Everything you need to know about Off-page SEO and how it works for your brand

Brands that focus on SEO as a channel can overtake and outperform even the biggest companies in organic search, provided they have more than great content ideas. However, it is important to understand and acknowledge that to own organic search results, one also needs an ironclad off-page SEO strategy. This is because you need to show Google that your content is valuable, sought after and worthy of being ranked high in searches. An Off-page SEO strategy will help you amplify your On-page SEO and therefore, optimize the online footprint of your brands. Here’s a blog that will not only give you an overview of Off-page SEO but will also help you understand the most potent ways to optimize your Off-page SEO.  

Why is Off-page SEO Important?

Your website doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Rather, Google and other search engines constantly compare your content to millions of other similar pages to determine which ones to show searchers. At the same time, Google also wants to know what others think about your website. In some ways, search rankings are like a popularity contest. The site with the most “positive signals” has a strong chance of ranking high in the search results. In a single line, Off-page SEO amplifies On-page SEO.

That’s why Off-page SEO is so important. It’s about optimizing the online footprint of your brand, so that Google sees “positive signals” across a variety of credible sources. This helps you demonstrate to Google that your brand is credible, reputable and trustworthy. 

What are the Top Off-page tactics/techniques?

Here is a list and overview of the top Off-page tactics you can use to grow authority and organic search traffic:

1.Backlinks:

A.Website Backlinks: Website backlinks are links that appear on another website, but link to your website.  They are important for several reasons.  The first reason is “Ranking”.  The greater the number of backlinks you have from other unique websites, the more likely Google will rank you in relevant searches. Second is “Discoverability”.  Search engines tend to visit popular pages more often than unpopular ones.  Therefore, if you have backlinks on popular pages this could help you get discovered sooner.  Third, “Referral Traffic”.  Since a significant role of a backlink is to provide the searcher with the resources that help them with their search, when people click on a link to your website it provides them with helpful information and resources critical to their query.  In order to maximize backlink performance, prioritize quality first and then quantity. Modern search engines look for social proof in how credible web pages are. Google utilizes its PageRank algorithm to measure the importance and reputation of web pages.  Per Google: PageRank works by counting the number and quality of links to a page to determine a rough estimate of how important the website is. The underlying assumption is that more important websites are likely to receive more links from other websites.

B.Directory Listings:  The first thing to realize about Directory Backlinks is that Google places such a high value on them that they are part of the local search algorithm.  In SEO terminology, a directory is where you can submit your website URLs in order to create backlinks. Examples include directories like Yellow Pages and Yelp.  DLs are very economical and in fact, many are offered for free.  They are easy to secure, great for building website trust and domain authority, and they can send referral traffic your way as well.

C.Social Bookmarking: Links in social bookmarking sites such as Pinterest or Reddit can be a great starting point for engaging a searcher in discussion and knowledge-sharing.  They are also a great place to easily see what’s popular and trending in a specific industry.  A company’s brand reach can easily be expanded by earning backlinks through other relevant content and interacting with potential collaborators or influencers.  Social bookmarking is an excellent way to simplify content curation and speed up your company’s social media growth.

D.Q&A Website Backlinks: Backlinks on Q&A websites like Quora are a great way to 

2.Local SEO

a.Google Business Profile Optimization: Obtaining increased targeted visibility of your business on Google is essential and requires optimizing both your website as well as Google Ads.  However, there is another critical component, Google Business Listing or Google Business Profile, formerly Google My Business “GMB”. This powerful listing is a dynamic snapshot of your business that highlights your best features and enables potential customers to quickly find, learn about, and engage with you—all from the SERP (search engine results page). The best part? It’s completely free.  How do you achieve this? Well here a few key components:

