Stephanie Donelson

SEO can range from coding a great website to creating fun content for that same site. SEO has become such an important part of any brand’s success and website build that there are whole teams in major companies that solely focus on SEO.

Today we’re going to look at the three types of SEO your website can have and why you shouldn’t ignore one of the harder to do, but equally important kinds. 

So, what are the three types of SEO? 

• Technical SEO
• On-site SEO
• Off-site SEO

Technical SEO pertains to your site’s structure, speed, and the ability for the search engine crawlers to visit, understand, and index your site. Think of it like the foundation to a house, if it’s not structured correctly it doesn’t matter how pretty the rest of the house is.

On-site SEO is how you optimize your content for the search engines and your website visitors, like keywords, headers, and links. 

Off-site SEO is optimization about your site or brand that’s not on your website. This could be through sponsored content, links on online directories, review sites, press releases, guest blogs, and social media pages.

Most SEO elements are housed under technical and on-site as you have the most control over those. Those elements include:

• Site structure
• Breadcrumbs
• Site speed
• Image sizes
• Responsive design
• Indexability
• Redirects
• Meta data
• Schema
• Keywords
• Site content
• Alt text
• Internal and external linking

Just because the bulk of SEO work can be done on your own site doesn’t mean you should ignore off-site or off-page SEO.

Off-site SEO helps improve your brand’s awareness, manages your brand’s reputation, and can give your site more authority by having other websites link back to yours. 

How to win at off-page SEO

1. Think of the link

Link building is an essential part of your overall SEO strategy and you should optimize your site with a healthy mix of internal and external links on your own site, as well as invest the time into getting other websites to link or point back to yours.

Common link building strategies include tactics like:

• Review sites/online directories
• Press releases
• News coverage
• Sponsored content
• Guest blogs
• Blog comments
• Influencer marketing
• Social media

2. Build NAP citations 

Your NAP is an important part of your brand’s profile as it’s your Name, Address, and Phone Number. Your NAP is used to help index your site and information about your site correctly. It can also help the search engines understand the difference between similarly named companies.

Your NAP must be identical across all websites.

3. Get more brand mentions

Even if you don’t get a link out of a guest blog or contribution to an industry news article, that mention of your brand is a big win! Brand mentions are taken into consideration by Google when it comes to indexing and ranking your site.

Other ways to get brand mentions include:

• Being a guest on a podcast
• Making an appearance in a YouTube or social media video
• Non-linked mentions by influencers
• Webinar participation or sponsorship
• Event sponsorship
• Submitting quotes for HARO or journalist

4. Be on social media

Social media is not only a strong component of a successful digital marketing strategy, but an important piece of off-page SEO! Make sure your social media profiles are filled out with the right information and have links back to your website as well as have a strong presence on the channel.

Share your own content regularly to post links to your own site and be sure to engage with followers by responding to comments or questions. 

5. Try comment blogging

Comment blogging can be a bit touchy as many consider it spammy, but since so many blogs have disavowed links in comments it can be a good way to get brand mentions out there. Don’t just leave a comment on someone else’s blog saying, “Informative post, Stephanie of Brand Name.” Now that’s spam!

Write a thoughtful comment, share your own point of view, or ask a follow-up question to start a conversation, not just spam somebody’s blog for your own gain. You want you and your brand to come off as knowledgeable and human and to improve your EAT (Expertise, Authority, and Trust).

How are you improving your off-site SEO this year? Share your thoughts in the comments below or on Twitter!