Module 5

Offsite Optimization

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Table of Contents
Welcome to Module 5 .......................................................................................................................... 3
Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 3
Links and Their Values ..................................................................................................................... 4
Getting High-Value Links Today ..................................................................................................... 6
Using Anchor Text for Link Building............................................................................................... 7
Creating Anchor Text Links ............................................................................................................. 8
Declining Link Types ........................................................................................................................ 9
Getting High-Value Links ................................................................................................................. 9
Exchanging Links ........................................................................................................................ 10
Guest Blogging ............................................................................................................................ 11
Check My Links............................................................................................................................ 12
Social Signals ............................................................................................................................... 13
Online Reputation and Branding .............................................................................................. 14
Don’t ................................................................................................................................................. 15
Been Slapped by Google? .............................................................................................................. 15
Finding the Problem ....................................................................................................................... 16
Google Disavow Tool...................................................................................................................... 18
Conclusion........................................................................................................................................ 20

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Welcome to Module 5
Introduction
Since the major algorithm change updates started in 2011, on-site
optimisation has become much more important than it used to be.
However, offsite SEO is still by far the dominant ranking factor. It's hard
to be exact but many have suggested that the split is as much as 70/30
in favour of offsite optimisation.

To rank successfully we need both our on-site and off-site factors to be

working in our favour.

Whilst it's true to say that we can improve our rankings and even get
very good rankings for low competition keywords using on-site factors
alone, the fact remains that we need offsite optimisation for any
keywords with competition.

Offsite optimisation is essentially all the things that we are going to do

away from our site (offsite) to improve its importance in the eyes of
Google.

Although this can mean many things, it's essentially the process of
building links from other webpages back to our own webpages, known
as link building.

In our human world, we base decisions on word-of-mouth. If someone

we know and trust tells us to go and eat at a certain restaurant or watch
a certain movie, the chances are that we are likely to go ahead and do it.

Why?

Because somebody just given us a recommendation, a referral.

But that's exactly what the search engines do. They also use word-of-
mouth/a referral system and links for what they use to do this.

If you have a link from another web page, especially if Google

determines that other webpage is of high authority, then it's going to give
you the credit (referral) for having it.

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In the simplest form, the more referrals you have, the higher you rank.
As we will soon discover, there is actually a lot more to it than that.

In the early days of SEO, that was pretty much how it worked.

My competitor has one hundred links so I need one hundred and one to
out-rank them. But as the Internet became much more competitive,
people also learned how to "game the system".

A massive rise in automated link building software made it incredibly

easy to create literally hundreds of thousands of links in a very short
space of time, which eventually had a negative effect on the search
engine results.

What we were seeing were websites appearing at the top of the search
engine results, but when you clicked on them, you discovered that they
weren't particularly relevant to the search you did. Alternatively, the site
may have been relevant, but offered little (or no) value to the reader.

Links and Their Values

In today's SEO, all links are most certainly NOT created equal.
The search engines had to implement a system to give more or less weight to
certain types of links.

We refer to these as high-value links and essentially they come from pages
that already have a high page rank with Google.

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In the above screenshot, you can see the link underlined in blue which if
clicked on, would take you through to the world food prize website.

The important thing here is that looking at the SEO toolbar this particular
page, it showing as being a page rank 8 page, which is extremely high.

In addition the Alexa rank is only 2165, meaning that there are only 2164
websites worldwide getting more traffic.

In other words this is a very very high-value link.

It's worth noting that one high-value link like this can be worth hundreds,
if not thousands of low value links.

In fact there is plenty of evidence to suggest that Google is now ignoring

really low value links completely.

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If you can therefore get links from high PR pages that have only one to
three other outbound links on that page, then you have found the Holy
Grail.

Unfortunately they are far from easy to find. Think about it! Increasing
your page rank can take many years and a huge amount of effort and
SEO work.

As one of the factors involved in page rank is traffic, you typically tend to
find high page rank sites are also highly trafficked sites.

