While on-page SEO is essential, in very rare cases, you might be able to get some businesses on the first page with no off-page SEO improvements.

However, this is very rare and only for low-competition industries, such as a plumber who lives in a rural village.
For most businesses, backlinks and improving the other off-page signals are essential.

How do you go about improving the off-page signals?

 

 

You may have heard about Google E-EAT.

If you haven’t, we highly recommend turning on the kettle and having a quick read about Google E-EAT.

One of the key aspects of Google E-EAT is “authoritativeness.” Now, you might be wondering how you can improve this.

Well, one key way to achieve this is to get good-quality link juice from relevant companies flowing through to your website’s pages.

Then, just as you direct water via pipes, you need to direct “link juice” from authoritative domains to the right pages you want to optimise on your company website.

Building links is easier said than done. It takes a huge amount of patience, hard work, and persistence.

 

Earning links

We think the best way for Google to approve business-building links is to earn them.

To earn them today, you must publish a brilliant piece of content marketing that stands head and shoulders above the competition.

 

Why is the competition now so intense?

So, think about it from Google’s perspective.

Businesses worldwide publish millions of pieces of content marketing daily.

They write about how to change the oil filter on a certain car and offer advice on how to care for your lawn.
Businesses are, therefore, writing about the same topics.

Google has millions, if not billions, of pages that could serve as an answer to any given query.

This is why the competition is not so fierce or strong. For your content marketing to stand out, it has to be head and shoulders above the competition.

It has to work with a very high Google E-EAT score; otherwise, it won’t rank anywhere near page one of Google.co.uk.

If it doesn’t rank anywhere near the top of Google, it won’t get any organic traffic, and if it doesn’t receive any organic traffic from Google, it won’t attract backlinks.

So, if you want more backlinks, your content marketing must have a very high Google E-EAT score.

So, off-page SEO is all about building links?

The answer to that is no.

There’s much more to off-page optimisation than just building backlinks.

You also need to be active on various social media accounts, gain positive business reviews, and build quality business citations. These will help improve the credibility and authority of your company website.

Again, this doesn’t happen overnight.

Any SEO agency promising miracles quickly is not acutely selling its services. We can say that with great confidence, because we have been in the SEO game for 10 years plus.

It’s a long-term process, and building links doesn’t happen quickly.

 

Table of contents:

What exactly is off-page SEO?

• How can you improve a business’s off-page SEO?
• Why link building is still an essential part of search engine optimisation
• What is broken link building?
  SEO falls broadly into three main categories: technical, on-page, and off-page.
• In this article, we will focus on off-page and explain how building backlinks, in particular, can improve a website’s reputation and authority.
• If a business wants to improve its search engine results, it needs to build a lot of quality backlinks. As mentioned earlier, the best way to do this is to earn the links to publish content marketing, such as blog posts, with a very high Google E-EAT score so that Google ranks them higher in the SERP from the outset.
• This way, the work is likely to attract more organic visitors, who may then choose to link to it.

 

 

What methods can be used to improve a business’s off-page SEO?

Link building

Link building remains one of the core pillars of SEO.

What we mean by that is regardless of which business sector we are talking about, whether it’s a construction company or a dental practice, to get up on the first page of Google, you usually need quality links.
You need top-quality backlinks. This is what separates the businesses right at the top of Google SERPs from the companies that are, say, ranking on page 2.

So, it often boils down to links.

But the links must be quality links. Plus, you could have the best quality links in the world, say, do-follow backlinks, and, say, from BBC

News, which would offer a good backlink.

But that said, if those links don’t link to a high-quality page with a high Google E-EAT score, then that page will not rank high on Google.

So, it combines good on-page search engine optimisation and quality links leading to that page.

 

Are business citations still necessary?

The long and short answer is yes, business citations are still important.

You need your business NAP details mentioned on various business directories, such as Yelp, Thomson Local, and Yellow Pages.

The business citations include the company’s simple name, address, and main phone number.

Now, all of this must be consistent; it must match. So, all NAP information must match your other business citations from the company’s house.

 

Business reviews are essential.

Remember when we mentioned Google E-EAT?

Well, part of that is authority and trustworthiness.

