Off-page SEO Services for WordPress sites.

I don’t want to start on a negative note, but it’s true: poor off-page optimisation can do a lot of damage to your SEO.

Off-page SEO is all about building your site’s reputation outside of its pages.

When done correctly, this process can boost your website’s rankings by increasing its authority as a market leader in your niche.

Unlike on-page SEO, which involves doing things directly on your site, off-page SEO uses external sources to influence how search engines perceive your website.

Off-page SEO compliments on-page SEO, so you have to have your technical and on-page SEO sorted first.

This is all about credibility and authority, so you can imagine the damage if it’s not done correctly.

SEO tip: It’s better not to do off-page SEO at all than it is to do it badly. You can seriously damage your site rankings if you get this wrong.

Unlike on-page SEO, it’s best to leave off-page SEO to the pros as it has to be done correctly, but you can still do some of it.

They say never to buy backlinks, but nearly everyone buys backlinks.

Backlinks are one of the fundamental instruments of off-page SEO and, therefore, should be handled with care.

Full transparency here: I buy backlinks for my client’s sites, but I don’t buy them from any Tom, Dick or Harry; I get them from Joe, or Fat Joe, to be precise.

I (through my agency) have been using Fat Joe’s services for a long time, and they have never let me down.

Why do I buy backlinks?

I don’t have the time for the outreach required to establish the relationships with 1000s of site owners needed to establish quality backlinks.

How many backlinks do I buy?

Not many, and that’s the point: you don’t want 100s of crappy backlinks; you want a few excellent backlinks from high authority and genuine sites.

My other site, daveforeman.co.uk, ranks #1 for ‘WordPress Freelancer’ (at the time of writing), but it has only six backlinks.

Off-page SEO compliments on-page SEO, remember?

The better your on-page SEO, the fewer expensive backlinks you need to your site.

Many SEOs might dispute this, and there are other factors, such as having a niche site where all the content is 100% on (niche) topic, well written by a human and ranking for keywords that are not highly competitive but the better your content, the less off-page SEO you need.

Make your content good enough, and it will gain its own organic backlinks, so you don’t need to buy them; even if it does not if the content is so good that Google loves you, you can rank a tiny site with few backlinks at position one.

What off-page can you do yourself?

Social media is one good example: choose the channel that is most appropriate for your product or service and nail that single channel.

If you are B2B, it’s LinkedIn; if you are the product, it’s Instagram or Pinterest; if you are a local business, it’s a mix of those and Facebook.

If you just want to argue and marvel at all the hate out there, it’s X.

Social media links influence rankings, but they carry nowhere near the same weight as backlinks from other sites, so post away.

We’ll devise a plan for your off-page and stick to it.

As I said, you can do social media yourself (although I do work on social media campaigns rather than daily posts).

Backlinks, which form the main part of off-page SEO, require a plan and should not be done too often. There are many things to watch out for and get right.

• You want your backlinks to be natural and link to pages across your site
• You need to make sure the anchor texts used are not overly commercial in their intent
• Dates must be watched – why is that three-year-old article linking to a post published yesterday?
• You have to avoid Personal Blog Networks (PBNs)
• Links from known link farms must be avoided
• The list goes on…

Backlinks are so important that the only low-risk way to get them is 100% genuine outreach.

This is where someone contacts a site owner directly and asks if they can place a link on the owner’s website.

This takes ages (which is why I don’t do it directly).

One of my other sites gets around 20 outreach requests per day (as it ranks well).

So, backlinks are hard-won, and there is a good reason.

Never buy backlinks from emails you receive, Fiverr, or anywhere that promises cheap links; they will do your site more harm than good.

With so many options to choose from, how do you decide?

Well, your business and your objectives are the things to answer that with.

Depending on what you sell, there will be more obvious channels for off-page SEO.

Your budget also matters here; if you don’t have £3,500 to spend on a Digital PR campaign, you won’t have one.

It is also important to determine which channel will bring in the most returns, so part of off-page SEO work involves consultancy and management rather than simply doing the work.

I urge clients not to go with off-page SEO until their on-page SEO and content are 100%; otherwise, it can backfire.

SEO tip: Even when everything is ready, I proceed with caution. We’ve probably already got some great organic listings, and we don’t want to ruin them with badly placed backlinks.

I often get asked this, and the answer is that it depends on what your competitors are doing.

Technical and On-page SEO should always be completed first.

After that, if your competitors have a ton of great backlinks, you will probably need them, too.

As backlinks are a significant ranking factor, ranking without them can be difficult but not impossible.

Before you dive into off-page SEO, you should always look for ways to improve your on-page SEO and content in general.

Sure, post on social media, chat in forums, and ensure the basics are correct, but approach off-page SEO with caution.

SEO tip: Aim to make your content better than anything else and you will rank without backlinks and spending a lot on off-page SEO. Content is the most important thing when it comes to ranking.