what is a good off page optimization in SEO?
The good news is that if you're writing on a site like Hubpages that gets crawled often, you actually don't need any off-page SEO to rank. You need good on-page SEO.
It's what's ON your page that's most important:
-- focused on one topic
-- useful, effective, covers it well
-- uses the specific language that your readers use to search for the topic
-- includes links to useful, relevant tools, resources, or related content that is helpful or interesting to readers
-- well-written, well-organized, engaging
--Answers a question, solves a problem, or fulfills a reader need -- even if that need is simply, "entertain me."
Once you've gotten comfortable incorporating those on-page SEO factors, then, sure, try your hand at some off-page SEO. But I personally wouldn't recommend using social media for backlinking.
To quote an SEO industry professional from 2008:
That was in 2008, and it's even more true now. (The rest of the post is even more abrasive, but has a lot of wisdom nonetheless.)
Guestbook link-dropping is a personal pet peeve of mine. The main thing we accomplish by dropping links in guestbooks is to antagonize other experts who write in our niche so that they won't link to us and won't visit our site.They certainly won't let the link stand, so why annoy them? Or, worse, clumsy guestbook link-droppers target unmoderated, unrelated websites, which Google's Penguin update is going to penalize as link spam.
But here's a few off-page SEO practices that really may help and won't honk off the very people whom you want to visit your site:
-- Cross-link your OWN content: links from different pages on the same site, or links from pages you've published on other sites. Only link to your own content if it's relevant to the topic at hand and useful to your readers. For example, if I'm writing on the Mars Curiosity Rover, then I'll link to my old page about earlier Mars missions. Search engines are trying to reward relevant content that matches what their users are looking for, so try to link to relevant content that your readers might be looking for.
-- Use Hubpages Groups! Create groups on the topics you write most about in your profile settings. Then, when creating a new hub in that niche, choose the groups tab hidden in the sidebar near "summary" and pick its group. This immediately establishes two crosslinks, to the next and previous hubs in the group.
-- Claim your Google authorship. Do it now. Glen Stok and I both have tutorials on Google Authorship for hubpages...Google it. Those tutorials will show you why this is important.
-- Check your old hubs' traffic stats to see what search terms bring traffic to them most often. Then SEARCH for those terms in Google and see how your hub looks. (Google site:yourname.hubpages.com search term to find it). Look at the excerpt that Google displays for your hub. Is it well-written? Engaging? Does it show that the page covers search term? That excerpt is the "bait" that will draw Google users to your site. You have one second to make a good impression ... make it count.
-- Set up a page somewhere -- your own website, Google Plus, a Facebook Fan Page (for companies and businesses), even Hubpages -- which is the virtual equivalent of an online business card or elevator pitch. On that page, introduce yourself and link to your best work and your other profiles. Link to that "virtual business card" whenever people or website profiles ask for your main website's address.
-- Establish yourself on some social media site like Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus or Pinterest and get known. The best use of social media is not for direct SEO or backlinking purposes, but so that people will find out about you and learn what you write on. Make a name for yourself, and they'll check out your work. If your work knocks their socks off, then they may share it, or even link to it from their own sites. But remember, you've gotta learn what each social media site is for. They're not primarily for self-promotion, but for communication, responding to others, and sharing things you find interesting. If you only find your own work interesting, chances are, nobody will find YOU interesting.
-- Remember that wherever you post, you're establishing a reputation for good or ill. Take the time to use good English and complete sentences (as best you can on a site like Twitter with a character limit).
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