One way to improve a business’s trustworthiness is to accumulate positive reviews.

So, improving a business’s off-page search engine optimisation involves accumulating positive reviews on its Google Business page, for example. We might also want to accumulate positive reviews on its Trust Pilot account.

 

Why are internal backlinks important when it comes to link building?

So, let’s say you earn some really high-quality backlinks. Let’s say you’re a car dealer or own a local chain of garages.

Then, the leading manufacturer, let’s say they link to you; perhaps your garage is featured in an article because you have won an award for customer service.

Now, your appointed marketing agency should use internal links to spread that link equity through the pages you want to optimise. Therefore, various agencies use internal links to spread link juice across multiple pages to improve the SEO for those pages.

 

Broken link building

Many agencies use a link-building method called “broken link building.”

Broken link building is all about spotting broken links on a website, contacting the website owner, and informing them about the broken link.

Then, suggest that they add your company website because, let’s say, you have written a comprehensive article on the same subject.

The business will then want to replace and fix the broken link because broken links are not good for SEO and can negatively affect user experience.

The business will want to fix the broken link, and you have an opportunity to replace it with your own backlink.

Therefore, it helps the business repair a broken link, and your business benefits from obtaining a new banklink.

The backlink still needs to come from a relevant, high-quality business with high page authority. Use quality backlink-checking tools, such as Ahrefs. The tool we like the most at this agency is Moz Pro.

Use these backlink-checking tools to ensure that the page has a high page authority. You don’t want to build spam links, as this will start to damage the business’s organic search engine optimisation.

 

Market research and statistics

As you know, when we talked about Google E-EAT, content marketing needs to be well-written.

The work must show expertise, but you may want to support an opinion with statistics.

Statistics are really useful for improving a business’s organic SEO because they can be cited by other companies.

Other companies may want to cite those statistics in their work by offering a link.

So, for example, it’s a bit like writing a dissertation at university. You often use the Harvard referencing system to reference where you have obtained your facts and statistics.

So, as a business, if you were to conduct market research, and other businesses may cite your statistics, then what this can do is mean that you are building backlinks.

The best part is that the backlinks you will be building are presumably relevant because otherwise, the other businesses would cite your facts and statistics, as they would be relevant to their audience.

Market research takes time and effort, but it can pay off in terms of the business generating more backlinks.

 

Google business reviews

Most of this article discusses backlinks and why they are essential to search engine optimisation.

However, to improve local SEO mainly, you should aim to accumulate business reviews.

Now, let’s say a diner is in the restaurant, and they state that it is the best food they have ever tasted; that’s an opportunity for you to direct them to leave a Google review.

Accumulating many genuine business reviews increases customer confidence in your business. It also helps to improve your business’s

Google E-EAT score. Plus, many agencies would agree with us when we say it can most definitely help improve your ranking on Google Maps, which is the Google Business results.

 

Semantic web

In the early days of Google’s algorithm evolution, it was thought that the only way to improve a business’s ranking was to build links.
Well, yes, backlinks are essential; even since the days of Google’s PageRank, they have been significant and are still a necessary part of Google’s algorithm today.

However, a business can merely be mentioned, let’s say, in a new article, and Googlebot can pick this up.
So, it is widely thought that because of Semantic SEO, the mere mention of a business is all that’s sometimes needed to help improve the company’s search engine optimisation.

For example, your start-up business is mentioned as a new up-and-coming firm on Forbes.

The mere mention of your business on such a well-known website can help improve your search engine optimisation.

 

Anchor text

It’s essential to get the anchor text right.

We mean that you should write the anchor text so it’s helpful and informative to the shopper.

Don’t just try to stuff the anchor text with keywords you want to rank for, as Google will see this as over-optimising the anchor text.

Don’t know what anchor text means?

Well, do not fear.

You’ve undoubtedly used anchor text many times but not realised exactly what it is.

Anchor text is simply the text that you click on. Let’s say we are writing an article about how to write content marketing. Now, if we were writing a really long article about how to write content marketing, then we are bound to mention Google E-EAT as it’s a core part of how an author should write content marketing.

Now, as one of Cardiff’s leading SEO agencies, we have written countless blog posts regarding every aspect of search engine optimisation.

