by The Computing Australia Group | Tips to Improve
Off-Page SEO
You can have a beautifully designed website with perfectly optimised on-page SEO – but if nobody is talking about your brand online, your rankings will eventually hit a ceiling.
That’s where off-page SEO comes in.
Off-page SEO is all about what happens away from your website that still influences how you appear in Google Search: backlinks, brand mentions, reviews, social signals, digital PR and more. When done well, it strengthens your authority, trust and visibility, leading to more organic traffic and higher-quality leads.
In this guide, our SEO specialists in Perth break down:
- What off-page SEO is
- Why it matters so much for search rankings
- Practical, modern strategies to improve your off-page SEO
- How to combine link-building, social proof and brand reputation into a sustainable long-term approach
What Is Off-Page SEO?
While on-page SEO focuses on things like content, keywords, meta tags and internal links, off-page SEO is about:
- Backlinks pointing to your website
- Brand mentions (linked and unlinked)
- Online reviews and ratings
- Social media presence and engagement
- Digital PR and media coverage
- Local listings and citations
The more high-quality signals your brand sends from external sources, the more trustworthy and relevant your website appears.
Why Off-Page SEO Is So Important
You can’t directly “control” off-page SEO in the same way as on-page, but it has a massive impact on:
1. Authority & Trust
Backlinks and positive mentions work like digital votes of confidence. When respected websites link to you or talk about your brand, Google sees that as evidence you’re a credible resource.
2. Rankings & Visibility
Links and external signals help Google:
- Understand what your site is about
- Decide whether you should rank above competitors
- Determine how prominently to show you in search results and local packs
3. Referral Traffic & Conversions
Good off-page SEO doesn’t just help rankings. Strong backlinks, press mentions and social shares bring high-intent visitors directly to your site, often already “pre-sold” on your brand.
4. Brand Recognition
The more places your brand appears online – on industry blogs, social platforms, directories, review sites – the more familiar and trustworthy you become to potential customers.
Tips to Improve Off-Page SEO
Off-page SEO is ultimately about earning trust and attention across the web. Below are practical, sustainable tactics you can use to strengthen your profile over time.
1. Link Building - Still the King of Off-Page SEO
At its core, off-page SEO is largely about earning high-quality backlinks.
A backlink is simply a link from another website to yours. To search engines, these links are like endorsements. However, not all links are equal.
What Makes a Good Backlink?
A high-quality backlink typically has:
- Relevance – The linking site and page are related to your industry or topic.
- Authority – The site has its own strong backlink profile and trust.
- Traffic – Real users visit and engage with the site.
- Natural placement – The link appears in helpful, contextual content – not in spam comments or link farms.
Backlinks from well-known domains (for example, major news outlets, universities, government sites, respected industry blogs) can significantly boost your off-page SEO.
Link Building Best Practices
- Focus on earning links through good content, partnerships, PR and genuine relationships.
- Avoid low-quality or spammy links (link farms, paid link schemes, automated directories).
- Regularly audit your backlink profile to remove or disavow harmful links that may hurt your rankings.
- Refresh and improve your best content so it stays worth linking to.
Think quality over quantity. A handful of strong, relevant backlinks is far more valuable than hundreds of weak ones.
2. Analyse Your Competitors’ Backlink Profiles
You don’t have to start from scratch. Your competitors’ backlinks are a roadmap to opportunities you might be missing.
Why Analyse Competitors?
- Discover websites that are already linking to similar businesses.
- Identify content formats that attract links (guides, tools, research, checklists, etc.).
- Spot industry directories, resource pages and blogs you could also appear on.
How to Do It
Using tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs or similar platforms, you can:
1. Enter a competitor’s domain.
2. Export their backlink profile.
3. Filter by high-authority, relevant domains.
4. Shortlist the sites you’d like to be featured on.
Then, plan sensible outreach:
- Offer valuable guest posts.
- Introduce your brand and content as a helpful resource.
- Build relationships rather than chasing one-off links.
This approach makes your link-building strategic instead of random.
