Off-Page SEO Techniques: Rank #1 on Google

Last Updated on September 3, 2022

Recently we had an overview of Off-Page SEO techniques. Today, we’ll be discussing some of the most popular, effective, and not so effective off-page SEO techniques.

 

So, earlier it was very easy to “fool” Google’s crawlers. People used to do all sorts of Black Hat SEO techniques to rank on certain keywords. Some of the ways of doing Off-Page SEO were Comment backlinking, PBN (Private Blog Networks), and many other things. But, these things don’t work anymore. They used to work in 2010-11, but not anymore.

But today, the scenario has changed. Google is now looking for blogs that have relevant information, something which is not present on Google and something that adds massive value to the user – basically satisfying the user search intent.

Some of the most common Off-Page SEO techniques are

1. Link Building
2. Social Media Marketing
3. Social Bookmarking

Off-Page SEO techniques is important because it’s something that backs your website’s authority. We’ll discuss it later on how this works.

What are Backlinks

When someone makes an anchor text and links out to your website or one of your webpages, it is called a backlink. There are two types of backlinks – dofollow and nofollow backlinks. Let’s discuss them now.

Types of Backlinks

There are two types of backlinks you can get – dofollow and nofollow.

1. Dofollow Backlinks

Dofollow backlinks are those backlinks that tell the search engines that they can reach the link which has been anchored. These backlinks are very effective and usually, when someone is asking how to get backlinks, they should be focusing on getting dofollow backlinks.

One of the major benefits of getting dofollow backlinks is that they help in increasing the website’s rank on search engines. Dofollow backlinks from high DA and PA websites can help the website in increasing its DA and PA. 

There are a few places where we can build dofollow backlinks. For example: web 2.0 properties, high PR websites, and article directories are just a few of them.

But, this is not just everything about backlinking. When you’re looking out for how to create backlinks, you must diversify your backlinking approach.

A dofollow backlink is given by the extension, rel=”dofollow”. So if one of your webpages have received this extension based backlink, then it’s considered to be a dofollow backlink.

So the new coding of this link would be something like this

So, when you know how to create backlinks on some good sources, then aim for this kind of link structure.

2. Nofollow Backlinks

These are one of those backlinks which do come in the category of backlinks, but just for the sake of it. Nofollow backlinks don’t provide any authoritative benefits to the individual website.

By benefits, we mean that there’s no benefit of nofollow backlinks in the search engine rankings.

Thus, it must be concluded that it’s important to know how to create backlinks. But, relying solely on backlinks alone would not be a nice idea to expect higher rankings.

A nofollow backlink is given by rel=”nofollow” extension.

So the proper coding of an anchor text would be something like this

Understanding Different Types of Backlink Techniques

Disclaimer: Before you want to know how to create backlinks, you must understand that backlinks come second or third when it comes to getting ranked higher. The first is content. If you don’t have amazing content, no matter if you create a million backlinks, you won’t rank high.

Get niche backlinks

Whenever we tell someone that they need to create backlinks because it boosts the authoritativeness of their blog/website, they immediately start reaching out to almost any website to create backlinks. And this is a VERY BAD idea.

Don’t just desperately go to create backlinks on any website you can think of. Earlier, this strategy used to work like wonders. People used to go into the comments sections of various blog pages and write irrelevant content irrespective of what the blog was about and make a backlink.

Google used to consider this form of backlink earlier. But not anymore. Today, the Google’s crawler not only looks for the backlinks but also sees from which sources are you getting backlinks. This means that Google wants to know if you’re getting backlinks from relevant sources or not.

Writing One Content for Backlinks

Now before you jump to any conclusions, this must be noted that backlinks are important for every article that is deemed to be ranked. So, if you know how different types of backlinks affect your ranking, you’d know the importance.

Here what we’re talking about is not just how to create backlinks, but understanding the strategy of getting backlinks.

Now, this strategy will take up a whole lot of time. But, if you follow this one strategy, then almost half of your work is done.

So, What is the Skyscraper Method?

If you don’t know what’s skyscraper method is, then let me define it for you. The skyscraper method is the method of writing really-really-really long blogs. A normal skyscraper method written blog can be of around 7,000 to 10,000 words or more. So, you know how big it is.

If you see here, then you’ll find that everyone is writing some sort of number in their title tag. Either they’re writing 21 or 100, they just want to add as many pieces of information as possible. This is called the Skyscraper method.

In order to outdo your competitor, you write something that has more pieces of information than your competitor has provided. There is psychology why the Skyscraper method has existed. People love getting choices.

This is exactly what the Skyscraper method provides you with. People would want to click on the results that are showing more number of contents in it.

So, what off-page SEO techniques do the skyscraper method include?

Now when you’re creating content with this method, you have to take some time and think about what you’ll be preparing.

Just remember that this one blog is going to be one of those major blogs which will be driving a lot of traffic to your website. So, here you’ll have to include almost everything that you have covered earlier. No! You don’t have to link out to every article that you have written before. That’s a hell lot of work.

Create a basic outline of the content you’ll be preparing for this one blog. Write down the table of contents. Finalize this table and write at least 5 pointers of what’s going to be inside each of these pointers.

So, this was the first basic step of making a skyscraper method blog. Now you have to make a table of major pieces of broad content that you have published on your website.

So this is where a lot of your brain work is required. As you have sorted out all the content that is broad in nature, check out if all of these blogs collectively interlink to all the sections of your website.

Now in the new blog that you would be writing, make sure you cover all these topics. Backlink to these four topics and you’re good to go.

