Off Site SEO - Just As Important to Win!

Author Lauren Jacobs - Published 23rd September 2020

Why off-site SEO is just as important as onsite SEO, keywords and content!

Search Engine Optimisation is a constantly evolving process, as is your business, practises and the products/services you offer, therefore you need to ensure your optimisation is up to date, both on the site itself and off the site driving traffic. By following the steps in our recent Onsite SEO Blog , including having a blog, product optimisations, and keywords, you will improve your rankings. But without relevant and targeted off-page SEO efforts too, your website won’t benefit from a vast array of alternative avenues.

Search Engine Optimisation is the process of organically increasing traffic to your website, it’s not keyword placement within your copy alone. Equally important are the tasks you perform off and around your website, a heady mix of link building, social media, influencer marketing (where appropriate), marketing outreach, and paid marketing. For the success of your online business, you will need to have most of these tactics in place and fine tune the messages regularly. 

Not sure what we mean? Here are our top tips for giving your SEO the best possible impact.

“Behind the Scenes” - Backlinks

Simply explained, backlinks are ways in which sites and platforms link content back to you. For example, a customer may review your product on their blog or social media, tagging your profile and inputting a link to your website. These types of engagements are fantastic as they’re genuine; you haven’t paid for the “advertisement”. It’s an organic means of brand awareness and Google loves it. 

Backlinks or link building (as it’s often called) is effectively building votes of confidence in your brand. If a site chooses to link to you, they’re vouching for your quality and your business. 

There are 3 main ways of building links; natural, manual and self-created.

Natural links are editorially given without any action on the part of the brand, this means that someone has promoted your product simply because they like your site and/or products. These types of links are the hardest to accrue but the most valuable.

Manually-built backlinks are generated through deliberate link-building activities; this can include things like customers leaving reviews and influencer marketing. This is often from blogs and social media sharing.

Self-created links are created by physically adding yourselves to a directory (Yell, Thompson Local, Google My Business and industry specific listings etc), on a forum, a blog comment, signature, or anchor text. 

Pages with a large number of backlinks generally have higher organic search engine rankings. It’s important to note here though that occasionally backlinks can damage your sites ranking, so reputable sites and profiles are what you’re aiming for. Well-known, highly thought of sites linking back to you is worth its weight in backlink gold. Ideally, they’d be focusing on your high value content too i.e. your blogs, images and videos, your current and relevant contribution to the online world!

Goldilocks Creative off site seo blog banner

Social Media

Social media works in a similar way to that of backlinks; directing traffic from your social media platforms to your website, the hub of your brand. Not only do your various platform profiles allow you to engage with your target audience, (we recommend at least utilising the top 5: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest), having this additional presence online increases the amount of Google results associated with your business. 

Often your social media profiles will appear above your web listing in search engines as they can be more active and engaged with. Your social indicators, for example Facebook likes and shares, or Twitter retweets and followers, are noticed and counted by the search engine algorithms, in turn boosting your SEO scores. So, detailed information and regular posting of sharable content about your business helps to generate awareness, build trust and an understanding of what you do, provide customer interaction, direct traffic to your chosen place, and boost SEO. Not something to be sniffed at! 

A little FYI for you too, always have your keywords and phrases in mind when writing captions and content, and what hashtags do you want to align with? Food for thought.

Influencer Marketing is a bracket within the social media realm; individuals with a certain following promote and endorse certain products and services relevant to them. For example someone who uses their platform to showcase all things arts and crafts might be sent various paint supplies to review and discuss with their fan base.

Your social media marketing strategy is as important as your traditional marketing strategy, having a cohesive amalgamation of the two will pay dividends.

Web Listings

There is an abundance of available index listings out there for you to promote your business; local, regional, national and international ones. An e-replacement if you will for the business directory phone book - remember the Yellow Pages?. 

Often they’re free, with options to pay for a more premium listing if desired, but whichever you choose it’s a great idea to invest some time into sourcing and inputting your brand. 

Be sure to register the correct address, business details and a keyword enhanced summary of the services you provide in order to get the best possible return from these listings. A few to get you started: Yell, Yelp, and Google My Business.

goldilocks creative blog off site SEO

Product Reviews and Feedback

Sourcing products and services online somewhat limits the interactive nature of “shopping around”; without seeing a person or item face to face it can be difficult to form an opinion of them. Your reviews and customer feedback therefore are crucial to a customer’s first impression of you and your brand. Facilitating reviews on platforms such as Trust Pilot (which has a free starter package), Facebook and Google not only affirms faith in your individual products but also in the business as a whole.

Google reviews also count towards the overall SEO ranking of your site, so well worth entertaining!

Multichannel Marketplaces

If your business has an ecommerce site, there are great opportunities to expand your methods of selling online. You’re no longer limited to optimising your website only, there are many off-site ways to sell your products too.

One of the fastest growing and widely accepted ways of funnelling to your website is with social media. For example, Instagram and Facebook now offer instant shopping by integrating ecommerce websites and platforms like WooCommerce. You’re able to tag your “shopable” products within your posts to boost sales directly and create social network specific offers.

It’s also worth considering where else your customers are likely to instinctively shop; for example, ecommerce giants like eBay, Amazon, Etsy and DePop. You can create seller accounts within these sites to broaden your selling horizons and tap into their massive markets. Start thinking about all the potential places your shop could “pop-up”... 

The aim then is to win repeat business directly through your own ecommerce site to cut costs. This is done successfully with follow up offers included in confirmation emails and shipping materials. 

Search Engine Optimisation is an on-going and ever-evolving part of running a business;  part of your every day. If you’d rather someone who already knew how took the lead and was in control of your online success, get in touch with The Goldilocks Creative via lauren@goldilockscreative.co.uk.

Why off-site SEO is just as important as onsite SEO, keywords and content! Search Engine Optimisation is a constantly evolving process, as is your business, practises and the products/services you offer, therefore you need to ensure your optimisation is up to date, both on the site itself and off the site driving traffic. By following […]
About the Author
Managing Director and Goldilocks... Digital Marketing and online magic maker
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