3. Harness the Power of Social Media
Social media doesn’t act as a direct ranking factor in the same way as traditional backlinks, but it amplifies your content and brand signals, which indirectly supports SEO.
How Social Media Helps Off-Page SEO
- Increases brand visibility and recall.
- Drives traffic and engagement with your content.
- Encourages brand mentions and organic links.
- Reinforces your brand’s personality and credibility.
Practical Social Media Tips
- Choose platforms where your customers actually are (e.g. LinkedIn for B2B, Instagram for visual brands).
- Keep your profiles complete and consistent with up-to-date bios, links and contact details.
- Share useful, engaging content: blogs, tips, infographics, guides, FAQs, case studies.
- Engage in comments and messages quickly – responsive brands are more likely to be recommended.
- Monitor brand mentions and sentiment to spot issues and opportunities.
4. Blog Commenting & Guest Posting – When Done Properly
These tactics have a bad reputation because they’ve been heavily abused in spammy link schemes. But used carefully and ethically, they still offer value.
Blog Commenting
The goal isn’t to drop your link everywhere. Instead:
- Comment thoughtfully on relevant industry blogs.
- Add insights, ask meaningful questions, or share experiences.
- Use your real name or brand, not keyword-stuffed usernames.
- Only include your website if it’s appropriate and allowed by the site’s guidelines.
The benefits are more about visibility, networking and referral traffic than direct SEO power.
Guest Posting
Guest posting can still work very well – if it’s:
- On reputable, relevant sites.
- Providing genuinely valuable content, not spun articles or sales pitches.
- Clearly aligned with the host site’s audience.
- Transparent and professional.
Good guest posts help you:
- Build authority in your niche.
- Earn high-quality, editorial backlinks.
- Reach new audiences with your expertise.
Avoid mass guest posting on low-quality blogs or “write for us” sites that accept anything – Google can spot these patterns.
5. Build Trust and Get Strong Online Reviews
Trust is one of the strongest off-page signals you can have.
Why Reviews Matter for Off-Page SEO
- Customers rely on reviews to decide who to buy from.
- Google uses review volume, diversity and sentiment as part of local ranking signals.
- Reviews on platforms like Google, Facebook and industry-specific sites contribute to your overall brand reputation.
How to Build Trust with Reviews
1. Secure Your Site
- Use SSL (HTTPS) so customers know their data is protected.
- A secure site is a basic expectation – and a minor ranking factor.
2. Deliver on Your Promises
- No SEO tactic can fix poor service.
- Consistently good experiences naturally generate good reviews.
3. Ask for Reviews
- Politely ask happy customers to leave reviews on Google, Facebook or relevant platforms.
- Make it easy with direct links or QR codes.
4. Showcase Reviews on Your Website
- Display testimonials and star ratings on key pages (home, services, product pages).
- This not only builds trust but may increase conversions.
- Thank customers for positive feedback.
- Handle negative reviews calmly, professionally and constructively.
- A well-managed negative review can actually improve your image.
The better your reviews, the more confident both users and search engines will be in your brand.
6. Influencer Marketing & Strategic Partnerships
Influencer marketing is more than just paying for a post. When done well, it:
- Gets your brand in front of large, engaged audiences.
- Generates brand mentions, backlinks and social buzz.
- Adds a layer of social proof via respected voices in your niche.
Types of Influencer Collaborations
- Sponsored posts or stories
- Product reviews and unboxings
- Tutorials or “how-to” content featuring your service
- Co-hosted webinars or live streams
- Giveaways or contests
Choosing the Right Influencers
- Look for alignment with your brand values and target audience.
- Prioritise engagement rate over sheer follower numbers.
- Avoid personalities known for controversy-they can damage your brand by association.
- Consider smaller, highly focused micro-influencers; they often have more trust with their audience.
Influencer marketing can be paid or unpaid (e.g. in-kind or collaborative). The key is authenticity: forced or irrelevant promotions rarely deliver long-term value.
7. Optimise and Maintain Your Google My Business (GMB) Profile
For local businesses, Google My Business (now Google Business Profile) is essential to off-page SEO.
Your GMB listing helps you:
- Appear in local map results and “near me” searches.
