The off-page optimization involves the steps taken off the page and site to optimize them for search engines. It is important to note that it is off-page optimization techniques that yields significant result in SERPs (seach engine result page) listing hence one must take it more seriously. Off-page optimization is must if you want to actually rank high on SERPs. Off-page optimization is more important but that does not mean you will not do the on-page optimization. On-page optimization too is important. I have discussed it here On Page Optimization.

Off-page optimization is mainly concerned with getting as many pages linking to you as possible. In fact if one can optimize this factor then there is no need to do any other off-page optimization. Most of the off-page optimization steps points to this factor only. Having said this, I would like to say that there are other off-page optimization steps too that should be taken into account. Let us explore each of them one by one.

Getting Linked: I have already said it is very important to get your link placed on other pages and sites. But the question is why? How come other sites linking to us will help in SEO? It is very simple, if a site is linking to you it basically means the webmaster of that site found your site good enough to be linked to. Don't you think you too would the same? Will you ever link to site that is not good and does not provide proper information to its visitors? If you link to such site it will give you a bad name too! Hence, more a site's or page's links are present on other sites and pages better the site or page will be considered in the eyes of search engines. You can consider a link as a vote; when a page includes your link then they are actually voting for you in search engine world terminology. That is why it is important to have your links distributed to as many places on the Internet as possible.

Here we will consider factors that should be kept in mind while getting other pages or sites linked to us. There are many factors that should be taken into account before giving your link to other pages and sites. Here are the factors, have a look;

• Number of pages linking to you: As already said, more number of pages has your link more vote your page gets and better it is. Always try to distribute your link to as many pages as possible.
  There are many ways to get your link distributed; one of the simplest way is to write to the webmasters of other good sites/blogs in your niche. You can write to them directly or can use the contact us form on their site.
• Page rank of pages linking to you: It is better to get your link placed on the page that has high page rank (at least it should be higher then your page). I have discussed about how to find page rank of a page here at SEO Concepts and Tools. Search engines give more weightage to links coming from higher page ranked pages. Imagine Hubpages.com home page linking to you! Your rank will shoot up like anything at lightning speed.
  Webmasters generally work hard to bring up the rank of one of their sites and when it rises up they link their other sites to it. This ensures speedy rise in page rank of other sites.
  It is a general trend among webmaster to exchange links. “I place your link on my site and you do the same in return”. Well this is a popular way to get your links placed on other sites but link exchange or reciprocal linking is not given so much of importance when compare to one way linking i.e. only your link is placed on other site but you do not place his link on yours. In such case your link on other site will be given more importance. So better try for one way linking.
• Page title of page linking to you: Not only your page title but the same of the page that links to you too is important. If the page linking to you has page title that contains your main keywords then such page linking will be given even more weight by search engine.
  The logic is very simple. Visitor of a page will most probably be looking forward to links on the page that will take him/her to pages that has contents on similar topic. To ensure this search engines will check the keywords of the two pages that are being linked are as similar as possible. This is achieved by checking the title of the page that is linking to the other page, as most important keywords are placed in page title.
  Hence your link on a page whose page title contains your keyword(s) will be given more weight then those that do not have any keyword or have less keyword or less important keyword.
• The anchor text used in the link linking to you: It is very important to note that the text used in the link contains your main keyword. This is to ensure that the visitors know what page they will be taken to via that link. This may appear as not so important factor but take my words, it is important. So when you give your link to others make sure they are linking to you properly.
• Do-follow link: Make sure that your link on other pages are do-follow. Once your link is placed on other page, view the html source of the page and check the code to your link and make sure it is do-follow. For example,

  
  <a href=http://freeproxy-list.com/>Free Proxy List</a>
  <a href=http://freeproxy-list.com/ rel=”dofollow”>Free Proxy List</a>

  In both the above cases links are do-follow. If you do not define the attribute “rel” then by default it will be treated as do-follow but if the attribute be defined then it should be give value “dofollow” to make it a do-follow link. Now consider the following.

  <a href=http://freeproxy-list.com/ rel=”nofollow”>Free Proxy List</a>

  The above link code has “rel” attribute defined as “nofollow” which makes it a no-follow link. Search engines will not crawl a link of it is marked “no-follow”. Such links are only for visitors and do not serve any purpose in SEO. That is way I said to make sure that your link on other pages are present as “do-follow”.
  Unfortunately almost all forums and blogs do not allow “do-follow” links in their comments and posting. Webmasters are always in look out for blogs and forums that allow “do-follow” links.