Therefore, there is often a cross-over, or an overlap, so to speak, regarding the topics that we are talking about. Thus, somebody with a nice cup of tea in hand, reading about how to write content marketing, the visitor might want to read about Google E-EAT and how they must

show experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness in content marketing.

This is important now, so because SEO is complex, we often add internal links to other articles.

This helps improve the business’s search engine optimisation in many different ways:

 

Dwell time

Adding internal links helps improve dwell time.

 

Googlebot

Googlebot can crawl and index the website better when it has internal links to follow.

 

Link juice

As this whole article recommends ways that a business can improve its off-page SEO, we need to emphasise that internal links, when added correctly, can help to filter link equity, aka link juice, across your website.

How do link juice and internal links work together

So, say one of the best, most leading brands worldwide links to your business.

That is going to be a super powerful backlink.

Good SEO agencies know that powerful backlinks are very hard to come by; they like gold dust.

So, that link equity, or “link juice,” must be spread across the pages, and you want to start ranking higher in Google.

So, say you want to improve the SEO for a group of products, such as running trainers, and you receive a do-follow backlink from Nike.

Then, the SEO company will likely add internal links to flow and filter the link juice to the main product page, filtering the link equity to the different product pages that sell running trainers.

Now, what you have to remember is link juice, or link equity, is like running water. You can get it to flow to just one page if you want. Generally, however, businesses want to filter through pages to give them an uplift in the organic results.

 

 

Don’t build spam links.

So, when you look at a competitor’s backlink profile, you use a backlink-checking tool.

You might spot that a direct competitor has over 10 thousand backlinks.

You might think I need a similar amount to catch up with that competitor.

However, here’s the thing: If those links that are built are spam, low quality, or rubbish links, they are not going to help improve the SEO; they are going to damage it.

 

So, don’t buy spam links.

Spam links are a sure-fire way for businesses to obtain a link penalty.

There are various link penalties, depending on which search engine we discuss.

If we are talking about Google, they can impose either a Manual Action penalty or an algorithmic penalty.

The algorithmic penalty is called a Google Penguin penalty, which means that in the worst case scenario, the business gets deindexed and removed from Google altogether.

 

What is the best way to earn backlinks?

By an absolute country mile, the best way for any business to obtain backlinks is to publish content marketing with a very high Google E-EAT score.

For this to happen, usually, the work will need a high word count, and the work will need to be written by an expert.

When you offer top-quality advice through a well-written article, other businesses may choose to link to you.

You can use Google Search Console to check for incoming backlinks and a backlink-checking tool, such as Ahrefs, to check the incoming backlinks.

 

What are some off-page SEO techniques?

What are some of the ways a business can improve off-page SEO?

First and foremost, if a business wants to appear on the first page, especially in a highly competitive business sector, strong backlinks are a must.

Gaining strong backlinks is a must. Take car insurance, for example. This is a hyper-competitive business sector, with businesses fiercely competing with one another. So, to get on the first page of Google, you need a strong backlink profile.

When you look at the top companies ranked at the top of Google’s SERPs, when you check their backlink profile, they normally have thousands of quality links.

They might have hundreds of thousands of quality links.

 

Key takeaways

Link profile quality

You might think that checking your business’s backlink profile will be complicated and expensive, but it’s neither of these things.

You can set up a free Google Search Console account, and in just a few days, you can log back in, and Google will have pulled in all the SEO data.

For example, you can click on the link tab and put all the incoming links into a Mircosoft Excel document, showing you all the backlinks you have obtained.

If you have spam or toxic links, you should take action and disavow any low-quality spam links.

Its best to hire a respected and established SEO agency to disavow your links.

 

Authority and relevance of referring domains

So, some backlinks are worth more than others.

So, more is not better, when it comes to link building.

It’s far better, and the world’s leading SEO consultants will agree on this: It’s far better to have few quality links than rubbish spam links.

A business might only have a handful of links, such as links from the BBC, etc, but because they are powerful links, sometimes this is all they need to push a business higher up on Google’s SERPs.

Earn white hat editorial links via guest posts, digital PR, and publishing high-quality content.