- Showcase reviews, photos, products, services and updates.
- Provide accurate contact details and opening hours.
Optimising Your GMB Profile
- Use your real business name, correct address and phone.
- Select relevant business categories.
- Add a keyword-informed but natural business description.
- Upload high-quality photos and, where possible, short videos.
- Keep your opening hours and info updated (especially holidays or changes).
- Encourage and respond to Google reviews.
- Post weekly updates – offers, events, blog content, case studies.
8. Leverage Digital PR & Brand Mentions
Digital PR goes beyond traditional press releases. It’s about earning coverage and mentions on high-authority sites through newsworthy content and stories.
Examples of Digital PR Tactics
- Data-based studies or industry reports
- Commenting as an expert source for journalists
- Thought leadership articles and interviews
- Community involvement or charity partnerships
- Awards, certifications and milestones
Even when these mentions don’t include a link, they still:
- Strengthen your brand awareness
- Support your perceived expertise and authority
- Make it more likely you’ll earn links in future
Where relevant and appropriate, you can also politely request a link to your site if you’ve been mentioned without one.
9. Run Paid Campaigns to Support Organic Efforts
Paid advertising doesn’t directly improve organic rankings, but it can accelerate visibility and engagement, which indirectly supports off-page SEO.
Useful Paid Channels
- Google Ads – to target high-intent searches while your organic SEO grows.
- Facebook & Instagram Ads – to promote content, offers or events.
- LinkedIn Ads – particularly effective for B2B lead generation.
- YouTube Ads – for video content and brand storytelling.
How this helps off-page SEO:
- More people see and share your content.
- You can seed new pieces of content (like tools, guides, resources) to audiences likely to link to them.
- You build familiarity and trust, which leads to more searches and mentions of your brand.
Paid campaigns plus strong organic foundations create a powerful growth engine.
10. Monitor, Measure and Adjust Your Off-Page Strategy
Off-page SEO is not “set and forget”. You should regularly review:Paid campaigns plus strong organic foundations create a powerful growth engine.
- New and lost backlinks
- Referral traffic sources
- Review scores and volume
- Brand mentions across the web
- Social engagement trends
Use these insights to:
- Double down on what’s working (e.g. certain content types or partners).
- Phase out low-impact tactics.
- Protect your profile from spammy or toxic links.
Off-page SEO plays a key role increasing in your brand visibility. A good off-site strategy can boost your SERP rankings and bring in more traffic to your website. The above tips to improve off-page SEO can be the starting point of your SEO journey. If you have any queries on off-site SEO, you can contact us or email us at sales@computingaustralia.group.
Jargon Buster
Black Hat SEO – Practices intended to bring in more traffic but do not follow search engine guidelines and ethics.
SERP – Search engine results page (SERP) is the results filled page a search engine returns after you type in a query.
GMB – Google My Business is a tool by Google that allows businesses to promote their profiles and websites on Google search and Google Maps.
ROI – Return on investment (ROI) is a measure of the efficiency of an investment.
FAQ
What is off-page SEO in simple terms?
What is the difference between on-page and off-page SEO?
On-page SEO focuses on elements within your website, such as content, keywords, headings, meta tags, internal links and page speed. Off-page SEO focuses on signals from outside your site-backlinks, social media mentions, reviews, citations and PR coverage. Both work together: on-page SEO makes your site worthy of ranking, while off-page SEO proves it to the rest of the web.
Is link building still important for SEO?
Yes. High-quality backlinks are still one of the strongest ranking signals for search engines. Links from reputable, relevant websites act as votes of confidence, telling Google that your content is trustworthy and valuable. The key is focusing on quality over quantity and avoiding spammy or manipulative link-building tactics.
Do social media likes and shares affect my Google rankings?
How do online reviews help with off-page SEO?
Online reviews-especially on platforms like Google, Facebook and industry-specific sites-act as powerful trust signals. A steady flow of genuine, positive reviews improves your brand credibility, influences potential customers and can support local SEO rankings. Responding to reviews and actively managing your reputation is a crucial part of off-page optimisation.