1. 1. 1. Claim your Business Profile
      2. Complete every section of your Google My Business account
      3. Be meticulous with contact information
      4. Select primary and secondary categories
      5. Mark off applicable attributes
      6. Write a complete “from the business” description
      7. Publish Google posts weekly
      8. Upload new photos weekly
      9. Answer questions
      10. Collect and respond to reviews
      11. Add your products and/or services
      12. Set up messaging
      13. Maintain your Business Profile

b.NAP listings: The most important information to provide people searching for your products and/or services, who want to contact you or visit your physical business location such as a store or showroom is an accurate NAP listing e.g. a business’ *name, *address and *phone number.  It is important to know that a listing’s visibility to an audience on a search engine results page is largely influenced by the accuracy and consistency of the business’ listings across the internet.  That is because search engines like Google, Yahoo & Bing are more likely to favor listings that offer the same, rich information regardless of the source of that information.  Conversely, when search engines encounter conflicting or old business listings and information online, the business appears to be less reliable and trustworthy. Inconsistency across listings can also increase the chance that duplicate listings will be created by data aggregators or that consumers will be confused or misled about a business.  This negatively impacts a business’ credibility, and it undoubtedly lowers the business’ local SEO.

c.Citations: A citation is when you or your business is mentioned on the Internet. The citation can take several forms; just the name of your organization, the name and the phone number of your organization or the name, address, phone number and the link to your organization’s website. Citations are one of the primary factors Google considers when deciding on the order of business ranking in local searches. Google’s logic is that businesses which are mentioned more on the Internet, deserve a better ranking, than those who aren’t mentioned at all. For a citation to contribute to the success of your local SEO strategy, it is very important that the citation exactly matches your name, address and phone number on your website. The format type doesn’t matter, but being consistent does.  You must ensure everything is accurate and up to date because Google uses these citations to verify the accuracy of the details in the local listings. Verification provides Google with the confidence of showing your information. Last but not the least, citations increase awareness about your business and help more people reach you online. The more citations you get, the higher the chance that people who see it will contact you.

d.Local Directory Listings:  With the exponential uptick in “near-me” searches, getting your name into free local business directories may be one of the best ways to easily and affordably promote your business.  A local business directory lists vital information about your business including hours, location, and contact information, along with pictures and other relevant information (e.g., reviews or other links). These listings pop up as organic search results on search engines. Google’s business listings pop up on a map or at the top of search results.  Just like broader Directory Listings, benefits to using Local Business Directories include building backlinks resulting in higher rankings and increased visibility.  Also, if your business provides a rare but important service, a free local listing can help people find you when advertising just isn’t in the budget.

3.Content Marketing

A.Create Shareable Videos: There are some great benefits to incorporating video into a well-planned marketing strategy. The most obvious of these is the fact that video is captivating and can enchant the viewer.  But, a good video can also improve SEO, because it is easily shareable, and if done well with relevant and entertaining content it ultimately can lead to increased conversions.  

Some important considerations when creating shareable video are: 

1) There are many different types of video content that can be used for marketing, such as product demos or how-to’s, explainer videos for new audiences, testimonials and case studies, video content for social media marketing, company culture videos (intro/outros), real-time events. Each has its own unique purpose. 

2) Understanding the ‘Hero, Hub, and Hygiene’ model. Created by Google for YouTube publishers, a simple way to understand this model is: The HERO: These types of videos show how your product or service can be utilized in the real world. They are usually more technical in nature and demonstrate how something works.  The HUB: These types of videos are like infographics in that they are informational, but they include videos instead of images or text.  The HYGIENE: These types of videos are what you might consider ‘promotional.’ They are usually shorter videos used to inform, but not educate.  

3) Integrate an Audience-First approach, a Storytelling style, think about using video throughout various parts of the customer journey and adhere to video quality standards such as format, platform, length etc.

