World SEO Education: What Is Off-Page SEO? Off-Page SEO Techniques

 This post below is a good entry level post on off page SEO (Search Engine Optimization) which I would like to expand on.

World SEO Education: What Is Off-Page SEO? Off-Page SEO Techniques : Today my topic of discussion is: Off Page Optimization. I would like to entertain my readers with every minute aspects of SEO and their techniques so that they become self-independent in managing their website traffic and quality.

SEO or Search Engine optimisation is a tricky business with many mis-informed  people proclaiming that SEO is dead, because they do not have a clear understanding of the term SEO and what it means.

SEO or search engine optimisation is the collective work of your entire staff in their attempts to ensure that your pages are found by your intended target market when they use any search engine to find your information.

SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is divided into 2 (two) major sectors. The first is in- page  SEO and the second is off page SEO  

IN-PAGE SEO

In-page SEO has two components which are each aimed at different target markets, and have very different purposes, but both are used collectively when doing any off page SEO. It is essential that any SEO practitioner explain this to you in terms that you understand, other wise you will not be very successful in your off page SEO.

The first component of in-page SEO is the stuff contained within the head section of your page, which is written specifically for the Search Engines. This section of your page is not visible to the end user, and contains all the META TAGS and related information including but not limited to

• Page description
• page title
• Keywords list
• author and contributors
• categories and    geographical info
• language and script info  

 The second component of in-page SEO is the body section of the page, which is written specifically for the viewer or end-user of your page. This section contains all the text, images, videos and other visual stuff which the end user will see onscreen when the page is loaded in a browser.  

The body section of the page is used by search engines to determine the aboutness of a page, and the text used here is what the search  Engines  will index in their databases to match to the queries that searchers use when looking for your information. 

Search engines try to match the aboutness of your page to the aboutness of a search query using a wide variety of variables, most of which are contained in the Off-page SEO of your pages.

In short the head section is written for search engines to allow them an opportunity to categorize and define your page, and the body section is written for your viewers , giving them a visual interpretation of your information. Search engines use the visual interpretation and the information in the head section to compile a profile of your page which they will match to a users search through a SEA (Search Engine Algorithm) and display what the search engine perceives to be the closest match of the the search request and all indexed pages in the SERP's (Search Engine Results pages)
 

OFF-PAGE SEO 

Off-page SEO is all the collective marketing of your page by your entire staff, and other sources that are beyond your control and includes but is not limited to the following

•  Internal links with in your web site
• All your social media efforts to get visitors to your web site
• Your blogs and user forums
• Your online marketing with paid adds
• Your link building strategies
• the registration of your web site with search engines and related platforms
• your public relations marketing and related online strategies
• What others have to say about your pages in their respective online platforms which include but is not limited to
• their web sites
• their blogs
• their social media platforms
• peer review sites
• product / services review sites
• news papers online pages
• radio stations online pages
•  your customers discussing your products in their social media post

 The first and most important aspect of SEO is the least understood, and least used component of in-page SEO which is the meta tags in the <head> section of your page. The META TAGS within the head section of your page are used by search engines to evaluate the content of your page and establish a context for the information within the body section of the page. Most end users do not even know that there is a <head> section of your page, and  many people ignore this with some SEO PRACTITIONERS even saying SEO is DEAD, because they have heard that the KEYWORD META TAG is not used in page rank scores.

When doing your off page SEO you need to use the information that your in-page SEO technical team used when  creating the <head> section of your page as well as the <body> section content in meaningful and constructive ways.  This is actualy a lot simpler than it sounds, and you can get the desired information from a number of sources, with the easiest being to use your browsers functionality to see the page source, and copying the contents of the head section to a text document for you to read and understand at your leisure.  

Another good source of this information is your SEO team who will be able to also give you a brief on the aims, objectives, purpose and intent of the page, which will help you in the copy writing of your off page SEO and all related social media posts. When doing any off page SEO be sure to  include the full URL (Uniform Resource Locator) or web address of the page you are marketing, to ensure that search engines give the correct page the SEOV (Search Engine Optimisation Value) that is accrued by your off page SEO efforts.

Remember FUFISM  - (Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media) and ensure that all the role players who are involved in your SEO work together as a unified team with a single goal in mind. That goal should be to increase the return on investment in your web site through the acquisition of targeted visitors to your web site who are qualified through your use of properly targeted SEO which will ensure that your pages are found by your intended target market group and not by the wrong target market groups.

To ensure that your team gets the best results from your off page SEO  you will need to employ the FUFISM philosophy  The FUFISM philosophy is really quite simple and easy to manage, as all your team will be on the same page, and share many marketing insights that would otherwise be kept as departmental secrets . Once you employ the FUFISM philosophy there will be no infighting between departments to see who gets the lions share of the marketing budget and many research areas will  be handled differently, as the information gathered will be shared across departments and not duplicated unnecessarily as they would be when departments are competing against each other for a share of the marketing budget.

