What Is Off-Page SEO?

Off-Page SEO is essentially any work you or your SEO agency does outside of your website so as to improve the SEO of your website. The name off-page SEO has always confused me since to me “off-page” could mean on the webserver, other webpages on the same website, etc. But that is NOT the case. Off-Page SEO is work done outside of your website. I prefer to call it off-site SEO.

While you have some control of some aspects of off-page SEO, much of this is out of your direct control, but you still need to put the effort in. Example: Requesting backlinks and making sure your social media profile and links are setup properly.

Here are some examples of Off-Page SEO:

Brand building – over all web presence
Backlink building
Citation building
Social Media platforms
Google Business Profile (aka: GMB)
Bing Places

Another way to think about off-page SEO is to think of it like a digital version of “word of mouth” – essentially: If your website is being discussed or linked to by another website, that is a digital way of saying you should check out so & so as they might be able to help you. The more digital word of mouth links your website gets, the more the search engines will consider your website to be worthy of ranking.

Here are a couple links that have more details about off-page SEO:

Off-Page SEO Ranking Factors – Moz
What Is Off-Page SEO? A Comprehensive Guide (semrush.com)