  

B.Create shareable images/infographics:  Additional types of rich media include images and infographics.  An infographic is content that combines graphics as well as data in order to provide a consolidated yet robust offering of information on a specific topic. The content should be easy to read and comprehend. The emphasis should be on images with supporting text and data.  Infographics are very effectively  used when there is a ton of data paired with content that may be filled with jargon or is simply too wordy. Infographics work best in informational content for e.g. people who want to know why they should purchase a product and what they’re going to get out of it. Make this information easy to digest, even if the blog post or other content contained in it is not. Don’t forget to link the infographic strategy to a social media strategy because this is where they work best.  Sure. You could create awesome content and just use other people’s infographics. And that works, but it doesn’t give you one of those cheap, beautiful links that we all need to help our websites rank.  Make infographics. Have the link back to your website in the code. Promote the fact you want people to use the infographic.  People can and will use it. 

4.Public Relations: Top off-page SEO strategies ensure that Public Relations and SEO efforts are well integrated. Public Relations professionals spend time crafting communications and messaging that influence people’s perception of the company, brand or products/services. SEO professionals ensure customers see these messages online. This coordinated effort helps build brand awareness, brand identity, brand reputation and creates brand consistency across various channels and platforms. While you may think press releases are a thing of the past, they still play an important role.  The modern day press releases are much more targeted and personalized. They focus on the publications and media outlets where there’s a strong fit for the story. Smart marketers know that customized press releases are incredible assets. They not only generate media mentions, but also increase web traffic, backlinks to branded digital properties and help to improve rankings. Because PR campaigns often focus on grabbing people’s attention in unique ways they are very effective at getting people to share content with others (shareable content). Both SEO and public relations increase the odds that the right people will read/view and share your content. Social sharing, trust and authority are part of critical feedback cycles in both digital PR and SEO. They’re not only intertwined with Google’s search ranking factors.but they’re also a reason businesses fail or succeed. ​Social proof is extremely important to consumers. They heavily lean on trust signals to help them make purchase decisions and declare brand allegiances. The more they see a brand in reputable locations, the stronger those trust signals become. Trust building through PR may take the form of a brand sponsoring a charity event. Or a brand mention by a reporter, a product review in a blog, a joint marketing campaign with another well-trusted brand, a celebrity endorsement, a byline article, or positive social conversation. All of this PR activity is great for the brand. Social proof is just as important on the SEO side of things, as well. Off-page SEO signals like mentions, backlinks, and shares help Google understand that your brand is a trusted authority. In these ways, both public relations and SEO activities can have a massive impact on social proof and its signals.

5.Social Media: Social media SEO, or social SEO, is the practice of combining social media and SEO strategies to improve your position in search, your website traffic, and your conversions. With so many algorithm changes in recent years, it’s so hard to get organic results from social media. Creating great content takes time and most small businesses don’t have enough time as it is.  Furthermore if they don’t have the equipment, know-how or technology to make videos, it will be overwhelming. Every single major social media app now uses hashtags, keywords in post copy, or both to categorize content. Users can follow hashtags or topics in the same way they follow accounts, and every post they engage with tells the platform about their interests. Then the app shows them similar content from accounts they don’t follow. That content could be yours.  

Here are five ways social media impacts SEO:

1. Content amplification — helping your content get discovered and enjoyed by more people, especially when it’s not on page one of search results
2. Brand awareness — building your online presence through exposure, so that when your name appears in the search results, it’s familiar
3. Trust and credibility – supporting your reputation within your industry, especially when someone is researching you online because of a referral
4. Link-building – the more places your content can be discovered, the more the chances that it will earn SEO-friendly inbound links (backlinks) when cited on other websites
5. Local SEO — increasing your local presence and ranking through business profile data and customer reviews. And don’t forget:
   1. Your company’s social media profiles appear in searches for your business, often right under your website – they’re a great way to take up that whole first page and leave no room for competitors.
      
   2. Search engines index tweets, which appear in search for your business and can also turn up in results for specific queries.
      
