Search Engine Optimization (SEO) involves both on-site and off-site strategies you need to use on your website. These strategies involve several procedures geared towards building backlinks which is critical to you ranking highly in the search engines. Off-site optimization is employing procedures off your website itself that relates to how the site is linked to external pages. A link that points back to your site is known as a backlink.

The top 5 off-site optimization strategies include the following:

1) Post your site on web directories

Submission of sites to web directories is an old off-site SEO strategy geared at obtaining more backlinks. Submissions have to be done manually and based on my own experience it’s a tedious and time consuming job so, if you can outsource this function I suggest you do so. With all the recent updates by Google to their algorithms this optimization strategy has lost some of its importance. But it’s still considered a good method of improving your page rank. You should bear in mind though that you need to post only to high ranking and reputable directories. Be careful of less popular and possibly blacklisted sites, they can actually hurt your business.

2) Video Marketing

Creating videos about your business and or products and then posting them on video sites is a great way to help with your off-site optimization strategies. You should then embed the code on your own site. Video sites like Youtube are seen as an authority site and will provide you with high quality backlinks. Another advantage from this optimization strategy is getting even more traffic if your video becomes popular.

3) Social Media: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram

Did you know that the Social Media can be a form of Off-site SEO? Bet you didn’t. Links from Facebook won’t carry much weight where Google is concerned but with proper use of Facebook you can attract tons of visitors to your websites. You can do this by creating Facebook Fanpages, Groups, and Events. Use the same tips on all the social network sites.

4) Don’t waste your time on reciprocal linking

Reciprocal linking is basically you linking to someone’s site and then having them link back to yours. It’s actually an old SEO strategy of trading backlinks which is seen to be ineffective these days as it’s rather time consuming and doesn’t produce the desired results. So it’s not recommended as it can actually do more harm than good to your off-site optimization strategies. What you want to do instead is concentrate your energies on getting links from relevant sources where you can chase the links.

5) Perfecting your techniques

You need to stay on top of your SEO game to get the most from your off-site optimization strategies. How do you do this? By always, always, questioning yourself and your methods. You should test different methods and try new things. If there’s something you can’t figure out take the time to do some research and learn all you can about the area. That’s one of the purposes of the internet, to teach you.

Off-site optimization strategies are extremely important and shouldn’t be underestimated. It takes constant vigilance to be successful at your optimization strategies and the results you desire won’t come overnight. But if done right, you will get that high page ranking and the traffic will come, making a huge difference to your pocket.