalties from Google and lose their traffic. Opt for websites that prioritize user experience and have a reasonable number of ads on their pages.
k. Should Be a Real Website
Getting a backlink from a real website is highly desirable, although it may not always be possible. So, what is a real website? It’s a website that is maintained by a real person, such as a travel, lifestyle, or product review blogger, or a business website, whether it’s a service or an eCommerce website. Governmental or educational websites are also considered real websites.
A real website will have the following characteristics:
- Real and unique pictures
- Active presence on social media platforms
- Regular posting on the website
- Discussion of only one topic
- Replies to blog comments
- Ability to purchase products or contact them directly
- Location information, if applicable
- Multiple authors, if applicable
- Unique design
- Ranking on valuable topics
- Selective acceptance of guest post topics and anchor texts
- Slow and stable traffic
- Minimal ads
Keep in mind that a backlink from a real website is the strongest, so it’s worth the effort to search for one.
l. No Sponsored or Contributor Tag
If the website attaches a sponsor tag with their guest post then we will not get backlinks from them because it will not benefit us. It can be an HTML sponsor tag or can be mentioned in the content.
m. No Write for Us Page
It depends. Normally we will not choose a website if it has a write for us page. But if it is a real website or if the website is 100% relevant to our topic then we can go for it.
n. Only Do-Follow Link
We prefer to guest post only on websites that allow do-follow backlinks since Google only passes page rank when the link is do-follow. In some cases, webmasters attach no-follow, UGC, or sponsored HTML tags with their guest post links, which we will avoid.
o. The Site Owner Should Be Nitpicky
If a site owner accepts all guest post topics and websites without any scrutiny, it can be a red flag for us. It indicates that the quality of outbound links is poor, and Google can easily identify that the site is selling links. Therefore, we prefer site owners who are selective and only accept guest posts related to their niche.
If you get a guest post considering all these factors you will find a high-quality backlink and it will boost your ranking for sure. But if you want someone who can find these backlinks for you you can call us at this number (+46 54 52 22 22).
Final Summary
Off-Page SEO is the last step of your SEO campaign and after doing this you should see some improvement. But if you still can’t see any improvements that means your keyword research and On-Page SEO was not ok.
