Search Engine Optimization ( SEO ) - 2

My last post was about On Page SEO . Now I wish to delve into Off page SEO which is all about the methods you can employ to get a high page rank (PR) for your website after it has already gone live. These are things which you execute outside the pages of your website, hence the name Off Page SEO .

What are these steps ?

It is essential to build link popularity i.e development of back links to your website . A higher number of back links has a direct impact on the Page Rank of your Small Business Website . There are plenty of tools on the web to check your link popularity . The obvious question now is - how do you increase the number of back links to your website ?

This isn't as easy as building a large number of reciprocal links , Google in particular frowns upon such practices . It is essential to get unilateral links to your site , which is what the major Search Engines look for . The best way to ensure that other sites link to you is to ensure that your website has unique , highly informative and relevant content . We have already discussed content optimization in the previous post and that falls under On-Page SEO .

The other methods of Off Page SEO are :

Development of XML site maps – Developing and XML site map is the most of Off Page Search Engine Optimization methods . If your small business website doesn't already have an XML site map , create one for yourself as per google’s guidelines for Sitemap generation . Once the site map is created, submit it to Google Webmaster , you can login to Google Webmaster tools with your Gmail ID . The basic purpose of site maps is to make it easier for GoogleBot to crawl the website and update the latest page to their site index. This helps keep the search engines up to date with the latest updates on your Small Business Website.

Development of optimized site maps (HTML): Along with the above discussed XML Site map , a user friendly site map in a website will help the user to view the structure of the website. It helps in navigation of website for the user and more importantly increases keyword placement in the website.

Google Site map Setup & site verification: Creation of the XML site map and mobile site map will help Google and other bots update their index with the latest files. Verification of the website ( using the webmaster account) makes the website an authorized site and ensures it won't be classified as Spam , this is a very critical step . Verification of sites can be done using the Google webmaster tool which provides an option to do so and lists the method.

In the next post , i will go into the details of link building , link building services for small businesses and discuss more about Off Page SEO .