Search optimization work performed outside a website, especially activities that build authority, reputation, and external signals.
Link earning, digital public relations, and brand mentions are common off-page efforts.
Short and sweet:
Search optimization work performed outside a website, especially activities that build authority, reputation, and external signals.
Link earning, digital public relations, and brand mentions are common off-page efforts.
See also: Link Building, Backlink, On-Page SEO
Off-page SEO covers the ranking factors that happen away from a website itself, most notably backlinks from other sites, along with signals like brand mentions and overall online reputation that search engines use to judge a site’s authority. Because it depends on other websites choosing to reference or link to a page, off-page work is inherently harder to control directly than on-page elements like title tags or content quality. Earning it typically requires creating something genuinely link-worthy, like original research or a uniquely useful tool, rather than simply asking other sites for a link.
When a respected outlet like Forbes links to a small business’s website in an article, that earned backlink is a textbook example of off-page SEO paying off.
A digital PR campaign that gets a startup mentioned across dozens of news sites is really a play in this same category, building authority through external mentions rather than tweaking the website itself.
Guest posting on a well-known industry blog and including a link back to your own site is a classic tactic here used to build credibility in Google’s eyes.