Search engine optimization, or SEO, isn’t just about improving your own website content anymore. Today, you have to look beyond that and focus on off page SEO, as well.
What does that mean? It simply means that you do things “away” from your website that will give you higher page rankings in search engine results, making sure you’re seen as an authority in your niche, piquing visitors’ interest, and drawing them to your website; this naturally boosts website traffic. It does so by naturally building back links to your website from other websites or blogs – but it’s only effective if those links are high quality and legitimate. The more legitimate back links you have, the higher your “authority ranking” and the higher your site will place in search engine rankings.
There are a number of ways to help contrubute to your off page SEO. The following are four top-notch ways to help boost your ranking.
Blog
Blogging is a great way to promote your business and draw more traffic to your website. When you blog regularly, you keep your current and prospective customers in the know – but you also establish yourself as an authority in your field. Produce quality content day after day and you’ll keep your regulars coming back – and attract new visitors, too.
Regular blogging has another benefit, which is that it boosts your rankings on search engine result pages (SERPs), because search engines have to crawl your site more frequently. You’ll also boost rankings because your all-important back link building will happen when readers share your posts.
Become Visible on Social Networks
When you create a profile and get involved with social networking sites like LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter, or Facebook, you’re essentially stepping away from your website and putting yourself out into the Internet’s vast community. Social networking allows you to connect with visitors and customers, and is somewhat similar to what you can do in your blog in some ways, but it provides even more opportunity for interactivity. Further, the “likes” and “shares” you can generate through social media create back links, which gets you noticed by the search engine bots – and that boosts your visibility and increases traffic even more.
Create Videos
Create short, informational videos regularly and include them on your blog, website and social networking sites. It’s a great way to “show” rather than tell what you’ve got to offer, and it gives you another way to connect with your audience. Some people absorb information best visually rather than textually as well, so this is a way to reach a group of people you otherwise might not.
Give out Freebies
What happens when you write a free report or ebook that contains really valuable information about your business, product or service – and then give it away? It “goes viral,” get passed on to others, and presto! Traffic increases because people’s interest is piqued and they come to pick up their copy. An added benefit is that you can capture prospective customers’ contact information by requiring them to give it to you before they download the ebook or report. It helps you build a captive audience, gives you ready customers, and yes, increases your website traffic.
Quality Content is Key
Remember that blogging, participating on social networks, giving away free stuff, and creating videos are just different methods you can use to showcase great content. If you don’t provide valuable content with each of these methods, they won’t work for long to produce those all-important organic back links. Worse, search engines will eventually come to realize that, and they may blacklist you. Focus on making yourself visible to increase website traffic, but do so with high quality valuable content that your visitors will want to read/watch, talk about, and share.
