Off-Page SEO: What It Is & 30+ Best Techniques to Rank Higher

If we’ve learned anything from the recent Google leak, it’s that the links are still crucial to your website’s performance. While working on your technical and on-page SEO is still important, mastering off-page SEO will improve your platform’s rankings tremendously. 

In this ultimate guide, we will go over the difference between technical, on-page and off-page SEO, and discuss in-depth the latter. We will cover how to do off-page SEO, its importance in promoting your website, the strategies, the best tools to use, and expert off-page SEO tips on incorporating it into your workflow. We’ve also included our own rating from easy to hard for each of the strategies. Let’s dive in!

First things first: there are three main types of SEO. Each of them entails different techniques and approaches, and requires various tools and strategies.

Off-page SEO is all the activities conducted outside the website to improve its search engine rankings and increase its online visibility. 

Below is a comparison table of off-page SEO vs. on-page SEO and technical SEO.

By working on your off-page search engine optimization, you acquire: 

1. Increased Brand Awareness. While most traffic is received from the search engine result pages, conducting off-page SEO activities brand exposure, driving more traffic, and attracting new leads.
2. Improved Rankings. By receiving quality backlinks and community mentions, you signal to Google that a website is trustworthy and reliable, resulting in higher positions in SERPs.
3. Higher Authority. By implementing a correct off-page SEO strategy, you're building your authority both in the user's eyes and in the search engine crawler's. 

Guest Posts easy

Guest posting refers to submitting your content to other websites to receive a backlink. Engaging with reputable and relevant websites improves your traffic, search engine rankings, and the website's authority. 

If you wish to streamline and simplify the guest posting process, consider Collaborator your trusted partner. Our websites catalog features over 32000 websites from 51 countries, and includes fully customizable filtering options as well as crucial SEO data. 

Check potential link donors’ statistics in real time by utilizing Collaborator’s analytical tools

Directory Submissions easy

One of the best off-page SEO strategies is to list a website in niche-specific and general online directories. For instance, we've covered some of the best legal directories for lawyers in one of our articles, and there are also widely applicable directories like Yelp, Quora, Yellow Pages, and Better Business Bureau.

An example of a directory submission in Yelp for a spa in Los Angeles

Outreach medium

Outreach involves contacting other websites, influencers, and bloggers to earn backlinks and distribute your content. It is important to personalize your outreach strategy to build strong relationships and increase your content shares.

Shareable Content hard

One of the most important strategies for organically improving your off-page SEO is to create high-quality content. This will ensure your content gets shared by other platforms naturally, helping you receive new backlinks.

Image Link Building medium

In addition to improving your copywriting, you may want to incorporate SEO-optimized images such as infographics, GIFs, comparison tables, and pie charts. By creating high-quality visuals you’re maximizing your chances of receiving backlinks organically, as other platforms will want to share your content.

Social Media Marketing hard

Active engagement on social media can help your website in multiple ways. It drives traffic, increases brand awareness, and results in more backlinks. Just having your social profiles set up already gives you a backlink profile variety, so don’t miss that chance!

A great example of social media marketing is Duolingo’s Instagram account — by utilizing a successful social media strategy they were able to gain 3M active followers 

Forum Engagement hard

Participating in industry-specific forums and online communities can establish your authority and generate backlinks. Provide valuable insights and include relevant links to your site to attract targeted traffic.

A great way to share your expertise is participating in forum discussions, such as BlackHatWorld forum for SEO specialists

Press Releases medium 

Press releases can attract additional media coverage and backlinks from reputable news publications. Invest in newsworthy, well-written press releases about business news or developments. You can also outreach copywriting to the professionals, or even purchase it as an additional feature while guest posting with Collaborator ;)

An example of a press release on a Sony Music website

When advertising with Collaborator, some websites will offer the option to have your press release or article professionally written. This is a perfect choice for those who don't have a copywriter on their team, or for those who simply want to outsource this process.

Unlinked Mentions easy

Sometimes other websites will naturally mention you as their source or include in the review, but won’t directly link to your website. In this case, you can reach out to them and ask to provide a backlink. Some SEO tools, like Ahrefs, let you set up alerts for unlinked mentions.

In order to do this, go to Content Explorer, and enter your brand name. You can also exclude your own website from search results to filter out most of the mentions.

By forming your search like this, you’re finding all brand mentions on the web excluding your own website

After this, you’ll need to scroll down and select “Highlight Unlinked Mentions” from the filters menu.
 

Or, you can find your unlinked mentions in the “Opportunities” section of the menu. 

Broken Link Building easy

Losing backlinks will negatively affect your website’s rankings and overall performance. It's important to monitor broken links to quickly fix all existing problems. To automate this process, you can utilize some of the best SEO tools for backlink monitoring.

For instance, you can use the free Broken Links Checker by Ahrefs — it will also show you all broken inbound links.

Just enter your domain, and you will get a report with a total number of broken backlinks both on your website and to your website, as well as all referring pages.

Influencer Marketing hard

According to research by Matter Communications, 69% of consumers trust influencer recommendations over information that comes directly from a brand. Influencer marketing is also a great way to drive traffic and receive backlinks.

An example of influencer marketing utilized by Electrolit — a sponsored video by a sports influencer Allie Bennett on Instagram. 

Local SEO easy

You can optimize your local SEO by claiming your listing on Google My Business and adding your location to Google Maps. This way, you can naturally receive social mentions and customer reviews.

An example of a Google Maps listing for a nail salon in New York

Reviews easy

Thanks to the recent Google leak, we now know for sure that Google uses ranking signals for their algorithms. What’s even more interesting, is that the search engine has specific attributes that indicate that it assesses the quality of the review. Positive reviews—not just the ones on Google—are a great way to improve your online presence and reputation.  Create listings in online directories and industry-specific review platforms to encourage users to leave feedback.

A Google Review page of The Epicure Shop in Toronto, Canada

Pro tip: to stay proactive, regularly monitor your listings and reply to all new reviews. 

Events hard

Hosting, sponsoring, or participating in industry-related events can increase your brand awareness and generate backlinks. This can also lead to new networking opportunities and lead generation.

List of participating companies in Global Supply Chain Conference

By participating in events, you can get your brand out there alongside the industry leaders, and improve both your off-page SEO and overall brand reputation.

Additional Techniques

By utilizing Collaborator's off-page SEO capabilities, you will improve your backlink profile and increase website's authority. Collaborator offers a streamlined link-building process with over 32000 websites to choose from. 

Use the fully customizable filtering options to fit your niche, demographic, and desired traffic. Navigate through the catalog by reviewing key SEO data, such as traffic volume, geolocation, DR, UR, Trust Flow, and over 40 other metrics.

Get Started

Mastering off-page SEO is essential for website owners and webmasters looking to improve their SERP rankings. Implementing off-page optimization techniques such as link building, guest posting, press releases, and more, increases your chances to rank higher in Google. 

Good luck in your future SEO endeavors, and remember: off-page SEO is an ongoing process that requires regular monitoring and adaptation.