In other words the owner of such a site knows that he has a highly
valuable piece of online real estate.

Anyone wanting a link from his site is going to have to know him well or
write a blank cheque (within reason obviously). So this makes getting
high-value links pretty difficult.

Getting High-Value Links Today

Link building in the SEO world today, can be summed up as follows:
"Earn links, Don't create links"

To explore this a little deeper, I simply mean that we need to earn our
links by creating relationships rather than creating links from low value
properties.

We are going to look at a few ways to do that, but it all stems from the
same platform. We need to be creating valuable content.

Now you may be thinking, I've heard people talking about link building
and they are doing this by simply going to various places around the
Internet, such as a comment on a blog, writing an article, creating a blog
post on one of the many hundreds of blog platforms (Blogger, Squidoo,
Hubpages etc) and simply including a link back to their website.

That is indeed correct, but this is exactly what I am referring to as low

value links.

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In reality anywhere that you can go online and create a link rather than
having to earn it is probably going to be low value.

Using Anchor Text for Link Building

When you create your links, you are going to want to use your primary
and LSI keywords as anchor text.
That is simply to say that your primary keywords will actually be the link
back to your site. The reason for doing this is that we are giving a strong
message to Google about the subject and we are giving them
information that they can use.

An example of anchor text is as follows:

If we wanted to rank for “SEO services” as our keyword, we would create

the link so that it looks like this:

SEO Services

As you can see the keyword itself is the link. If you are to click on that
keyword, you will discover that it hyperlinks through to one of my
websites.

That's all anchor text is, but it's a powerful SEO strategy so we should
use it to our advantage. However there are some rules and regulations
post Penguin that we need to follow.

As with everything, anchor text was heavily abused by people wanting to

rank their sites. Think about it from Google's point of view, it's looking for
natural everything.

Therefore is it natural that all the links going to your site contain the
same keyword as anchor text? Of course not.

So while we should still use anchor text today, we shouldn't abuse it. We
want to create links back to our site in approximately the following
proportions:

 20% using our primary keyword

 50% using a variety of LSI keywords

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  the remaining 30% should be made up of just general text, image
or domain based links e.g. www.Onvizi.com

Following this rule of thumb, we are creating a strong but natural link
profile which is exactly what Google is looking for

Creating Anchor Text Links

The actual HTML code for creating an anchor text link is as follows:
< a href="http://yourwebsite.com">This is the anchor text < /a>

In the above example you would use exactly as seen except substituting
your own webpage address after the http:// and obviously changing the
actual anchor text itself to whatever you wish to display.

However with most content management systems, including WordPress

not to mention online HTML editors, Microsoft Word, Excel etc you
simply need to highlight the text you want to hyperlink, clicking on a
create link button and entering the destination URL accordingly.

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Declining Link Types
I mentioned earlier that some types of link building methods provided
low value links. Even just a few years ago many of these methods were
very effective, but again, courtesy of the algorithm update, this is no
longer the case.
Below is a list of link types that is now declining in value in today's SEO.

However just because these links are not as powerful as they once were
doesn't mean you should ignore them completely. You should take them
when they are on offer, but certainly don't base your link strategy around
them.

 General forum commenting

 Blog commenting on blogs that are not related to our niche
 Directory links
 Posting content on blogs such as blogger.com, WordPress.com,
Squidoo etc
 Writing articles, spinning the content to give multiple variations and
posting to a wide network of article submission sites
 Buying packets of links
 Link farms and link networks (never use these, UNLESS you own
the network)

Getting High-Value Links

Because high-value link typically cannot be created with ease, there is
unfortunately no major shortcut to getting high-value links. It does take
time!

The starting point is to create high-value content on your site, such as

your blog posts, infographics and video.

You need to make sure your content is going to deliver enough value for
others to recognise it as being important or from an authority source.

In essence, you are trying to brand yourself and your website as the
expert.

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Providing that you do indeed know about your subject, and you should
because that's what your business is centred around, this shouldn't be
particularly hard to do.

