Any discussion you may have or any article that you may read around off-page SEO, would definitely mention backlinking or link-building in it. There’s no denying that backlinking is in fact extremely crucial for SEO. However, there’s a lot more non-link related factors that boost your off-page SEO.

Before we go any further, we’d recommend that you if you’re not clear about off-page SEO, do read our article around the basics of off-page SEO.

Moving on, here are five non-link related factors that can impact your off-page SEO and get you up the SEO ladder.

1. Your Google My Business Profile

For the unacquainted, Google My Business is a free business profile that you can make on Google. It is only after you have this profile that you can rank for Google Local SEO results.

Source: SEMrush

Your Google My Business profile has a very strong impact on your local pack and local SEO rankings. All said and one, you’d not only have to make or claim your business profile, but you’d also have to optimise your profile for the right results. In order to do that, be as comprehensive and provide as much information as you can on your profile. This means going beyond submitting just your website, address and phone number, but also adding categories, upload good business pictures, work hours, etc.

Pro-tip: If you know your target audience is like to use Bing as a search engine, do make a profile on Bing Places too.

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2. Your Google and Third-Party Reviews

As we’ve stated earlier too, off-page SEO is search engine’s word of mouth or referral system. Needless to say, reviews are literally the best word-of-mouth you can get. In fact, according to a Moz study, reviews are the third most important factor in deciding your Local Pack Ranking and stands on the fifth rank when it comes to your Localized Organic Ranking. However, keep in mind that reviews can negatively impact your rankings if the reviews are negative. So, you have to regularly ensure that the number of positive reviews on the world wide web or Google Reviews are always higher than negative ones.

The best way to ensure a constant follow of reviews is to request for one right after providing a service or delivering a product. That way the customer’s experience is fresh and they’re more likely to share positive and quick feedback for you.

3. Your Brand Mentions

Unlike the popular belief, there’s value in each and every mention that your brand gets on the web, whether or not it’s linked to you or not. While it’s always great to get a backlink, it’s okay to put efforts into mentions that are not comfortable in linking back.

Here’s why such brand mentions matter. The mentions that link back to your are express links as they direct the user to the source of the mention/citation. Needless to say, these are always sought after. However, brand mentions that don’t link to the source are considered as implied links, and have value too.

Source: Guestpost

Google itself says that it considers implied links in its algorithms. If you think about it, in both the cases, the brand mentions are giving value to your business, with the only difference being the linking part. So, Google invariably factors in these mentions when deciding on your brand and content authority.

4. Your Social Standing

If you’d ask Google, they’d say that your social media presence and engagement has nothing to do with their rankings. While some may dispute this stance as something that Google does not want to reveal- we’d still agree with Google. There’s is no direct impact on your ranking based on your social media followers or likes. So, should you not worry about your social media standing at all? That’s where most brands are mistaken.

Think of this logically. The higher engagement you have on a social media directly translates to the number of website clicks and mentions you get. In simpler words, social media makes people notice your brand. One way or the other, that directly leads to better brand image which in turn translates to boosting all the other SEO factors that directly impact your rankings.

5. Your NAP Citations

NAP Citations are like brand mentions but better because the don’t just mention your name but also your address and phone number, hence the name NAP (Name-Address-Phone).

Such citations are one of the most important off-page SEO signals, especially for Local SEO. To start with, search your company name, phone and address, altogether on Google and check the results. These would probably be NAP citations that you already have. Your first task is to ensure that these citation are accurate and correctly written, with no information missing. If that’s not the case, reach out to the concerned cites and get them updated.

Here’s what a correct NAP citation looks likes as compared to the inaccurate ones.

Source: Moz

Secondly, you need to get your brand more NAP citations. To do that, you simply Google your competitors name, address and phone number and find third-party sources where their name citations existing. Then, you reach out to these sources and request for a citation for yourself too.

To Sum It Up

Hope this quick and easy guide to off-page SEO can help you boost your search engine rankings. We’d recommend you always take this one step at a time and focus on that instead of doing everything at one go. There are other ways to get backlinks without creating any new content. More importantly, record and monitor your efforts. Keep track of every brand mention, citation and review that you get. Only then you can keep an overview of your brand perception on the web and ensure you stay in every search engine’s good books to rank better.

While we’ve covered a crucial aspect of SEO here, there’s a lot more that goes into ranking on top of search results. To get your SEO up and running, and to make sure you do it right, here’s the ultimate SEO handbook. Check it out>