Off Page Optimization For SEO
The next step to SEO is to work on off page optimization.
“Off page” optimization is all about backlinks.
It’s important to have a good understanding, so we’ll talk about backlinks, anchor text, bare links, do follow, and NoFollow.
What Is A Backlink?
A backlink is a direct link to your site from another external site.
Like most things in life, not all backlinks are the same and there are high-quality and low-quality links.
There are links that do not pass on any “link juice” and links that contain the keyword that you are targeting and links that don’t.
This is all OK, as it will all be seen as natural by Google.
Minimize Reciprocal Backlinks
This is where we link to you and you link back to us.
This was very popular a few years ago but Google has discounted these links now, as they know they are arranged.
My advice is to avoid reciprocal links as much as possible.
Anchor Text
What this means is that you code your backlink with the keyword that you want to target.
Let’s say that your site address was www.yoursite.com and you are targeting the keyword “teeth whitening” then you would use the following code to create an anchor text with HTML:
<a href=”http://www.yoursite.com”>teeth whitening</a>
This would show your link like this:
By doing this you are telling the search engines that your site is about teeth whitening and this will help you rank for this term.
Anchor text is important, but be careful not to use it too often, as you are very likely to face a Google penalty.
Having many backlinks with anchor text just doesn’t look natural at all.
Bare Links
Bare links are just your web address without the anchor text.
Some websites will only allow you to enter a bare link – this is OK as any link is good, and it looks natural anyway.
A bare link looks like this:
The No Follow Attribute
This is a link (anchor text or bare) that does not pass on any link juice from the web page that the link is held on.
If you were able to get a link from a page with high authority, then some of the authority juice from the page will be passed on to your page which will improve your authority.
It can also improve your ranking in Google too.
If that page has implemented the “NoFollow” attribute, you will receive no link juice from the page.
This does not mean that Google will not credit you for the link. It just means that your authority will not increase by virtue of this link.
Do follow links are normal backlinks that do not have the NoFollow attribute attached to them.
It usually takes time to Rank on Google
The time that it takes to rank your website or page on the first page of Google is directly related to the competitiveness of the keyword you are trying to rank for and the number of backlinks that you get for your pages.
Bear this in mind when you are sourcing backlinks for your web pages.
If a keyword term is really competitive it can take months to appear on the first page of Google (if it ever gets there at all).
Link Velocity
Google now measures the consistency of your link building.
What many people do is build tons of links in the beginning and then maybe add a few more links now and again and wonder why their site either won’t rank or gets fairly high and then drops like a stone.
Do Not Do This!
Consistent backlinking is the best strategy and will rank your pages faster.
The nearer that you get to the coveted first page, the more you will need to do to actually get on it.
Think about it for a moment. All of the most SEO-optimized pages are ranking on the first three pages, so as you get closer to the first page you have to do more to beat them.
You have to out SEO them!
Keep building those high-authority backlinks.
Be Gentle with New Sites
Google does not seem to be as hard on new sites as it used to be, but it is always a good idea to be cautious with link building for a new site.
Don’t be tempted to go to Fiverr and buy a blast of hundreds or even thousands of backlinks.
You run the risk of your new site disappearing out of Google altogether.
If this does ever happen, you will need to disavow the low-quality links and keep building higher-quality links.
Sometimes you can follow a plan meticulously and this can happen to you (with Google anything can happen).
So never give up on your link-building efforts.
It can take a few weeks though and above all, it takes a lot of patience.
See this as a test from Google.
They are testing you out to see if you are serious or not.
The Google Dance
You have probably heard of this.
It has happened to everybody that has tried to rank their pages in Google.
What happens is that your site jumps up a few positions or even pages after your last SEO efforts and then the next day, or sometimes even the same day, it drops down a few places.
It is normally still a net gain in rankings.
This is Google juggling around with all the rankings and it will stabilize.
The thing to do here again is to continue with your link-building efforts.
Don’t get despondent. It happens to everyone and is quite normal. S
EO takes time and patience.
Always remember that…
SEO Is The First Online Marketing Strategy You Should Adopt
Try to get Relevant Links
Google looks for relevancy all the time.
It will reward you with a higher ranking if your site is relevant to what the user is looking for.
Backlinks from relevant sites are the best kinds of links.
The problem is that getting relevant links for your site is not easy.
Think about it. If you are a dentist in New York, do you think that one of your competitors is going to give you a link from their website? Not likely, is it?
But you could get a link from a dentistry forum for example.
Contextual Links are best
These are the best kind of links to get.
This is where your site is linked in part of a paragraph of text.
Let’s say that the paragraph contains the words “teeth whitening” and these are used for an anchor text link.
This is known as a contextual link.
Contextual links are very powerful, and you can find them in blog posts, articles, press releases, or just a page on a normal HTML site.
Straight Links
This is a link that is not embedded in a block of text and just stands alone on a page.
Straight links can appear anywhere on a page.
Some blogs have a “blog roll” where they provide links to friends and related sites.
With your link-building efforts, it is best to get as many contextual links as you can as this will certainly help with your rankings.
Make sure that there is great variation with the anchor text though.
Some straight links will not harm as well and provide a good natural mix.
Get High Authority Links
Backlinks from websites and web pages that have high authority are always valuable.
If it is a related link, then this is much better.
It is not easy to get these links though.
A link from CNN or the BBC would be a very high authority but almost impossible to obtain.
One tactic that you could use is to build a high-authority private blog network (PBN).
These are blogs (usually WordPress) built on domains that have good authority.
You need to host these blogs in different locations and with different web hosts.
Where to get Backlinks
You can obtain good backlinks from many places.
This can take a lot of time and effort, so you might want to consider outsourcing this to a competent freelancer.
Here are some places where you can get backlinks for your website:
- Social Media
- YouTube and other video sharing sites
- Article directories
- Document sharing sites
- Forum profiles
- Private blog networks (PBNs)
- Press releases
In the next post, we will discuss leveraging high authority sites for Google traffic…
Look for More SEO training in upcoming posts.
Or, you can find the ones that have been published here.
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Let’s have some conversation!
EXPECT Success!
By Lynn Huber
p.s. If you have something you want to accomplish, “Do or do not.” If you decide to choose “do”, then get started moving forward and leave “trying” behind in the dust where it belongs.
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