So this time you’ll have to learn how to create backlinks on this specific blog. Get backlinks and whenever someone comes on your webpage, there are chances that they may read the other pages as well through interlinking.

So that’s how you can make one content for backlinks. It is nearly impossible for a website to create backlinks for every blog that they’re writing – if they’re writing more than 3 pieces of content every week.

Link building is itself a time consuming step. So, you need to be patient in order to see the results. Now, let’s try to understand another type of backlink technique which is Directory Submission.

1. Directory Submission

Previously we told you how people were abusing some of these forms of off-page SEO. So, is directory submission a bad type of backlink?

 

Well, certainly not. Directory submissions were aimed to just list your website or business on something known as Yellow Pages. So, directory submissions was that activity that was aimed to help people find out businesses that could help them.

But today, people only visit these Yellow Pages to just get a backlink from them. Although these Yellow Pages have an amazing Domain Authority or even that single Page Authority, but the crawlers are well built to identify why a certain backlink was sent on these Yellow Pages.

So, it’s not just about how to create backlinks on the directory forum, it’s about leveraging every platform wisely.

Some of the examples of Directory Submission websites are

2. Article Submission

Article submission is also a great way to get traffic on your website or even get some juice from these high PR websites. So, how is Article Submission done and what are the things to keep in mind while writing articles.

Things to keep in mind while doing article submission…

1. Make sure the directory on which you’re submitting your article is relevant to your field/niche
2. The minimum word limit should be 500 words or even 700 words
3. Use keywords wisely in your articles
4. Write a very informative article that compels people to click on your link
5. Use an attractive SEO friendly title to get more clicks
6. Distribute your content with subheadings, bullets, images, and decent paragraphs
7. Your article should be original and must not have any plagiarism issues

So, these were some of the most important things for you to consider while going for article submission.

Now, what are the benefits of Article submission?

1. If the article submission is done on a high PR website, then surely it would increase your website’s PR as well – if you’re getting a dofollow link from them
2. If your content is amazing, then it would increase your web traffic and you can expect some of them to be your regular visitors

Is article submission relevant today?

Article submission was once a great way to increase a website’s PR or even get some extra benefits. But, very soon this method became one of the worst off-page SEO. Why?

Because search engines realized this thing that people are not coming on these article directories to read anything. Rather, they’re only coming there to get backlinks and try this off-page SEOns . So, search engines like Google had stopped giving much importance to article submissions recently.

3. Press Release Submission

So Press Release Submission is genuinely a good way to get high quality backlinks. But, this is not why Press Release Submissions are majorly done. Press Releases are an amazing way to provide value to the readers. Along with the value, people want to read something new and interesting to soothe themselves.

 

Suppose you are organizing an event where there are some fun activities going on. Now you wrote down everything that happened throughout the event. Compiled it and made an amazing story that could grab the attention of this Sunday’s magazine readers.

Now, this is what will be creating conversions for you. Suppose you had an amazing activity and wrote down everything that generated interest amongst the readers, so they will come to your website to see what other things you do or when your next event would be taking place.

This is how Press Release submissions serve as a helping hand in getting more visibility and reach. So far, PR Submission could be one of the best Off-Page SEO techniques for you.

4. Forum Discussion

Forum discussions are also a good way to generate high-quality backlinks. But just like the other off-page SEO techniques, forum discussions are also required to be highly informative and not causing spam to the websites.

You can do forum submissions on the websites that are relevant to your niche. For example, you have a technology blog, so you can go to other technology forums and take part in the discussions. Understand what the users are facing and then give them a solution. This way, you’d not only get new visitors, but you may get your next few customers from that forum.

5. PPT & PDF Submissions

There’s a reason why PPTs and PDFs are loved by people – they’re accessible from anywhere and have a lot of value packed in them. So you know that PPTs and PDFs do provide good SEO benefits.

Let’s discuss why you should focus on PPT and PDF submissions….

1. They’re compact in size
2. They add massive value which can’t be found anywhere else
3. People would love to read it to the end
4. Creates a brand value
5. Can cover a lot of verticals of your website and business in one file
6. Helps in creating funnels and converting people for further programs and activities

Some of the websites on which you can do PPT submissions are…..

 

6. Classified Submissions

This is just like the other form of classified ads submission. You might have seen there’s always a section of classifieds in which you could see matrimonials, lost and found, court case information, buying and selling going on. Surely that page has a good number of audience but, it doesn’t mean that you should go to classifieds only for getting backlinks.

Even you can see how many people convert from these classified sections of newspapers. So, if you want to create something meaningful, then invest your time in writing an amazing copy that forces people to buy from you.

7. Blog Commenting

This is also one other form off-page SEO techniques. But the sad part is that Blog commenting is as good as dead now. Google still considers blog commenting as a part of off-page SEO, but it’s not as impactful as it was a few years ago.

What is Blog commenting and how does it affect our Off-Page SEO?

If you have been through any website or a blog, you’d generally notice that there’s a Comments section below every blog. This Comments section is an important part of the On Page SEO, but it’s not a very powerful Off-Page SEO strategy.

What happens in Blog Commenting is that people used to leave a random comment below every blog that they could find and link out to their website in this process.

This way, they were increasing their backlinks. But, Google isn’t in any mood to consider such backlinks. Surely, it does consider them, but they’re not as much effective as we expect them to be.

So now we have come to an end of this blog on Off-Page SEO techniques. Here you have learnt how to create backlinks and more importantly, how not to create backlinks. If there’s anything that you have not understood, then read the blog again. These are the core essentials of Off-Page SEO. Even if you’re not doing this, you must still know about this as the future holds a lot for Digital Marketing.