   3. Google has been working with Instagram and TikTok on an agreement to start indexing video posts. You may have heard about social signals as a Google ranking factor. This idea says that social media posts, engagement (likes and comments), shares, or follower counts can directly impact ranking.
      
   4. Although Google does use your social media accounts to verify the legitimacy of your business, it’s typically only your NAP – name, address and phone.
      
   5. Google is extremely picky about NAP accuracy, so it will check everywhere that your business is listed to make sure all contact details match. If your email address or website link is different, Google might decide that your business shouldn’t be shown to someone doing a local search.
      
   6. Google may or may not check social media profiles to verify a website author’s expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-A-T). E-A-T is not a specific ranking factor itself, and more like a cluster of signals that create a factor: content from a trustworthy author and site will rank better.
      
   7. At different times, Google SEOs have also said that Google’s algorithms do and do not take note when content earns a lot of social shares and traffic. Not helpful. What is helpful is that Google uses data from Google Chrome to see website traffic volume and frequency – from any traffic source.
      
   8. Most of the other supposed effect of social signals is actually the result of indirect ranking signals – lots of traffic coming to your website and engaging with content in a positive way, and earning more links, which helps it rank higher.
      
   9. Bing, on the other hand, does use social signals in its ranking factors.
      
   10. Like Google, it uses social media accounts to verify a brand’s credibility. But beyond that, if content gets a lot of social shares, Bing’s algorithms take it as a sign that it should be ranked higher. Bing even uses social content in its knowledge panels.
       
   11. Each of these areas has an indirect impact on your SEO, and thus on how you rank. This is why social media SEO is important for businesses of all sizes and industries.

6. Forums: Forum submission is one of the most conventional, yet effective ways to generate backlinks that are necessary for boosting blog traffic and page ranking. It falls under Off-page SEO where you build a relationship with other forum members and take an active part in the discussions and help them with useful information. You just choose a relevant forum that falls under your blog niche and starts taking an active part in the discussions with useful information. And once you are done giving a solution to the specific problem, you put your site link in the end. This will help visitors know, in case they require more information on the problem they are facing, they can visit the blog that specifically deals with that problem. There are different forums for every category including technology, health, psychology, IT, blogging, business and many more. But a word of caution, you can’t post irrelevant information on them. Doing so will be considered as spamming and result in the termination of your account. Forum submission is very easy, you just pick the relevant forum in your niche, build a profile, follow the thread and take an active part in discussions. A thread is a topic posted on the forum where a number of forum members share their knowledge and provide a solution to the specific problem. Thread works in two ways i.e. either you can follow some thread and provide a solution based on your knowledge and expertise or you can start your own thread of the problem that most of the visitors are facing. Make sure, the thread you start, hasn’t already been discussed in the forum. Every forum administrator comes with certain rules and regulations that you must follow if you want to remain in the forum for building a long-lasting relationship. Posting irrelevant information and spamming can ultimately result in the termination of your account. You can’t copy someone else’s content and post it on the forum. Almost all of the forums follow some rules and take strict measures when it comes to posting copied data. If you choose relevant keywords, it will help search engines pointing towards your post when some visitors search for the specific solution and if your keywords resonate with the problems visitors are facing, it will help them find your post quickly. Direct marketing is not allowed in forum submission. You must give some value to the visitors with some relevant information and provide a quick solution to the problem visitors are discussing before you submit your link on the forum. Some bloggers use forums once in a while and get away with it. This is not the right approach. Your reputation and authority depend on how actively you take part in the discussions and the number of visits per day. You need to keep updating your forum profile at regular intervals if you want to grow and flourish like a brand. In the forum posting, no one gives attention unless your information and knowledge resonate with their needs and demands. Before you post your link on the forum, make sure you address the specific problem and provide a relevant solution. Some forums allow you to post your signature on them. A signature is a number of blog links you put on a forum under the post that comes with useful information. This process activates once you are done posting a certain number of posts required for the forum. Signature helps you get more than one backlink at a time for a single post. 