Understanding search experince from an SEO viewpoint

The  experience of an end user of your information at a search engine is determined by many factors This article helps  us to put some of them into the picture more clearly.

What an end user is  expecting when he / she uses a search engine is often forgotten by the web master and those involved in designing a web page, as is clearly pointed out in the article. So what is your responsibility as an SEO specialist when you discuss the make up and contents of a web page?

Which words an end user will type into the search engine is difficult to determine, but what your end users perceive your website to be about  is very helpful, and your marketing team should fill you in on this as they are the ones who determine your target market, and give you a brief on the aims, objectives and purpose of a page.

The term "aboutness" is used in the article discussed and this is very often neglected by the design team. How to ensure that this is taken seriously by the marketing people in your design team is often a problem,  as they are concerned about the marketing issues and loose sight of the fact that  the rest of the team must be following their instructions, as all online materials which are not directly sales pages are about marketing different aspects of your company / organisation in some shape manner or form.

The aboutness of your pages is often a subject that is attributed to the web site as a whole and not a single page. This is an important aspect of the search experience as the words that the end user (Searcher) uses to find your information is defined by his ideas of the aboutness of your information. It thus follows that each page needs some attention of its own aboutness as a stand alone page.

As a seasoned internet user you know and take many things for granted which most end users are totally ignorant about. This often leads to the aboutness of a page being lost or misplaced and thus not included from an SEO point of view in the page makeup instructions in a manner that the copy writer clearly understands.  When your work force is small and there are less than 5 people working on your pages these things become more critical as there are less eyes to pick up these small errors that lead to the aboutness of your page being misinterpreted by search engines.

Now we all hear about KEY word META TAGS being irrelevant for SERP's (Search Engine Results Positions) and how they are a waste of time and effort, but what do they do for the ABOUTNESS of your page?  Did you ever think of the aboutness of your page from a key word meta tag perspective?

To ensure that the aboutness of you page is interpreted better by both search engines and end users ensure you page has the following.

1) a page description  (meta tags in head)
2) a page title (meta tags in head)
3) a key words list (meta tags in head)
4) good well worded content
5) out bound links to related material (internal)
6) inbound links (internal links) from other relevant pages within your web site 
7) out bound links to related material (external)
8) Inbound links from
                                 a) your social media platforms
                                 b)  external sources (other webs sites)
If you have all eight of these essential parts of your SEO in place the end user will find your site closer to the top of the SERP's and thus have a better search experience when searching for your info..

Search experience is determined by the search engine, and you (SEO / SEM staff)  play a small but very significant role by ensuring that your pages are search engine friendly. read this article for more on understanding search experience

What words to use and why from an SEO perspective

First things first, content is king, and the most vital part of any SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) strategy.

Linking your content to your target markets vocabulary is step 2. Defining your target market is the real trick that needs to be mastered, as you don't want people coming to your site then leaving in a hurry because they are not interested in your subject matter, and feel that they have been deceived by your marketing tricks.

Understanding your target market and their vocabulary is vital as you need to understand what words they would use to search for your information and optimize your page with these words in mind. Mis-spellings, foreign language words, and local slang are important, and all major search engines are beginning to use these concepts to establish the intent of a searcher from the words he / she has used in the search box.

all past searches are stored and evaluated by search engines on an ongoing basis to determine trends and search patterns within their user base. These results are factored into the SEA (Search Engine Algorithm) to determine a users intent, and search engines are beginning to get quite good at this.

This implies that your content must be well written and match up to your META TAG info, especially the keywords meta tags and any categories you may have listed in the head section of your page. Connecting the intent of an end user to your page is not a simple task, and a host of  variables will be factored into this section of the Search Engine Algorithm, with MANY OF THESE FACTORS BEING WAY OUT OF YOUR CONTROL.

Things like past searches done by others and current trending topics will be at the top of this list used to determine the end users intent at the search engine. Read this post for a deeper understanding of how search engines are using user intent factors.
http://searchengineland.com/is-googles-synonym-matching-increasing-how-searchers-and-brands-can-be-both-helped-and-hurt-131504

Bottom line is GOOD CONTENT using your intended target markets vocabulary and words that you believe your intended target market will use in search boxes when looking for your information, in well worded copy.........

META TAGS and their purpose

We need to start somewhere, so lets jump in at the deep end and hold onto the side till we get comfortable before we start swimming in the soup of information about META TAGS and their purpose.
META TAGS are those small bits of information hidden in the <HEAD> section of the HTML code.  (Hypertext Markup Language - the code which makes your webpage understandable to all web browsers).
For those who have doubts about the value of meta tags read this if you are still convinced META TAGS have no value coz you are an expert, read this if you want to understand more read further