Off-Page SEO Ranking Factors | Backlinks, Reviews, Local Citations, Google Business Profile

Content is indeed the king but a king alone isn’t enough for a country to prosper. Likewise, despite the mind-blowing quality of the content you create, your website might not be ranking well in the search results. And this can quickly become very frustrating for business owners.

For your web pages to rank better in the search results, you need to think beyond your website. Off-page SEO refers to the optimization activities that happen outside your website and this should be a major part of your SEO strategy.

Off-Page SEO Factors That You Should Know About

There are a lot of factors that come into play when search engines decide which web page to rank. Off-page SEO involves activities that will help the search engine know what internet users think about your business and whether they find it useful. When Google or any other search engine finds enough evidence that your business is a valuable resource for internet users, your website and web pages get ranked at the top.

Also Read: International SEO – How to Optimize Your Site for Other Countries?

Here are some top off-page SEO ranking factors that can help you rank high in the SERPs.

1. Number of Backlinks

This is the first factor that you should think about while starting your off-page SEO activities since backlinks make up about 40% of the ranking factors.

The number of backlinks refers to the number of websites that link to your website. A good number of backlinks, especially with quality websites, are proof of your content’s quality and authority.

Content with a lot of quality backlinks will get the attention of search engines. Just make sure that you acquire the links from quality websites through white hat link-building strategies. Using black hat techniques might get you blacklisted by the search engines.

2. Link Relevancy

The links that you acquire should be relevant to your business. The more relevant a link is, the more valuable it becomes.

For example, if you have a clothing business, you might get a natural link from a fashion accessories business. While the link is relevant, it is less valuable than a link that you obtain from another clothing business website.

3. Link Authority

Every website has a domain authority score and this helps determine the quality of the website. When you gain backlinks from a website with good domain authority, the links are considered to be more valuable.

A decent number of backlinks from websites with great domain authority will outweigh the number of links from low-quality websites even if they are more in number. Hence, choose the websites from which you gather the links wisely.

4. Anchor Text

Anchor text refers to the word with the hyperlink on a web page. You should use relevant keywords in the anchor text for the search engine to get an idea of what your website is about.

For example, if you have a clothing business, you can use the words ‘fashion clothing’ or ‘trendy clothing’ in the links to your website. This will help you gain higher SEO rankings for those keywords.

5. Brand Mentions

Apart from backlinks, your business’s name might get mentioned online in blogs, case studies, or more. There isn’t a definite number of how many brand mentions help with rankings but we are certain that they are an influencing factor.

You can get brand mentions through reviews, influencer outreach, quality content, social media engagement, guest posting, and more.

Also Read: What to Expect from a Professional SEO Company?

6. Domain Age

Domain age is also an important off-page ranking factor. Though it might not directly influence your ranking, it is an indicator of your site’s authority and authenticity.

Hence, make sure that you stick with your domain and do not start a new one, if you have a choice.

7. Reviews

A customer-centric approach can do wonders for your business since Google loves a business that customers vouch for.

Good reviews increase the authenticity of your business and this will help you rank higher in the SERPs. Your online reputation greatly depends on your customer reviews and hence make sure you put in some effort to gain the best reviews from your customers.

8. Google Business Profile

Creating or claiming your business listing with a Google Business Profile is a crucial part of your off-page SEO activities. Google Business Profile listings are the ones that are listed on top whenever a person searches for a business.

If your business gets listed in Google’s 3-pack, then you will get more clicks and consequently more customers.

9. Local Citations

Other than Google Business Profile, there are many other business directory sites, both free and paid. Listing your business with these sites can help your business gain more online visibility.

Choose directories with good domain authority scores. For example, unlike most directories that only require basic details like business name, address, and contact number, LocalBizNetwork lets you include blogs, customer reviews, videos, and more about your business. Your LocalBizNetwork listing can easily serve as a landing page for your ad campaigns or even as a mini-website for businesses that cannot afford a website.

LBN Tech Solutions

Off-page SEO activities can be time-consuming but they are essential for a website to rank in the SERPs. We at LBN Tech Solutions have experts who can take over the SEO tasks for you! Check out what we can do for you here.

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Off-Page SEO Ranking Factors That Everyone Should Know About