6 easy ways to improve search engine ranking using off-page SEO

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the technique of improving your website's ranking on search engines. If not carried out properly, your website stands little chance of attracting visitors. There are two kinds of SEO techniques — on-page SEO, which involves website-specific elements like keywords, meta descriptions, headlines, and structured HTML, and off-page SEO, which refers to the things that can be done outside the website to improve its search engine ranking. While most people are familiar with, and readily incorporate, on-page SEO techniques, few realise the importance of off-page SEO.

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Off-page SEO is vital for generating more traffic to your site, which is crucial for boosting your website's ranking on search engines. Here are six easy ways to make this happen:

Social media sharing

Social media is the most powerful platform to drive visitors to your website. Your recent blog may be extremely well-written and insightful, but it will not gain too much traffic from organic channels (at least in the short run). Sharing your website and blogs on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter increases their visibility and drives traffic with the least effort. And if a few people like what they see, they'll probably share it with their friends and connections who will also visit your site.

Social bookmarking

Social bookmarking sites like Reddit, Digg, and StumbleUpon are highly ranked by search engine algorithms. This means that people redirected to your website from these sites are marked as quality visitors, which furthers your own search engine results page (SERP) ranking. But posting on social bookmarking sites requires dedication and smartness to stand out in the plethora of content featured there.

Forums and Q&A sites

The visitors who spend most time on your site are the ones who are genuinely interested in what you're promoting. And the best places to find these people are online forums and question-answer sites like Quora and Yahoo answers. You can provide quality comments and answers on discussions revolving around your website's niche. People will then start seeing you as an expert on the topic and won't hesitate in clicking on your website's link, which you should provide in said comments and answers.

Guest posting

This involves writing articles and submitting useful information on other credible sites in the same niche as yours. While a bit tedious as compared to the other techniques on this list, guest posting is an excellent way to drive quality traffic to your site. As visitors will see your website mentioned in places they already trust, they instantly see it as a credible place which is worthy of their time.

Visual content submissions

Visual content is a lot easier to consume than lengthy text. You can submit videos and images, accompanied with a website link, to popular visual content curation sites like YouTube and Flickr to generate more awareness and traffic. Infographics, which are proving to be extremely effective in engaging internet users, can especially be leveraged to entice visitors onto your site. Presentations and reports too can be submitted on sites like Slideshare and LinkedIn to generate traffic and hence improve SERPs rankings.

Local listings

If applicable to your website's niche, local listings are a great way to reach a targeted audience. Listing your website in local directories, such as Google Maps, Yellow Pages, and Just Dial, makes it easier for people, who would otherwise be unaware of your existence, to find you online.

Using these off-page SEO techniques will definitely boost the traffic your site receives. But remember, your website's on-page SEO has to be on point as well for its SERPs rankings to improve.