Off page optimization tips: how to maximise your SEO efforts

[Swan]

Off page optimization tips: how to maximise your SEO efforts.
Search engine optimization (SEO for short) is the new form of marketing and it is simply crucial for any website but especially for commercial websites. In physical premises, businesses will need to rely upon word of mouth and advertising (through whatever forms of the media that they can afford) in order to attract customers and thus generate sales. On a grossly simplistic level then, the greater the number of customers then the greater the number of sales which in turn will equate to greater profits (both gross and net). If a business fails to promote their products/services then they will find that their competitors will quickly pick up the slack, allowing their peers to get that crucial edge over them, by virtue of that greater slice of the market.
The reality is that on the internet, advertising plays an even more crucial role and is nothing short of vital for the success of any business that is to be found on the internet. Search engine optimization has become a major business in of itself and has taken on a variety of different forms and has also proven to be an exceptionally lucrative one as well. To underestimate or overlook its significance and relevance is a recipe for disaster and put simply, if people do not visit your website then you are simply not going to make sales.
Before we can go on to discuss off page optimization tips in greater detail, we will need to examine in more depth, the backdrop of the internet, as well as the actual structure of it as well. The internet is nothing more than a collection of several billion different websites, all of which will be readily identifiable by virtue of a unique website name (also known as a web address).
The average internet user does not have the time to trawl through the several million returns that they will receive when they search for a particular term or phrase, and so this is where search engines such as google or yahoo come into effect. A search engine will take the text that is entered by the user and then use complex computer programs to crawl through the various websites in order to sort the most relevant websites and then return these to the user.
Each webpage/site is given a score or rank and so the higher the score of a website then the sooner it will appear in the results that are returned to the user. A website that is ranked #1 will be the very first webpage that the user will see when they are given the returned values, whilst a website with a lower score will be located way down the list.
Off page optimization then is a specialised form of search engine optimization and simply refers to other websites that are linking to your own website. For those of you who have just read the last sentence and now gleefully think to yourself that the more, the merrier, think again. Whilst undoubtedly, the more websites that you have with a direct link to your own website, please note that it is quality as well as quantity which will be the determining factor as to how much additional traffic you will be able successfully attract to your own site.
On that basis then, it is important to note that you will garner much better results if you have a smaller number of carefully chosen websites which are reliable (and that crucial word relevant). However, it should be noted that at the end of the day, off page optimization is something of an artificial construct as it simply involves little more than a numbers game. Sites which automatically get a higher score according to the algorithms utilised by the search engines are academic/government websites and so having a few of these will go a long way to improving your score and by extension, web traffic.
 
Please note that there is a major caveat to the above paragraph and that is relevance. Relevance of websites is nothing short of gold dust, and so it is crucial that you exchange links with websites that are actually relevant to your own. Search engines are beginning to seriously clamp down on the exchange of web links solely for the purpose of boosting ratings, and so if you own a car website and are exchanging links with a stamp collecting site, do not be too surprised if Google takes a somewhat dim view on this! The last thing the search engines want is for search engine optimization to be grossly manipulated, by virtue of gross spamming.
An excellent way to quickly and easily promote your website is to write articles on different issues which directly relate to the material and content covered within your website. If your website is on dog breeding then you may want to write some articles concerning nutrition and health advice, or pricing strategies. You can submit these articles to article directory submission sites where your articles (if they are decent enough) will be used by website owners with the condition being that in exchange for them doing this, that they will provide a link to your website. This can be an excellent opportunity to quickly redirect some much needed web traffic from already well-established and reputable sites to your own, and please bear in mind that the age of a link will also have a direct bearing on its ranking and the value attached to it. The same rules apply to the length of duration of a website name as well as its content and has proven to help shift the balance in favour of more established sites in the search engine optimization trade off.
Article directory sites are not the only way to make use of some off page optimization, as you can also submit your work to blogs, or even make up your own! This may seem a little odd having a blog to sell products, but this personal touch is an excellent way of getting through to people much better, and establishing that all essential personal connection.