So, if you were to ask our agency which is the best way of building backlinks, we would say it’s by publishing high-quality articles.
If the work is good quality, other businesses will want to link to it.

 

Link Velocity

Rate that new backlinks are gained (vs. lost)

So, ideally, you want to build backlinks slowly just because it looks more natural. If you build a ton of backlinks overnight, it doesn’t look natural. It’s likely to grab Google’s attention, as they may spot that the backlinks are not being built correctly. If the backlinks are not being built correctly, then this can mean you’re building spam links.

If a business builds spam links, it will be penalised. For example, Google issues what is called a Google Penguin penalty, which can adversely affect the business’s search engine optimisation.

What can happen is if a business builds spam links, it can get the website “de-indexed”.

De-indexation by Google is a significant problem because the website will be removed from Google.

When you talk to any good SEO agency worth their salt, they will tell you that a business hit by a Google penalty will be hard to recover from.

 

Social Signals

Acting reasonably on social media accounts such as X, Facebook, or LinkedIn is essential.

What we would say is don’t spread your time to thinly across these social media sites, so what we mean by that, is pick a social media profile, say Facebook, if that’s what you like, and then be fairly active on that account.

You haven’t got to post every day of the week, but you do want to be pretty active and set up a regular time to make posts, say once every Friday.

Once you build up a social media following, what can happen is, that you can obtain their interest, say in a new product or a new service, and they may go to your website, and this can help to bring in more shoppers to your business.

Online mentions about your brand (linked or unlinked)

This again brings us back to the point of, where we are talking about the semantic web.
Google’s algorithm is now so clever that if your business gets mentioned, then just a mention of your business is enough for Google’s algorithm to pick this mention of your company up.

When your business gets mentioned on, say, BBC, this can help to improve your business’s organic search engine optimisation. This is called semantic SEO.

 

 

 

Local Citations (NAP)

It’s very important, regardless of which type of company you run, to have many high-quality business citations.

So, a business should have business citations, that’s, NAP mentions, on websites such as Yelp, a Facebook Business Page, or on, let’s say, Thomson Local.

You should also build business citations on directories that are closer to you. For example, we are a Cardiff search engine optimisation agency, so we build citations on Wales Online.

 

Consistent business listings (Google Business Profile, Yelp, Trust Pilot, etc.)

What’s also essential is that you accumulate many positive reviews. For example, you should accumulate positive reviews if you want to improve your business’s visibility on Google Business.

Your business will appear in Google Business results if you accumulate positive reviews.
So, for example, let’s say there are two Greek restaurants reasonably close to each other.

One business has seven positive reviews accrued over many years.

The other business has no reviews, Google is highly to display the business with more positive reviews accumulated in Cardiff. That’s because the business is more trusted by customers.

How do Google algorithms use off-page SEO to determine where to rank a business?

 

Authority & Trust part of Google E-EAT

High-quality backlinks (do-follow and no-follow) from authoritative sites signal trustworthiness.

So, the businesses that typically rank in the top 3 on Google usually have perfect backlink profiles.

Now, whether you’re searching for a carpet cleaning company or somewhere to purchase a diamond ring.

Google typically has hundreds of business results for every query you ask.
How strong the business’s ranking factors determine which business should rank number one and which companies should rank number 100.

Now, one of the most important ranking factors is simply backlinks.

So, if a business accumulates a lot of quality backlinks, sending huge amounts of link juice through to that domain can help improve the business ranking on Google.

 

 

Popularity & Sentiment

Brand mentions and social buzz

Global brands have a massive following on social media accounts such as X and Facebook.

This creates a social buzz, brand mentions, and a lot of social media traffic.
For example, if Google can see that a business is getting a lot of visitors through social media, this indicates that people are interested in that business.

The more social buzz, the more you get thousands of visitors from social media who want to visit your product and service pages; this can help improve the business’s organic SEO as it shows that shoppers are interested in what your business is selling.

 

Local Visibility

Consistent NAP (Name, Address, Phone) and strong reviews boost local rankings

So, no matter what type of company you run, to improve local SEO, you will need to build business citations. The NAP information—that’s the business name, business address, and business phone number—must be consistent across the web.