7. Influencer Marketing: Influencer marketing focuses on delivering your brand message to a targeted set of industry influencers rather than to the market at large, relying on those influencers to amplify your voice to a relevant and pre-qualified audience. How influencer collaboration affects SEO.Here is the short version. There are two main search ranking factors: authority (inbound links) and relevance (content and keywords).Why does a link appear? Because someone found something worth linking to. What type of content attracts links? Original research. Who makes these links? Content creators. Content creators are influential over your search rankings. An influencer is someone in your industry or niche with some degree of sway, authority, or special knowledge on a subject. They typically have a large following on social media networks, contribute to thought leadership, and are subject matter experts. Look for trustworthy voices in your industry. Which personalities are interviewed in relevant publications for their insight on your niche? Who do you see quoted by your industry peers time and again? Prolific bloggers, well-known speakers, media personalities—identify the people making a splash in your niche, and you’ll find your influencers. Followerwonk, a Twitter analysis tool, will allow you to slice and dice Twitter data several different ways. Try searching bios for industry keywords, then sorting the resulting list of users by “Social Authority,” a measure of how much influence they have based on their account cues. BuzzSumo has a specific influencer marketing tool that will help you pick out influencers by subject and location.Research conferences and meetups in your niche. Who’s offered a speaking gig at event after event? Read over their slide decks, watch recordings of their talks, and begin to follow them on social media. How does influencer marketing work? Because influencers have earned the trust and loyalty of a very large and relevant audience, they tend to have more sway. Their following is likely larger and more diverse than the audience whom your marketing efforts are currently reaching, and is often composed of people that are deeply invested in your target niche. When influencers amplify your voice (via guest posting on their site, mentioning you on social media, or otherwise engaging with you), your message reaches a larger audience that’s naturally more receptive to sharing and linking because they trust the influencer.

8.Events: From formal conferences to industry trade shows, from tongue-in-cheek cookoff contests to private seminars, companies can participate in or host any number of events that reflect their brand and offer potential lead generation opportunities.  While events serve as a natural way to generate buzz about a product, service or company itself, they also represent an opportunity to produce new assets that are helpful for visibility in organic search. and are a great place to expand quality backlinks to third-party websites & referring domains and other external domains. 

9.Guest Posting: The basic definition of guest blogging is pretty straightforward – it means posting on another person’s blog as a guest. You contribute content to someone’s blog and in return you get an external backlink to your own blog and wider exposure.  Firstly, you’re networking with other bloggers and making new connections which might prove useful later on down the line. Bloggers can be influential people and their chatter makes up a large proportion of conversation on the internet. Through guest posting and getting to know people, you might indirectly end up increasing your influence in the social media world. Secondly, through guest blogging you are introduced to a new audience. By essentially tapping into the host blog’s audience you are making a pitch to an already established community ready to hear what you have to say. If you’re adding value to their reading experience, then they’re likely to head over to your blog to check out your other content. When you post on another person’s site, the one thing you should be adamant about is their inclusion of a link to your own blog. This might be embedded in the text, or might be included in the author bio. However it’s incorporated, generating these links is important (critical). Being referenced on reputable, quality sites is a big factor in how big search engines decide to rank your blog. Over time, generating these backlinks will help boost you in the search engine rankings. How to find guest post opportunities, well a Google search is probably the most obvious thing to try. Just type in ‘top [your industry] blog list’ and see what pops up. Alternatively, you can try an advanced search, specifying strings of phrases like “write for us”, and “blogging”. This will help you find blogs that are actively looking for guest contributors. Something To Think About When You’re Guest Blogging The main thing to bear in mind when guest blogging is the nature of the links you incorporate into your text. When you include links in your content, the actual words hyperlinked are called anchor texts. When you link a url, you should make sure it contains words that are useful.Which words are useful? Google uses anchor texts to assess a page’s relevance, so include keywords in the anchor texts that you link to.Just make sure not to overdo it, as Google also penalizes for spammy links. As with most SEO strategies, the most important thing to do is to do everything you do organically – if that makes sense. Don’t be too heavy handed or artificial with the links you embed. Most of all, make sure that the links are relevant. And if they’re relevant, they’re likely to include keywords anyway

