There are over 455 million WordPress websites worldwide, and if yours is one of them, you have a serious challenge – standing out from the crowd. Sounds like a mission impossible. But you can achieve that. How? Three letters – SEO. However, search engine optimization can get quite confusing because of how multi-layer this strategy is. For example, don’t think that you can ignore the tactics you deploy outside of your website (aka off-page SEO) since they are equally as important as the optimization you do onsite.
Still, knowing which practices are more beneficial and whether all of them are applicable to WordPress is rather tricky. So, in this post, we will dig into some of the best off-page SEO techniques and check how you can easily integrate them into your WP site. We will also consider some of the challenges that can crop up and see what you can do to resolve them effectively.
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Why Is WordPress Off-Page SEO Crucial?
With WordPress sites numbering millions, you are basically fighting with too many brands for the same spots in the search engine results pages, and off-page SEO is your best ally. It influences how visible your site is and helps boost its credibility. Google algorithms only like to reward web pages that meet their standards, especially those that show trustworthiness and authoritativeness. It’s like how people on dating apps specify the kind of partners they are looking for.
In this case, off-page SEO tactics like link building help to make your site more attractive and eligible for a better relationship with the search algorithm. Still, not everyone can build links organically. And for some niches, it is absolutely impossible. What do they do then?
They can build their own PBNs or do some other time-consuming things. But most will simply buy backlinks to get more visitors instantly. To be honest, if done well, the results can be better than most of us think. Still, whether you build links organically or pay for them, you have to make sure that only quality pages link to you. What does ‘quality’ mean? High traffic, moderate to high DA/DR, more inbound than outbound links, and a low spam score. That’s not everything you have to assess. But it will be a great start.
6 Game-Changer Off-Page SEO Techniques for Your WordPress Site
It takes a lot of work to build a functional website and create an appealing brand experience. Every website owner spends a great deal of time and money on design and development. In the end, you want to encourage people to return to your site again and again, don’t you? But before users even land on your page, they need to find you somehow. And here is where off-site SEO can help. If you don’t know where to start, try these six tactics:
#1 Create Content That Is Better Than Good
Good quality content is how you make your website irresistible to both people and search engines. If your posts show expertise, experience, authority, and trustworthiness (EEAT), then inevitably, they are going to rank higher in search results pages. But there’s also another perk to this practice. People love to share the links to posts that they enjoy. Even bloggers are also looking for authoritative sources to cite as references in their own posts, and that could be yours.
How to pull this off? Find out everything about what your audience needs and what they prefer using keyword research. Then, apply or use the insights you found to invent new topics and craft your content. Add a couple of real-life examples and practical steps.
You can also turn a well-researched piece into an SEO-friendly PDF. SwifDoo PDF recommends turning those into links for your website. Remember to keep your tone and style lively and engaging, and throw in tons of cool pictures, visuals, and stats to make it worthy, not just another thing on the internet.
#2 Get Those Backlinks Flowing to Your Website
The pages that show up at the top of search results tend to have 3.8x more backlinks than the rest, and this shows how crucial those links are. The good news is there are different ways you can build a quality backlink profile:
- Outreach. One common way is to conduct outreach to relevant and high-quality sites, offer your best pieces of content, and explain how linking to your post will benefit their website.
- Guest posting. Another method you can try is guest posting or guest blogging, where you publish articles on relevant sites in return for a backlink from homepage or article to any relevant page on your website.
- HARO. Then, there’s the HARO and competitor bank profile analysis method of link building.
So, even if one of those tactics doesn’t work for you, try to focus on a different one. Plus, you can get creative with any of the techniques you see online. Because no one really knows your business and your niche better than you do. If you don’t have time to do it yourself, you can always outsource link-building to freelancers or agencies.
#3 Consider Whether Influencer Marketing Can Work for You
Look, people either love or hate working with influencers. The truth is that it always depends on your niche. Some swear by this off-page SEO technique, while others say that it is just a waste of money. This is probably a very controversial question because all the influencers are different; they have distinct audiences, and their effectiveness will vary a lot (sometimes crazily a lot).
So, you should choose only the influencers whose subscribers can actually relate to your product or service. Besides, they need to have high engagement rates and values that align with yours. It is the only way to make any real use of this tactic at all.