By positioning ourselves as the expert in our field, we are making sure

that our readers are informed about the subject they came to our
website for the first place.

In turn we are also hoping that other Webmasters will also visit our site,
read our content and recognise that it will be valuable to his or her
readers.

Here are a few methods forgetting great high-value links:

Exchanging Links
Contact a webmaster asking if they would exchange links. The key here
is to make sure that the website owner you are contacting has a website
that is related to your own in terms of content and/or niche.
Whilst this can be an effective way to earn high-value links, it does have
a couple of problems. Primarily, by exchanging links you have a two-way
arrangement. You place a link on your site to another site and the other
site places a link on their site back to you.

This is known as reciprocal or two way link building. Whilst these links
can still be valuable, they are not as valuable as a one-way link (in other
words a link to your site from another, without the reciprocal agreement)
in SEO terms.

Additionally you may have to trade in order to get the link. You may have
to provide a link to their website on a page that is PR 4 in order to get
one back that is PR2

The final problem with this method is that it does tend to have a low
success rate because most Webmasters become inundated with link
requests.

Again this is another reason to make sure your content is of high quality
and valuable, so that if they do come to your site to check it out, there is
a greater chance they will be prepared to exchange.

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Guest Blogging
Guest blogging is an excellent way to not only get high-value links, but
also to get your content viewed by a much wider audience.
Essentially you want to find other authority blogs in your niche and ask if
you can write a blog post in exchange for a link on their site.

As most website owners hate writing content and see it as a necessary

evil, chances are they will be open to the suggestion.

However and here is the key: you must be providing content on your
own site that is both related and valuable.

If the owner of the site where you are requesting a guest blogging spot
from, comes to your site (because you can guarantee they will want to
see examples before they agree) and your content is flimsy, badly
written and quite clearly poor quality, you can be pretty sure that the
answer will be no.

If you get a positive reply, create a piece of content, commission an

infographic or do a video packed full of information and value. Take the
time to research the demographics of the visitors of the guest blog site &
make sure your guest blog targets them specifically.

Don't offer any form of a sales pitch!!

In your content or at the end of your content, include one or two links
back to your website using anchor text. At the end of your content, write
a short author bio of three to four lines, followed by something like "you
can find out more on XYZ subject at www.YourWebsite.com.”

Guest blogging can be an excellent way to build relationships and could

lead to all sorts of possibilities down the line.

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Check My Links
Check My Links is a chrome browser extension. You can use it to check
for any broken links on the website. Simply search for check my links in
the Chrome extensions directory and install it onto your chrome browser
(access extensions via the Chrome browser settings).

Simply navigate to a website and click the check my links button in the
extension area of chrome at the top right hand side.

Check My Links will then analyse the webpage and determine if any of
the links on it are broken (not working).

There could be any number of reasons as to why a link would be broken,

the website may no longer exist, the page URL may have changed, the
page may have been deleted etc.

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Having broken links on a page is something that Google hates. It's also
something the Webmasters hate because it causes problems for their
visitors.

A combination of these two factors is excellent for us, because if we find

broken links on a website where we would like a link ourselves, we can
contact the Webmaster and point out what we have discovered.

In most cases, they will not be aware and will be delighted that you have
pointed out so they can rectify it.

Now it's time to make your move! Suggest that because you have a
website that is related (because you don't want to be wasting time
checking for broken links on a non related website) that maybe they

would consider exchanging a broken link for one of yours?

Social Signals
Social signals have become such an important part in the SEO today
that we have a full module dedicated to them.
A combination of getting high-value links and social signals will
guarantee SEO success.

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If any proof were needed, look at the SEO quake toolbar in the image
below.

You will see in the middle of the toolbar that social signals from
Facebook, Twitter and Google plus are showing.

This is because they play a major part in the ranking algorithm.

Online Reputation and Branding

As we have already discussed, part of your online marketing efforts
should concentrate on positioning yourself, your company, your products
and services and your brand as the experts.
You should take the time to visit relevant industry specific forums, blogs,
social media groups etc and make yourself and your business known.

