Off Page SEO: Beyond Link Building

This article is part of an SEO series from WooRank. Thank you for supporting the partners who make SitePoint possible.

When the topic of off page SEO comes up, more often than not people are talking about link building. And with good reason. Building a backlink profile of quality links is one of the most important parts of SEO. However, off page SEO is more than just link building. There are several optimizations that take place off-page that contribute to your site’s trust, authority and ranking in search results, as well as driving traffic.

In this piece we’ll go over a few ways you can shape your site’s off page factors to manage its appearance in search results, and ultimately increase its rank — all without building a single new link.

Google Knowledge Graph

The Knowledge graph is Google’s attempt to enhance search results using semantic search information gathered from the web. In other words, it’s Google’s way of figuring out what you’re searching for and providing that information directly in its SERP. For branded keywords, the Knowledge Graph is like a giant billboard in Google’s search results. Getting your business or personal brand to appear in the Knowledge Graph is a way to jump right to the front page.

Some marketers dislike the Knowledge Graph because it sometimes links to other people’s content and can lead to searchers bypassing your site, but it appears for branded keywords whether you want it to or not. In this case you can’t beat them, so you may as well join them. Plus, in the end, if you do a good job optimizing your off page SEO, the benefits will outweigh the disadvantages.

So how do you make sure the Knowledge Graph for your brand is being displayed, and how do you optimize your content for it?

Google+

The first step is to create a Google+ page for your business and pick a business type that best suits yours. When you create your page, use the brand name that people use when searching for you. So, for example, Recreational Equipment, Inc. would use the name REI when creating its Google+ page. If you aren’t sure, check in Google Search Console or Analytics reporting to see which keywords generate the most impressions.

The stronger your Google+ presence, the more likely it is that Google with serve a Knowledge Graph rich snippet and include your feed in it. Keep your profile active by posting regularly and periodically run campaigns to generate +1s on your content. This will have the added benefit of telling Google what your brand is about, which will help to optimize the content in the rich snippet.

Wikipedia

Wikipedia and Wikidata are probably the two most important non-Google sources for Knowledge Graphs, especially since Google migrated from Freebase. Google relies heavily on the data from Wikipedia to populate certain parts of the Knowledge Graph such as company type, description and details. Being listed on the Wikipedia family of sites, particularly the two mentioned above, gives Google a strong hint to show this information in a Knowledge Graph when a user searches for your brand.

If your company or personal brand doesn’t already have an entry on Wikidata, create one now. Include the following information:

• Label: This is your brand’s name (or your name if it’s a personal brand). Like your Google+ page, use the name people search for.
• Description: Small bits of information used to differentiate items with identical or very similar labels. We use ‘small bits’ of information because you shouldn’t use full sentences, just a few words. For WooRank this would be something like "Digital Marketing Services" or “Search Engine Optimization Tools”. Follow Wikidata’s description guidelines pertaining to punctuation and grammar.
• Official website: Put your canonical URL here. That means anyone linked to your site shouldn’t go through any redirects.
• Freebase ID: If you have a Freebase profile, add the Freebase ID at the bottom of the Wikidata entry. Even though Google deprecated the Freebase database, it still helps to connect your entries.

If your company doesn’t already have a Wikipedia page, request one to be created. Getting your page accepted to Wikipedia can be difficult, especially when it comes to creating a page for your company, so be sure to follow their guidelines. Read through their Organizations FAQ section for more details on creating an article and disclosing a conflict of interest.

Google My Business Listing

Google leverages its My Business listings heavily to get information for the Knowledge Graph and it’s a great way to get your name, address and phone number (NAP) into search results. This is particularly important if you’re a local business or rely on local SEO. In fact, having your correct NAP listed online is one of the strongest ranking signals for local search.

Do your best to generate some reviews as well, since the Knowledge Graph can include a review summary for local businesses.

YouTube

If your company generates any multimedia content, add it to YouTube. This is particularly important for musicians or anyone else who produces videos as a revenue stream. Google relies on YouTube information to find and display data about songs and other video content. A search for Taylor Swift, for example, lists three of her most popular songs. Clicking these links brings users to the Google carousel, which displays YouTube videos posted to her official YouTube channel.

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by Maria Lopez via SitePoint