Off-page SEO deals almost exclusively with building links to your site. This is how you get into the top spots of the search engine results and see some serious traffic.
Understanding the essential off-page SEO factors that will contribute to how well your website ranks in the search engines is vital to your success.
What are Off Page Factors?
When ranking your pages, Google looks at factors outside of your site as well. Here are some of the key ones:
PageRank of linking page
Not all pages are equal. Links on pages with higher PageRank will be a bigger factor than those on low PR pages. Therefore, you should strive to build links from high PR pages.
The number of linking domains
The number of domains linking to you is one of the most important ranking factors.
Link relevancy
Some SEOs believe that links from pages related to your pages topic carry more relevancy for search engines.
The number of linking pages
There might be a number of links from a particular domain to your site, their number is a ranking factor too. However, it is still better to have more links from individual domains rather than from a single domain.
Authority of linking domain
Similarly to a page PR, the authority of a domain may be a ranking factor too. For that reason, a link from low PR page on a high PR site will be worth more that from a lower PR one.
Links from homepage
Similarly, some SEOs believe that links from a home page of a linking domain carry more strength than those on one of its pages.
Diversity of link types
The types of links you build to your site matters too. Too many links of one type may be a spam indicator and impact your rankings negatively.
Number of dofollow vs. nofollow links
Google officially stated that they don’t count nofollow links (link with rel=nofollow attribute attached). Therefore the number of your do follow links should affect your rankings too.
Contextual links
It is said that links within the content of the page are worth more than links in a sidebar for instance.
Link anchor
Anchor text of a link used to be a strong ranking factor. Today it can be used as a web spam indicator, negatively impacting your rankings.