There are two types of SEO optimization: on-page and off-page. While on-page SEO’s concern is mainly on your website, there are several off-page SEO marketing techniques that you need to learn and apply for your digital marketing strategy.

Off-page SEO matters because it determines the website’s value, relevance and worthiness as a leading authority. And because search engines and ranking results are abruptly changing, getting a higher chance to have a higher ranking is not easily acquired by simply building backlinks only.

You hear it all the time: content. Over the years, people relied on content that is trustworthy and timely with current, relevant events. When the internet has taken over, massive of online sites appeared. Apparently, sometimes people can’t distinguish what’s authentic and original anymore on the Internet.

In other words, the off-page SEO secret is: you have to associate your marketing strategy with relevant content all the time. Shareable content speaks directly to your audience earns you valuable links and improves your off-page SEO ranking.

But it does not work in this manner. Let me give you an example.

Usually, when I try to look at other small businesses’ social media accounts, they tend to look like mini aggregator pages. This is an incorrect off-page SEO execution because this might result in losing their brand identity.

You might have been able to provide meaningful content to your existing audience, but were they able to appreciate your brand, your products or services? No, because it made your own brand unrecognizable.

Again, quality wins out over quantity when it comes to link building.

How many links do you need for good off-page SEO?  That is a tough question. It’s going to be based on the domain authority of your competitors, as you want to make sure you’re on the same page.

Even SEO professionals have realized that link quality is more important than link quantity. Because of the recent algorithm shift, Google now penalizes those who buy links in an attempt to manipulate page rank. You can also be penalized for submitting your links to link directories whose sole purpose is to increase your domain authority.

While relevant content grants you higher chances of appearing on the first page of search results, do not forget these off-page SEO practices that can greatly help in terms of your content’s quality:

• The linking site’s popularity
• How related the linking site’s topic is to the site being linked to
• The “freshness” of the link, meaning how long has it been since that specific content was published
• The anchor text used on the linking site
• The trustworthiness of the linking site
• The number of other links on the linking page
• Authority of the linking domain and page

Why? Try to think about it. If you shared a piece of content from an unreliable website with sketchy information about the topic, it would make you look more skeptical to the online audience. That is not the impression you want when people come across your brand.