#4 Don’t Forget That Your Social Media Can Also Serve for SEO
Social media is a pretty powerful tool you can use at any time to drive up engagements on your site and boost your web traffic. You can share snippets or teasers of your articles on your SM channels and encourage your followers to check them out. The more they follow through and engage with your site, the more likely search engines will rank you higher.
Don’t just limit your social media posts to content; share your reviews and ask your customers to also share their experiences with your service or product on the review sites, your SM channels, and your websites. This builds trust and influences the results of search algorithms positively.
#5 Give Press Releases a Go
Press releases if another way to get backlinks. How does this off-page SEO tactic work? You find something that might be worthy of being a news piece, write it, and submit it to some news sites. Many off-page SEO experts use this strategy to drive referral traffic to their WordPress page. But here is a crucial tip – these news sites can’t be spammy because you can get banned yourself. So, do your homework.
It can get tricky, complicated, and all that, obviously. So, no wonder, for most people, it’s easier to work with a press release distribution service. You can try doing the same. But again, make sure that service is a real deal. Check their reviews and ask what pages they can offer.
#6 Local SEO Can Be Your First Step to Better Rankings
If you want to help your brand attract traffic from a particular region, then local SEO is your way to go. How do you do that? First, target location-specific keywords. For example, not just “buy cheap candles,” but “buy cheap candles Boston.” You can go as specific as you wish.
Your next step should be creating and constantly updating your Google business profile. Make sure you add some quality pictures and all the accurate details. Next, list your business in some (as many as possible) local directories. You can often find them when googling your target search query. Just look at what pops up and think whether you can get a link from there.
What Can Go Wrong With Off-Page SEO & How to Fix It
It is almost impossible to get your off-page SEO strategies just perfect the first time you try. Chances are that you will run into some issues. But you can avoid them if you know what you can face:
#1 Toxic Backlinks Are Really Toxic
This is one of the biggest and most common things that can go wrong with strategies for your off-page SEO and tank your search rankings. How does this happen? Mostly from getting links from dubious or shady sites and agencies. Truth be told, getting quality links is a whole hassle and requires intense effort.
Worse, you can’t just go for any link you find. Still, toxic backlinks or unnatural spammy links can cause more harm than good. If there are not many of them, they might not pose any risk but get enough of them, and Google might lower your search rankings or remove you from search engines entirely.
#2 Indexing Issues With Your WordPress Site
Verify if your WordPress site is accessible to crawlers. It makes no sense to try and improve your search rankings if you going to ignore this step. What’s the use of all those off-page SEO techniques when your site is not even visible to the search bots in the first place? So you want to ensure that this is not the case and your efforts are not a waste.
You can do this by checking your site visibility settings. Simply go to dashboards, select Settings, and click on Reading. If you notice that the search engine visibility option is checked, then that means crawlers likely do not have permission to index your website.
#3 Failing the Basics
When you start doing SEO for the first time, you have to check that your WordPress site is properly set up and the basics are taken care of. Ideally, you want to think of SEO at the very beginning and not as an afterthought. But better late than never! So, here are some of the things you simply must do:
- Choose a proper domain and make sure your URLs make sense. Stay away from lengthy domain names and URLs. Plus, don’t use numbers or special characters.
- Get a reliable hosting provider to ensure faster page load speed. This will directly lower your bounce rates. And both page speed and bounce rates are crucial for good SEO rankings. Here is a Google-native tool to check whether your page speed is fine.
- Update your XML and HTML sitemaps. Don’t have one at all? Please create it right away and submit it to Google. This way, crawlers (search engine bots) will navigate your website easier, which will help you get better rankings.
#4 Budgeting
Truth be told, most of the off-page SEO techniques are anything but cheap. For example, link building can set you back anywhere between a few hundred dollars and a couple of thousands. Of course, there are some super cheap options for a couple of dollars or even cents. But you don’t want those pages to link to you because your website won’t benefit from it in any way.
Conclusion
Off-page SEO isn’t easy, even for professionals. So, if you feel overwhelmed, it is more than okay. But look, here is a thing – you have to do it. There is no other choice. Every WordPress site owner who wants to rank needs to work on optimization. So, the earlier you start, the better. And consistency can do wonders. Just start, and you’ll see it yourself.
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