When starting a small business, you have plenty that you have to consider, and SEO (search engine optimization) is just one of them. However, SEO can be one of the most important factors for your business. Many believe that SEO only refers to the information that they have on their website, the content that they post there and the tags that they have on the page or images on the site. While those things are certainly important, they are just a small piece of the SEO puzzle. With the changes in search engine algorithms, it’s more important than ever to understand how SEO can affect your ranking.
Make use of off page SEO for your business
Off page SEO is another term used for link building. Having links from other sites that point back to your site is one of the best ways to improve your search engine ranking. The aforementioned changes to algorithms have made this a bit more difficult though. While it might still be easy enough to get the links, the quality of the links is more important than ever before.
Fortunately, you still have some great ways that you will be able to build those links and improve your rankings while keeping the search engine algorithms placated. Here are some ideas that you might want to implement for your own business so you can improve and increase your off page SEO.
Using social media to its fullest
Social networking sites are one of the best things to happen in recent memory. While they certainly do have their drawbacks, they act as gathering places for people who would potentially be interested in what you have to offer. You can use social media sites to find those people. By providing links to your site in some of your posts, it will be easy for people to get to your site. Best of all, when you use popular social media sites that have a good reputation, mentions of your company and links to your site can have an indirect impact on search rankings.
Another thing that you might want to try is joining groups on Facebook that might have some similarity to your own products, service, or page. If they do not have any rules against it, you can post links from those pages to your own site. Of course, you don’t just want to post advertisements. Contribute to discussions and only include your links when appropriate. Otherwise, you might not be welcome in the group.
Finding like-minded blogs and forums
Another great way to incorporate off page SEO in a helpful way is to find other high quality blogs, forums, or discussion groups that have topics similar to your business. You will want to be a part of the discussions that happen on the boards though. You don’t want to drop in and drop a spam comment with your link. They will remove it, and even if they don’t, the search engines are not going to look kindly on it.
Instead, you need to become part of the conversation. Add something valuable to the discussion, or ask a question that gets people talking. Be genuine too. Don’t simply start a discussion while waiting for the change to drop your link. Build a reputation on the site. When the time and topic is right, you can add your links.
Creating quality articles for other sites
Another option that many companies choose is to create articles. While you might want to create articles for your own blog, it can be a good idea to write or commission articles for other sites as well. Directory sites still have their place, and if you are able to provide quality content, they can help to improve your rank and visibility.
In addition to directory sites and other online repositories, consider looking for blogs and sites that have content that is similar to what you write. You can see if they would like to run an article you wrote, which includes a link back to your site. You could even host one of their articles with a reciprocal link. As long as you choose sites that have good reputations, you can use those links to get a better page ranking.
No overnight results with any SEO tactics
It takes time to build quality off page SEO, just as it does on page SEO, but it can do so much for your growing business that it’s well worth the time it takes. Not only will you be able to improve your ranking, you are creating little gateways across the web that people will be able to use to find your site and business.
About the author
Olga Ionel is a creative writer at ThemeFuse.com. She is passionate about WordPress, SEO and blogging. Don’t forget to check out their stunning WordPress themes (warning: no boring stuff).