• Number of links on the page linking to you: As said before a page linking you is actually posting a vote for your page in search engine world. However, as the number of out-bond links (links pointing to pages of other sites) on the page that is linking to you increases the weight carried by each link (vote) decreases. Your link on a regular page will be of more value compared to your link on the partner’s page where you will see links of many partners of the site (it is like getting lost in crowd). Hence, always try to get your link placed on a page that has minimum number of links. If possible, try to get your link placed on a page that has no other link, in that case the total page will be voting for your page.
• IP address of the page linking to you: Search engine gives priority to websites that have links on many IP Addresses rather than many links all on the same IP Address. This helps eliminate the possibility of people controlling the search engines. If this were not the case then one would create a site with thousand pages and put the link to the site he/she wants to promote on each of those thousand pages. This would easily make his/her site number one. Mind you, never try to do this, you will be heavily penalized.

  
  To control such spamming search engines makes sure to give those sites more value whose links are distributed across a range of IP addresses then those whose links are present on same or not so diversed IP addresses.

• Linking to inner pages: When we think about giving our link to other sites we generally give the link to our home only. This is a very general mistake we make. Most of us do not know that getting our inner page linked to other sites is equally important. Links to our inner pages will greatly enhance the rank of our site on SERPs.

You can keep a tab of all the above factors manually on your own but this will take lot of time. Doing the same with the help of some SEO tools available on the net can reduce a lot of your efforts.

Article submission: Become a member of some top article submissions sites and make sure to submit at-least one article a week. The more articles you submit the better it will be. It is a very powerful way to create tons of back links to your site using your articles. It will also help create a brand name for yourself and earn a good reputation. You can join the following sites for the mentioned purpose.

http://hubpages.com, http://www.ezinearticles.com, http://www.goarticles.com, http://www.articledashboard.com, http://www.articlesbase.com

Do as much as you can do it best. Just because I have mentioned sites above doesn’t mean you have to join all. Join only as much site as you think you will be active on. You can also submit your articles to some of the authority sites in your niche.
As I said before that most of the off-page optimization will come down to distributing your link all over, hence, this technique too is pointing to the same factor.

Submission to web directories: I would also suggest you to submit to web directories. They are like yellow pages on the internet and have huge loyal visitors. There is a real good number of people how search these directories rather then search engines. There are both free and paid web directories. In case of free directory, your site URL submissions may take long time to get indexed in their database but if you can pay then it will be done in no time. It all depends how hurray you are in and what your budget is.
Search engines love these directories as they get so many site address all at a same place which makes their crawling job a lot easier and so they crawl these sites very frequently. Submission of your site to a good directory will help you get lot of traffic and will help you get indexed very quickly at all search engines if you plan to put a new site.

I found following two sites that gives you a good list of such free and paid directories (there are lot more).
http://www.strongestlinks.com/directories.php and
http://www.onewaytextlink.com

If you have a blog then make sure to submit each of your post to the blog directories. They are specific to blogs and a lot of people and even the search engine make a point to keep visiting them frequently. Following is a list of some of the best blog directories.

Forums in your niche: Get yourself registered to some of good forums in your niche. Be active there, ask good questions, answer to other and thereby build a reputation there. This will help you get a good amount of traffic to your site as most of these forums allow you to keep URL in your signature. So everytime you write a post, you signature containing your site URL will get displayed in the forum. Hence, more active you are better it will be.
Unfortunately most of these forums do not allow “do-follow” links and so all those links to your site in your signature will be of no use so far SEO is concerned. But definitely it will get you good traffic provided you are active there and have been able to build a good reputation there.

Book-marking Sites: There are such a huge number of book-marking sites that has earned a very good reputation among search engines. Make sure you are a member of those sites and submit the URL to your article everytime you publish them. Just like directories, this too has some very big followers and are equally famous among search engines.

Here are few page URLs where you will find a good list of such book-marking sites.
http://www.squidoo.com/socialbookmarkingsites
http://mashable.com/2007/08/08/social-bookmarking-2
http://kevin.vanzonneveld.net/techblog/article/list_of_social_bookmarking_sites

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