10. Podcasts: With the right podcast link building strategy, you can use podcasting as a way to expand your link building (and improve your rankings in search results), while simultaneously generating more search traffic to the podcast itself.In case you aren’t familiar, podcasts are pieces of audio content, usually episodic in nature, distributed for free via a highly accessible podcast network. You can make a podcast about anything—there are comedy podcasts, informative podcasts, review podcasts, interview podcasts, and even serialized fiction (like radio plays).Let’s take a look.

• The relative ease of podcasting. One of the reasons podcasting has become so popular is its friendliness to newcomers. The audio format and ease of publication means you won’t have to invest much time or money to get started—yet the potential audience you can build with a podcast is practically unlimited in size. Compared to other link building strategies, this can be incredibly affordable, meaning it can actively increase your ROI.
• Syndication. If you use sites like Libsyn or Podbean, your podcast episodes can–at your request–be syndicated across a myriad of high-authority websites. And, more importantly, many of the syndicated links are dofollow, which means the links provide some SEO juice.
• Personal brand development and guest posting opportunities. Podcasts are typically hosted by one or two people, who serve as the charismatic leads for the show. If you’re trying to fit your podcasting strategy with your SEO campaign, it’s ideal to have your primary guest authors as your podcast hosts. Remember, the best way to build links for SEO is through guest posting, and guest posting is at its most effective when you have strong, personal brands to author new works for high-profile publishers. If you can build up the perceived authority and reputation of your guest authors through podcasting, you’ll gain access to much more lucrative publication opportunities.
• Relationship building and content collaboration. Podcasting is also a fantastic gateway for relationship building and collaborative content development. By networking with other podcasters, conducting interviews, and guest hosting on other podcasts, you’ll expand your network of content collaborators and partners. As a side effect, you’ll trade links with a wider range of industry authorities, and you’ll open the door to more co-author and co-publication deals.
• Linkable assets. Think of your podcast episodes as high-quality articles, or whitepapers; they can serve as high-quality, linkable assets on your own site. If you have an amazing interview, or if you discuss some original research or unique thoughts on a podcast episode, you can cite it in your offsite content, linking back to your site.
  
• Podcasting as a social media channel. You can also consider your podcast as an alternative social media channel. Just as you might syndicate and popularize your best content through channels like Facebook and Twitter, you can talk about your best content on a podcast, increasing its visibility and capacity to earn links.
  
• Medium transformation potential. Podcasting is also unique because of its ability to serve as multiple mediums simultaneously. For example, let’s say you interview people on your podcast. You can film the interaction between your host and your guest, then release it simultaneously as a YouTube video, a podcast episode on various networks, and a written transcript on your blog; this way, you’re creating video, audio, and written content all at once.We’re used to talking and thinking about SEO as it relates to Google, but when it comes to podcasts, you’ll have to broaden your horizons. In addition to optimizing your podcast for Google search (since a 2019 update allowed podcast episodes to display in Google search results), you’ll have to optimize your podcast for visibility in various podcast distribution networks, like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more.

11.Reviews: Local SEO is influenced by general SEO factors like backlinks and content quality, however, it can also be impacted by customer reviews.  Reviews help drive higher rankings and  increase website visitor clicks.  They provide insight into what you’re doing well, what you can improve on and offer you a reason to engage and build a relationship with people who have just purchased or will purchase what you’re offering. Five benefits of having reviews on the same page as your product or service instead of having a link to another page that has a list of the reviews are:

1. 1. They provide more content for the search engine spiders, allowing the product page to rank for related long-tail terms, including combinations of product names and reviews.
   2. They can create a differentiation between your location and other locations, as well as other companies offering the same services or products.
   3. They support the user journey by validating the product or service which leads to increased CTR, conversions and revenue.
   4. They allow the product page to rank for words people use to describe your products versus words you use as well as the words they use when searching for your product.
   5. Studies have shown consumer reviews are more trusted than a company’s own description.  They provide “social proof” and they can: 

• Strengthen local SEO signals. According to Google’s local quality guidelines, customer reviews influence local SEO rankings and help boost organic traffic.
  
