The Basics of Off Page Search Engine Optimization

Most new online marketers focus on only the on-page optimizations such as title tags, meta tags, page URLs, and even structure of the page itself.  They do not realize that on-page work represents only a small piece of ranking victories, especially on harder keyword phrases.

Off-page optimization is usually a factor a site owner can’t manage as well, but it shouldn’t be ignored.  This type of work is comprised of all type of link building towards the “money site” and includes blog posts, forum profiles, social bookmarks, and many more.

This type of SEO work is typically considered of as grey or black hat because Google doesn’t like link building of this kind.  Almost every popular ecom web site utilizes link building as a part of the overall SEO strategy, and most high profile companies such as JC Penny and Sony have been caught using these methods.  Be smart when link building and realize that you’re walking a bit close to the edge.

When building links to your website, it is important to keep a few things in mind:

-  Link diversity:  Don’t just build one link type.

-  IP diversity:  Build links all over the place and not just one one or two sites.

-  Keyword diversity:  Build links using multiple keywords.

-  Link velocity:  Build smoothly and evenly, dripping out the links on a regular basis.

-  Footprint:  Be natural with your link building.  Make it look like a human built the links. in mind.

-  Link awareness:  It’s critical that all of your backlinks get crawled so that your rankings go up.  Crawling your links is (obviously) required for them to be registered by Google.  Link crawling gets them dumped into Google’s crawled index and ends up helping with indexing.

How important link crawling is can’t be over-stated.  If your link isn’t crawled then Google does not know that it exists.  So at least, link crawling is needed to rank your web site.  It is critical to have volume and high quality of backlinks, but awareness is the requirement.

There is also some of discussion about indexing and if it’s required for links to help your rankings.  In several tests it’s been revealed that indexing is absolutely not necessary to rank a term in Google.  This makes logical sense because Google only is aware of a tiny portion of the web and displays an even smaller piece in their search results.  They physically can’t hold all of the backlinks from the entire web in their live search database.  But it would be simple for them to track backlink count pointed at your website. How many un-indexed links equals one indexed backlink has not been determined, however.  This case study would be a tricky but educational case study to run.

As you grow your links, it is important to track your improvements carefully so you learn what works and doesn’t work.  You’ll rapidly figure out how correct the above link building strategies are, and ultimately decide on your own specific practice to guide to rank your terms.  Use care believing what you read in the SEO forums and blogs and always double check results reports you get from vendors for accuracy.

SEO is always changing and adapting, so as an SEO you should stay up.  There is a war between Google and the online marketers, and if you really desire to make money online you should use every weapons at your disposal.