Alright then, we should move on to Offsite SEO. Where Onsite SEO is all about your house being nice, Offsite SEO is your reputation everywhere else outside your own house. This is where you get your rep as long as you’re not there yourself.
Now, I’m gonna come out and say it, this is the scariest part of digital marketing, at least for some folks. See, with Onsite SEO, you’re in control because you have control over your own website. But when it comes to Offsite SEO, you really have no idea who’s talking about you. Back in the day, they used to try to hack the system by purchasing huge amounts of link bait through “link farms,” but nowadays, that’ll just get your site banned.
It seems to be a common fallacy that you have to earn a million backlinks to get on the front page. That’s simply not the case. It’s better for me to get that one link from The New York Times or from an industry giant like HubSpot than it would be to get 5,000 from websites that nobody cares about.
What you’re trying to achieve with a backlink is a kind of “vote of confidence”. They’re saying to the search engine, “We trust these guys. You should trust them, too.” And that trust rubs off on you. Which leads to something called Domain Authority. You want to be friends with the “cool kids”, people that you aspire to become. So if you’re a plumber in New York, having a link from the New York Chamber of Commerce would do wonders for you, despite the fact that their website isn’t visited by a million people per day.
Here’s another one to throw a curveball with. When the year is 2026, you won’t always need an SEO-friendly “clickable” link to get some organic SEO traction. Search engines have become exceptionally adept at identifying Brand Mentions.
If there’s discussion of your brand on Reddit, or if your name pops up in an interview for a popular industry podcast transcript, Google will take note of that. It can figure out the correlation. That’s why being “a person” is such an important factor these days. The more active you are in your community, the more interviews you give, the more you participate in conversations within your industry the more you’re developing a “digital shadow.” Even if your link isn’t added by accident, that “unlinked mention” will help you build your authority.
People always ask me whether having a viral tweet or a popular post on LinkedIn will help their SEO. The technical answer is “no” since most social links are “no-follow” (that means that they don’t transmit any SEO value). However, the answer is definitely “yes.”
Social media is the most effective channel for reaching out to website owners. By posting an intelligent graph or a controversial statement on LinkedIn, you may attract journalists or bloggers who will include this post in one of their articles and link back to your website. This means that, in essence, you use social media to reach out to people capable of linking back to you and helping build valuable backlinks. In addition, the more searches for your brand name are made by users via social media channels, the better it is from the SEO standpoint.
The holy grail of SEO was once considered to be guest blogging, but now it has turned into somewhat of a minefield. Blogging randomly on any website that would have your guest blog is not doing anyone any good; most websites where you can guest post are considered to be “link graveyards,” and search engines have no problem recognizing that.
If you are going to bother guest blogging, at least make it for the right reasons. Look for websites that your customers visit. Create an article that inspires people to click through to find out who the author really is. By providing value to other communities, you are also reaping the SEO benefits that come with that.
In case you have a brick-and-mortar store or cater to a particular area, then you must include Google Business Profile (which was once called Google My Business) into your offsite strategy. Even though it’s technically considered an offsite, because it doesn’t belong to your domain, it’s incredibly powerful.
Asking for authentic customer reviews is probably the most potent offsite signal you could get. But do not fear leaving some four-star reviews. An account that has 500 perfect five-star reviews without any comments will look quite fishy. Authenticity is what we need here. Moreover, responding to these reviews and including the negative ones proves the presence of someone who actually runs the business behind the brand, and thus adds to the trust.
The off-site SEO campaign is a marathon, not a sprint. There is no magic button that is going to improve your “authority score” over the weekend. This process is about developing a brand that others actually want to be involved in. If you create valuable content, help out your peers in the industry and engage yourself in discussions, the links and mentions will inevitably come.
There is nothing more frustrating than seeing a lack of change in one’s “authority score”. Don’t give up just yet. Be a “trustworthy neighbor” who provides a value to others. When other members of the online community realize how knowledgeable you are about a specific topic, search engines will recognize you, too.
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