When a website creates a link to your site, it will create anchor text. The anchor text refers to the words that show the link. For example, look at this simple link for the Big Shot Marketing & Design home page. The link itself sends you to our homepage. The anchor text is the term “Big Shot marketing & Design.”

Search engines like Google look at the anchor text used in the link to your site. It must be relevant To the content on the linked page. For example, if we link a page to SEO Services, the anchor text should relate to the content on the page we just linked. We don’t want to link SEO Services with the anchor text of “best hamburgers in town.” That would be totally irrelevant and not beneficial to your off-page SEO.

A very good link yesterday is going to rank much higher than the same type of link from 5 years ago. Older links, even though they were a great boost when first given, will lose their relevance over time. This shows the importance to be constantly networking and building new backlinks as time goes on.

Let’s say a blogger linked to your website, and you just got REALLY excited. You go to read the blog and notice that almost every sentence has an outbound link in it. Unfortunately, this kills the impact of the backlink to your site. A page that only has a couple of outbound links on it gives you much more credibility. 

Pages with many outbound links can appear to be spam, and unnatural, which is the exact opposite of what Google and other search engines are looking for.

This ranking factor is extremely important. Many website owners want to get a backlink wherever they can find it, but that’s not exactly the best way to go about it. For example, if you own a Roofing Company, you should be looking to get links on websites that have content related to roofing, home improvement, or other related topics. Getting a link for a website that focuses on the best recipes for cheeseburgers won’t help you much, no matter how good their cheeseburgers are.

Google and other search engines what to make sure your website is receiving references (backlinks) from relevant websites in your industry. So, target your off-page SEO campaigns toward relevant websites that match up to you and what you have to offer.

There are many sites on the internet that are known to be spam, or untrustworthy. It should come as no surprise that links from these websites will not help your Google rankings. Currently, there are many people that claim to “sell” backlinks to help with off-page SEO. Selling backlinks is against Google guidelines, and these sites are viewed as untrustworthy. Sites with low-security parameters are also considered untrustworthy. 

Too many links from untrustworthy websites can hurt your SEO rankings, so be sure to look into a website before reaching out to them for a backlink.

This last factor is HUGE. Domain authority refers to the credibility and visibility of a given website. Getting a backlink from a website with high domain and URL authority (authority of the specific page your link is on) is the best way to skyrocket your off-page SEO. 

Think about it from an advertising point of view. Many brands like Nike, Lincoln, and others, use celebrities to advertise their products. Celebrities with a good reputation carry a huge weight in terms of authority. Many people will buy a specific brand of truck, just because Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson endorsed it. 

Google and other search engines work in a similar way. If you can gain a backlink from a highly visited and reputable site, you will benefit greatly! If you get a link from a mid or low-level site, you might not see a huge increase in your rankings. 

It should be said that mid and low-level sites are necessarily bad for your off-page SEO. They just don’t have as big of an impact.