• Build customer trust
  
• Positively influence CTR and purchase
  
• Improve SERP appearance for local search queries.6.The most influential review factors include:
  1. Quantity of native Google reviews (w/text): The number of customer reviews on your GMB page.
     
  2. Product/service keywords in the review: How often customers use keyword targets in their reviews.
     
  3. Positive sentiment in review: Whether customers leave positive ratings for your business positively.
     
  4. Overall velocity of reviews (Native + Third Party): It’s better to amass reviews steadily over time, rather than all at once. This applies to both your GMB page and 3rd party review websites.

SEO Best Practices for Adding Reviews include:

• Make sure they are in the code.  The reviews must appear in text form in the HTML of the product page they live on.
  
• Markup reviews and ratings with Schema.org: Schema is a shared markup vocabulary that makes it easier for web admins to define their content assets and maximize their efforts within the Google SERPs. Due to this value, search engines have come together to provide a shared collection of Schemas that web admins can use.
  
• Utilize Google’s Rich Snippets Markup Helper Structured Data Markup Helper shows you how to update your site so that Google can understand the data it contains. Once Google understands the information on your site, your data can be presented more attractively and in new ways within the Google SERPs.
  
• Utilize Google’s Rich Snippets Markup Testing Tool. This tool from Google helps web admins test their Rich Snippet implementation. It provides insights into the validity of the implementation and how the snippet might be displayed in the Google SERPs.
  
• Have a View All Reviews page: Plan to have a View All Reviews page if you are concerned that there will be many reviews and feel it will impact the UX of the page. This will also allow for review growth and organization. Then, link back to the product page from the view all reviews page.  URL structure could be: /product-name/reviews.
  
• Optimize View All Reviews page: If you plan to have a View All Reviews page, make sure it’s optimized to allow for traffic acquisition. Title Tag: Reviews for [Product Name] | Brand Name Description: Find out what other users thought about [Product Name].

Finally, Simplify the review posting process for the user by not adding too many required steps.  Ask for reviews from current users via email shortly after they have purchased a product and again a couple of weeks later or once you know they have received the product. Pay attention to the reviews you are getting to engage with users who are leaving negative reviews and thank those leaving great reviews.

12.Content Syndication: Basically speaking, content syndication is when you republish your existing content on other websites in order to increase and broaden your potential audience. Many different forms of digital content such as text, video’s, images, and infographics can be syndicated.  According to Search Engine Journal, syndicated content may involve content published in its entirety, articles edited and shortened, or excerpts of an article.  Don’t be fooled into thinking that blogs and articles are the only content types that are appropriate for syndication. Other Examples are:

• Ebooks.
• Podcasts.
• Whitepapers.
• Webinars.
• Infographics

“Syndicate carefully. If you syndicate your content on other sites, Google will always show the version they think is most appropriate for users in each given search, which may or may not be the version you’d prefer. However, it is helpful to ensure that each site on which your content is syndicated includes a link back to your original article.”

According to Search Engine Journal, “While fear over “duplicate content” penalties is exaggerated in the case of syndication, it’s also not the best SEO strategy [because of the potential for one website to outrank another].”

The key to success? Weighing the pros and cons of syndicating content on any potential outlet. The ideal way to proceed with content syndication is when the author grants permission for others to use their articles and the website gives proper attribution to the author and source.

