Off Page Site Optimization for Local Search Success

This article (the fourth in a series) focuses on the off page optimization strategies you can pursue to assist your local search success. Off page optimization is basically getting well placed and formatted links on sites other than your own. These links will be on sites that offer information, good s and services similar or complimentary in nature to your own. As far as the impact on local search success David Mihm pegs these efforts at 15% of the total.

Getting these links (called backlinks) is a long term process. It won’t happen overnight. However, done well and regularly your web site will benefit and so will your local search listing. Consider these few tips:

Quality Inbound Links- You’ll want to find quality sites to link to you. Steer clear of what are called link farms, they are useless. The easiest way to find quality links is to see who links to your competitors site. Examine these sites and see if you can get them to link to you. There are also third party tools that do this as well as services.

Location, Product and Service Keywords in Inbound Anchor Text- Anchor text is the text, with a hyperlink a site uses to connect to your site. In most instances the anchor text is “click here”. There are over a billion instances of “click here” on the Internet. Don’t do that! Your anchor link should be very helpful and use your location and product or service keywords. Your anchor link should look like “Belleve WA Cosmetic Dentist”. For the best effect use a few different versions of this for different link sites.

Granted, the off page optimization efforts do not play a big part in local search success. However, the development of good backlinks does in fact pay huge dividends for your web site’s SEO success.

One last article in this series to come.