Link building and off-page SEO is arguably the most important aspect of any SEO campaign.

Here are some important factors to make sure you are doing off-page SEO correctly:

1.) High Quality, Relevant Links Pointing to your Website

It’s not easy to get high-quality relevant links to your website as this is the most critical aspect of off-page SEO.  If the links are easy to get, they are generally bad for you.  Link building should be done slowly and naturally…quality over quantity.  We would rather have 1 GOOD link the 100 below average links.  How are some ways to get links you ask?  You have to be creative yet not spammy:

• Interact on forums that are related to your industry.  Provide valuable thoughtful input.  Occasionally link to your site with feedback or valuable insight.  Put a link in your signature if possible.
• Release a high-quality infographic that gives out extremely valuable information.  Blast this on social media, press release etc…
• Look at your competitor’s backlink profile who ranks better than you and target the most important links.  Monitor this regularly for new ones.
• Leave a testimonial for a product or service in your industry and ask them to feature it on their website.
• Just plain ask for one.
• Guest posting, writing articles for others and contributing.
• This list can go on forever…

Be very careful about how you get your links.  Your backlink profile is fragile and should be watched closely.

2.) Reputation Management and High Quality NAP Citations

Managing your online reputation and citations is another important aspect of off-page SEO.  Users who see that you are legit and have positive reviews and recommendations will convert higher.

Here is a list of things you should consider in your off-page SEO efforts:

• Google My Business page, completely filled out with an effort to get honest reviews from customers (critical for ranking in the geo pack).
• Interacting on your social media platforms daily.
• Providing valuable interactions with other users on forums and discussion sites.
• Provide your expertise on a site like Quora.com.
• Find the industry leaders in terms of brand equity in your space (for contractors its Angie’s List, Rosie on the House etc…) and build out your presence.

Same rules apply here.  Quality over quantity.

As a conclusion, any well-optmized SEO campaign has a solid off-page SEO strategy.