On the record: Off-page SEO to increase domain authority
When it comes to influencing your site’s position in SERP rankings, off-page SEO is one of the most important factors for brand visibility. This is the term used to describe actions taken to improve your site’s visibility in relation to external sites, rather than just in relation to, well, yourself.
These strategies include backlinks, encouraging branded searches, and promoting your site through engagement on social media platforms.
While optimising on site features such as headings and internal links are important for the overall look, appearance and accessibility of your website, all of that is irrelevant if your site is impossible to find in the first place!
But first, let’s talk about domain authority.
Domain authority
When it comes to off-site SEO, it’s all about convincing Google indexing to trust your website as an authoritative source so that it deems it worthy of a more visible SERP position. Domain authority can have a huge impact on SEO results: the higher your score, the higher your site is likely to sit in rankings.
The best way to improve your score, in a nutshell, is improving your site’s external backlinks. This is when one site links back to another as an authoritative source or as evidence of their expertise. For example, this link back to us as winners of best in-house team at the UK Social Media Awards 2022 would count as a reputable backlink.
So how do you become authoritative in your domain?
For starters, the first thing you need to do when it comes to constructing an effective off-page SEO strategy is to first establish how well your website is ranking in terms of domain authority (DA). There are several tools you can use to do this, such as Moz’s free Domain Authority Checker, Ahrefs’ or Backlinko’s. Alternatively, our SEO team here at Embryo could carry one out for you as part of our extensive audit of your website.
In some instances, if your content is the most relevant (especially in local SEO search results) then your natural authority and relevance will be enough to earn you links from other websites. This is what’s known as Natural Links, automatically generated by your high quality, eye-catching content. Although this is the ideal scenario, it’s not necessarily a given that you’ll get noticed right away.
Otherwise, if you’re just starting out, or if your business is in a highly competitive field such as the digital marketing industry, there are a whole host of other strategies you can employ in order to climb up the DA metric.
- Blogger Outreach
This is when you get in touch with bloggers and webmasters who manage websites in your related field and ask them to cover the product or service that you offer. Appearing on third-party sites is a great way to reach a wider audience and generate more organic traffic to your website.
- Press Release
You can employ a similar approach when it comes to contacting PR firms to create a press release for your website. You’re more likely to get organic PR if you’re providing valuable content that makes it worth their while to mention. Alternatively, you can opt for paid PR, although obviously this will take a bigger cut of your marketing budget.
- Unlinked mentions
By doing your research, you might also discover that several websites have mentioned your website by name, but not necessarily by link. By contacting these websites and getting them to transform their mention into a hyperlink to your content, users can access your website more directly through that link without having to open up a new tab specifically to search for your business. It comes down to a matter of seconds, but in the world of marketing, a few seconds can mean the difference between a successful sale and a near miss.
- Broken links
Another great tip is to offer your site to fill any relevant broken links that you come across. Because new online content is created constantly, it’s not unusual for a website to accidentally link to a website that’s no longer active, or which has been relocated to a new address, known as site migration.
Did we mention getting mentioned on social media?
With more than half of the world now on social media, getting your website mentioned on a social media platform can be incredibly impactful for your SEO strategy and is likely to generate more organic traffic to your site.
What’s more, by broadcasting your company on these platforms (either yourself or through third-party mentions), you provide more up-to-date content for Google to include in the SERP, such as your latest Tweets or LinkedIn posts.
As your social media campaigns gain popularity and your online following grows, your social profiles become an efficient and effective way of engaging with online users. Whether you’re reminding current clients of your proficiency in your field through updates, looking to attract new clients by publishing business success stories, or engaging with other brands and businesses through partnerships or collaborations, social media can be a great way of building links to your own content.
Off-page, and onto a new chapter
Ultimately, the most successful use of off-page SEO depends on your understanding of your brand’s identity and where it fits into the vast online network. Although the digital market can feel competitive and sometimes a little daunting, this market is also key to expanding your outreach and forming connections in order to grow your business.
