Lampo

Off-page SEO

Off-page SEO is as crucial as it is difficult to execute. The difficulty lies in the fact that you have much less control over it, as compared to the other areas of SEO. With off-page SEO, we take a step away from the website and focus on letting search engines know that our site is trustworthy and an authority.

You can think of off-page SEO as focusing on your site's reputation. This is very important. In fact, Google's latest update to their quality rater guidelines added another "E" to their "E-A-T" acronym. What was previously "Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness", now it also includes "Experience". Demonstrating all of these is what is at stake with off-page.

Remember, a search engine's success is determined primarily by providing users with the best possible answer to their search query. Easy enough, right? With on-page optimization we let search engines know that we are relevant for a given search query, but what then? Aren't potentially millions of other pages relevant also?

This is how you bypass all of those other pages to get to the top:

Backlinks are when another website links back to pages on your site. You can think of it as a vote and the more votes you get, the better. Those votes are seen (and rightfully so) as endorsements of your content and your brand. If a website is popular, then there must be a good reason for it is the rationale here.

However, you have to be careful here because not all backlinks are created equal. It can get tricky here. What you want to have are lots of backlinks from as many high authority sites as possible and preferably from a related niche to your service/ website. High authority sites are those that also have lots of quality links pointing back at them.

Having your site mentioned positively in articles, blogs, reviews, etc that are related to your field is also very important. Even without a link to your site, it is still seen as a vote. Positive reviews and a positive online reputation give your site credibility and trustworthiness.

Social media posts are not a ranking factor, however they are still a very important part of an overall strategy. It's great for awareness and generally does lead to more mentions and searches for your brand.