Off Site SEO factors – DIY link building

How many off-site factors are there?

“I know, but I won’t say because in fact, I don’t know” – this quote can be used to start and actually, end answering this question. In fact, nobody really knows exactly HOW MANY elements create Google algorithms, let alone how many off-site factors are there. But if I say that there is a “Googleplex” of them, I won’t be far from the truth.

When starting the analysis of factors, we begin with two basic types:

• Offsite factors
• Onsite factors

Offsite factors are the ones that are responsible for website positioning and outside it. These will include elements like:

• Linkbuilding – obtaining links in various forms,
• Google My Business – business cards on Google maps,
• Geolocation and personalization of results,
• Social Media – links obtained from social profiles along with creating “trust” of search engines to a positioned brand,
• Guest blogging – guest entries in various forms with and without a link to a positioned website,
• Influencer marketing – creating a “buzz” for the brand,
• Domain age – a very important element that can also be included in the analysis as an onsite factor,
• Keywords – an important component of an external SEO strategy, and like domain age, is both an offsite and onsite factor,
• Competition – by which we mean the market environment in which we operate.

Mainly, the above factors are my subjective assessment and calculation. You can disagree with it and discuss it below in the comment section – to which I invite you.

Onsite factors – any changes made to the website and related to its optimization, including:

• changes and optimization of Meta tags,
• content creation and development,
• technical aspects of SEO – i.e. indexing, security, friendly URLs,
• internal linking,
• SEO and UX hierarchy and construction,
• and a few more, including keywords.

So, let’s take a look at the Off-Site factors

We can probably distinguish many more off site factors, but let’s focus on those listed above.

1. Linkbuilding

Factor related to adding links to the website. Link Building can take various forms:

• Forums – for the word-of-mouth marketing – profile, footer (signature), post content,
• Blogs – for commenting and building trust – guest and sponsored posts,
• Own pages – various methods, using your own company pages,
• Microsites – expensive to maintain,
• Banners – perfect for promotional campaigns,
• Logotype about cooperation – an interesting solution, becoming more and more popular,
• Web directories – industry, nationwide (yp, company),
• Advertising websites – Quikr, OLX, Craigslist, company profiles.

And many other forms. We can use “beglinks” to implement SEO processes. For example, you sponsored a shelter – please give me a link, you are my distributor – and also link it to me. It is all a matter of approach and scale.

2. Google My Business and NAPs

In the SEO process for local companies, an important aspect is to arise a given city on the local market. Offsite factors are listings in Google My Business (one or more – depending on whether the company has one or more locations).

The fact of having business cards is associated with the implementation of an appropriate website structure and the acquisition of NAP business cards. It is obvious that NAPs are link-building, but I have listed these factors separately to emphasize that they serve an additional purpose.

3. Social Media

An important aspect of everyone’s life is… having a mobile phone. It is “an inseparable part of our life – it is with us always and everywhere”. Social media signals do not have a direct impact on SEO (as I wrote recently in the post titled “Social media and SEO”), however, note that all articles or information are shared and distributed using a mobile phone through social profiles.

In my opinion, social media signals are these offsite factors that strongly influence a website.

Today, links are mainly achieved through developing original content that is in turn, shared across social media. Links to your content on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube, and other social networks help the search engines understand what websites are credible and should be ranked for what keyword phrases.

4. Guest blogging

This very important offsite factor is related to link building. Both at the same time are – in many SEO strategies – a very important element for obtaining links.

For me, it does not matter if the guest’s post includes a DF or NF link. What’s really important – that it is there.

5. Influencer marketing

Gosh, how difficult a word it is. The biggest advantage of working with influencers is the ability to build a large reach in a short time. Their opinions result in great engagement of the recipients.

An important aspect is a fact that thanks to the cooperation and involvement of many recipients, you can build … SEO. The activity takes place (mainly) in social media, you can get several / dozens of links – and this has a real impact on SEO.

6. Competition

When preparing an SEO strategy, brief, or another document remember about one thing. The analysis should always include several competitors’ websites, pointing one out as a benchmark.

The analysis should be based on various external tools such as Majestic, Ahrefs, rank tracker, or others, plus (we must or should check) Google Search Console and/or Google Analytics.

7. Domain age

In my opinion, this is as well an offsite and onsite factor. We can analyze it from many aspects. However, in the case of offsite factors, we look at the domain primarily in terms of its age, while assessing at the same time:

• links to the website (e.g. in terms of anchors or their location),
• Social Media signals,
• Website’s content and its continuity using, for example, Web Archive.

8. Keywords

In my opinion, this is an important element of the analysis related to the age of the domain and its history. Link profile analysis allows you to determine whether cleaning of the profile should be included in the SEO strategy and how to approach it.

The analysis of the anchors leading to the website is an important offsite factor.

9. Geolocation and personalization of results

Another offsite factor that I moved to a separate point. Google pays more and more attention to local results. You get different results with the “city name” and different without it. Different results with geolocation enabled, and different with it turned off.

Google promotes local results more, and this, in turn, entails the need to show the client that the phrase “wedding photographer + city” will never be sawn in the maps because there is no physical office there. The situation is similar in the case of mobile tailors, podiatrists, and coaches.

In addition to this, we have the personalization of results. Many users are not aware that there is such a thing and that when they search for something and click on the same result, Google starts showing it in the #1 position.

To sum up

The care for offsite factors should be at the same high level as for the onsite ones. A good explanation of the rules related to building the positioning process for the client is crucial. It will give him a better understanding of what is really being done outside the website. They do not see it, but they will surely feel entitled!