Here are a few Best Practices for Content Syndication

1.Protect Your SEO Credit

It is possible that a syndicating website can leverage your work and outrank you. Elegant Themes suggests having an agreement with the website where you’re submitting the article that involves adding a rel=canonical tag that points to the original source of the syndicated content. You can also incorporate a NoIndex tag to prevent syndicated content from being indexed, to begin with.

2. Carefully Choose Your Publishing Partner(s)

Research your potential publishing partners, choose your best option(s) and then carefully explain that you are looking for a content syndication partnership. Remember that if you are new to the game then you will have to work your way up the ladder.Theme Circle offers a sortable list of over 5000+ outlets looking for guest blog posts.

3.Expand Syndication Efforts Beyond Other Websites

Social Content syndication isn’t just about publishing on other websites. The following outlets can also be worth exploring as part of a complete content distribution strategy:

• LinkedIn’s publishing platform can be a great venue to share your expertise and take advantage of existing reach. According to LinkedIn’s guidelines, LinkedIn can distribute and annotate any content you share. What’s great about LinkedIn is that it shows up on search engine results pages (SERPs), though it’s unlikely to outrank your website for the same content.
  
• Medium is an online publishing platform founded by Evan Williams, who was chairman & CEO of Twitter (and also co-founded Blogger). Medium collects content and sends personalized recommendations to subscribers based on previous articles they’ve read. Medium offers a (somewhat outdated) WordPress plugin that allows you to automatically post your blog entries to your Medium profile.
  
• Quora is another place to share your content. It is the most popular question and answer site online. To find success with content syndication, just search for topics related to your content and answer questions using excerpts from your content, with a link back to your website.
  
• Reddit is known as “the front page of the internet”. It is one of the most diverse networks on the internet and has different subreddits (or forum groups) where people discuss their interests. You can think of Reddit as the uncensored version of Quora. Quora has a lot of restrictions, while Reddit’s focus is content and community.
  
• For anything WordPress related, you should also try syndicating content to LinkWP or ManageWP.org. Another popular outlet for syndicating B2B content is Business2Community.

Ideally, you’ll test out a few of these platforms and eventually settle on the ones that give you the best return for your time investment. Not every option will work for every person or brand.

4.Put Your Best Foot Forward

Syndicating content on large popular sites can be difficult and competitive.  By definition they are receiving lots of requests on a regular basis.  The particular site might have very strict guidelines or favor certain styles, formats and/or types of content.  You need to follow their guidelines and ensure you submit your best content effort. Read the site’s guidelines and tailor your content.

If your ideal outlet won’t budge when it comes to syndicating content, consider Andy Crestodina’s tips for creating new variations of existing original content to submit instead.

How to Syndicate Content from Other Outlets If you’re interested in syndicating content to your website, here’s how to get started:

Use WordPress Plugins: If you’re looking to flesh out your website’s content, there are several plugins available that automatically syndicate content from other websites to your blog. These plugins usually help you get content from Atom or RSS feeds to publish to your site. You can add as many websites as you want and even set up intervals for when content will be published.  Additional content syndication plugins include FeedWordPress, WP Syndicate, and WP RSS Aggregator. There are also plugins that allow you to republish your content from your blog to another website, such as the Medium plugin mentioned previously.

DIY: It is a much tougher lift but if you want to personalize your content then then you can syndicate manually. To help with finding content flow, there are online feed aggregators like Feedly that will let you pull content from RSS feeds.  Choose the feeds that fit your needs and cuarte into one place.

We hope this detailed blog would have helped you understand the full scope, relevance and strategies to optimize your brand’s Off-page SEO. If you’d like to explore the power of  tested and proven Off-page SEO practices, get in touch with us. We’re SocioSquares – a digital marketing agency with over 11 years of experience in helping small to medium-sized clients achieve faster growth with the right digital strategies. We’d love to know more about your business and then work out a plan that perfectly matches your growth aspirations.