Many of our customers get confused about the term “Off-page Optimization.” The fact that there is still a great deal of confusion about this topic motivates us to publish more information about off page SEO so that more and more small business owners and web developers can be better at SEO and enjoy its benefits.

So What is Off-Page Optimization & Why Do We Need It?

Off-page optimization refers to links from other websites that point to your site. For a site to achieve high search engine results (10-1 positions) search engines must regard yours as an “authority” website.

The term “authority” in SEO refers to links from outside pages (other websites) that point to yours. Not every type of link carries the same weight though. The more inter-connected your links are with websites that relate to your industry, your interests, your business, and your topics, the more authority you have from a search engine’s perspective.

A critical error that many make is thinking that off-page optimization means simply exchanging links with other websites (link exchange), but link exchange is much less valuable than it once was. Search engines consider one-way in-bound links much more significant than the reciprocal links gained in a link exchange agreement.  Search engines are smart and have a technique to uncover reciprocal linking and don’t assign these links as much value as a one-way link.

The interconnection or linkage with other websites in this case means websites linking to your site without a specific request to back-link (or link back). These links are non- reciprocal.  This hints to the search engines that your page must offer some real value, because another site owner felt compelled enough to share it with his or her audience without getting anything in return.

The art of attracting one-way inbound links is the topic of our next discussion. In brief, you can buy links, rent links, or bait for links. Generally however, your website must provide high value in order for other website owners to feel compelled to link to your pages. When your content is great, the link building task will be much easier.

There’s a debate over which is more important: on-page or off-page optimization. The answer: you can’t have one without another

Hopefully explains the concept and the value of off-page optimization. If not, check out our “WHAT IS SEO?” section for more details or drop us a line via the CONTACT FORM.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 27th, 2007 at 3:30 am and is filed under Search Engine Optimization, Off page optimization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.