What is Off-Site SEO? Off-page SEO (or Search Engine Optimization) is the practice of implementing techniques which are designed to improve your website’s ranking and position within a search engine’s results. Every reputable SEO agency in Toronto considers off-page factors when creating an overall strategy.
These tactics differ from on-page optimization, which is optimizing your website to rank higher, whereas these methods are designed to increase your visibility and push people to your website.
The difference between these two tactics can seem confusing, and since we specialize in SEO in Toronto, we thought we would share some insight on how your brand can use off-site SEO to engage with your target audience, attract visitors to your website, and improve your sales as a result.
Create Communities on Social Networks
This tactic is commonly known as “online reputation management” and is one of the most important steps your business can take to increase brand awareness.
It begins by creating profiles on social networking sites relevant to your business, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. These sites allow you to connect with other individuals and companies and give you a variety of places to share updates about your business, special promotions and news, and much more.
Social networking keeps your business relevant, and because users are interacting with and seeing your brand every day, over time they will begin to feel like they can trust you, and are more likely to visit your website and to buy what you’re selling.
Blogging Regularly
Arguably, one of the easiest ways to increase your SEO in Toronto and control your brand’s message is to maintain a blog and update it regularly with unique and engaging content.
Your blog should feature news, articles, thoughts, and information relating to your business and your industry. You can list your blog in blog directories and blog search engines, directing even more traffic to your site than before, and if you spend the time to find similar blogs, leave comments, and share their articles (known as cross-posting), you can quickly and easily make your site much more well-known.
Create a Forum of Discussion Board
Creating a forum, or managing a discussion board can be a great way to find out what your audience is looking for, what their questions and concerns are, and a place for you to share relevant news with them.
If you don’t have the time or resources to set up and maintain a forum of your own, taking the time to read and respond to comments on other forums and discussion sites can be just as useful. The trick to making this an effective use of your time is to mimic top Toronto SEO companies and include a link to your website in your signature, which will be identified by search engines as they crawl through the web for content.
Cross-Linking
Also known as “Internal Linking” this is the practice of linking to internal pages within your site whenever you can. This tactic increases your link popularity, which is one of the things that Google Page Ranks algorithms use when ranking websites.
However, it’s important to be mindful not to do this too often, as search engines will actually pick up on too much cross-linking, identify it as spammy content, and push your site further down. Use cross-links when it’s relevant, and try to think up creative ways to incorporate them into your content.
By focusing on a combination of on-site and off-site SEO, as well as a strong social media presence and online reputation management practices, you can improve your website’s ranking and help your audience, and customers find you that much more easily.