You shouldn't go into these places "guns blazing" saying “we are the
best, come and buy our stuff” but simply get involved in the environment,
contribute to the discussion and continue subtly enforcing yourself as an
authority figure.

As your reputation grows, people will come over to your site to find out
more about you and your business (obviously you will be leaving links to
your site in your comments either as a signature or occasionally just by
dropping it in there).

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Sooner or later, others will start linking to your site from their own
because they know their visitors will get value.

Done right, this is an extremely effective way to get high value links to
your site, whilst at the same time enhancing your reputation and
attracting traffic to your website.

Don’t
 Use automated link building tools
 Spin your content and submit it to thousands of different places.
 Use link networks or link farms (just ask the guys at Build My
Rank)
 Buy volume links or link packets (tempting as it may sound)
 Take shortcuts

Finally, remember it's too good to be true… (you know the rest)

Been Slapped by Google?

You will probably already know that Google is penalising you, if indeed it
is. If you have linked your website to Google Webmaster tools already,
there is a good chance they will have sent you a message by that
platform, stating something along the lines of "discovering unnatural link
patterns"
If you were receiving traffic via the search engines and all of a sudden
that has stopped, or you have lost any rankings in the search engines,
then chances are you are being penalised.

There could be any number of reasons why you have been penalised.

You could have outsourced some SEO work to a SEO company who
didn't follow procedures properly, or maybe in the past you yourself have
followed along with link building methods that are no longer acceptable.

Although it's important that we discover why you have been penalised,
it's much more important to understand what you can do about it and
rectify it.

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In the final module of SEO Enigma we are going to look at Google
Webmaster tools in some detail.

If you already have an account however, the first thing to do is check

there and see if you have any messages. We will come back to Google
Webmaster tools shortly, because there is a tool available to us which
we are going to use the rectify our penalty.

Finding the Problem

If you already know what has caused your penalty, then you can skip
this section and move on to the information about the Google disavow
tool below (more on this shortly).
If however you don't know the source of your penalty, then we need to
investigate.

The first thing to do is to use a free back link checking tool. There are
several free ones available online such as www.Backlinkwatch.com.

Here you want to enter your website URL and let the tool run. It will
return a list of all the back links that is has found, going to your site,
along with any anchor text and a few other variables.

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You will need to go through this list and check the links that are returned.
If you see excessive use of the same anchor text, especially from low
value link properties, then the chances are you have found your problem
as in the case above.

The main problem with these free back link checking tools is that they
only provide limited information.

In the case of Backlink Watch, they only analyse the first thousand links.
Hence if you have a lot of back links going to your site, you are going to
need to invest in some superior software.

My personal favourites for checking back links are Majestic SEO and
SEO Spyglass. Click on either of these links to find out more about
them.

Both products are extremely good at identifying your back links and
allowing you to analyse them.

Once you've identified the problem/s, do whatever you can to remove it.

If you yourself created the problem links, you may still have access to
the platforms where you created them, so simply login and delete the
links.

If you are able to remove the problems yourself, then you have taken all
the necessary steps to remove your Google penalty.

Unfortunately however, chances are that your problem links are outside
of your control.

You may for whatever reason no longer be able to login to a platform,

the links may have been created by a third-party or you may have
contacted the Webmaster of a link partner and not received a response,
the list is endless really.

In this is the case, then we need to use the Google disavow tool which
can be found at:

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/disavow-links-main?pli=1

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Google Disavow Tool

To use the tool, you will need to have a Webmaster tools account and
have it linked to your website.

If you haven't done this, jump to the end of the module in SEO Enigma
about analytics and Webmaster tools (final module) and follow it
through. Then once you've done that come back and continue with the
steps below.

Create a text document in notepad (Windows) or text edit (Mac) and list
all the links that you believe are causing you problems (one per line).

These are the links that we are now going to submit to the Google
disavow tool and ask it to ignore those links.

Once you have logged into your Webmaster tools account, you will be
presented with a screen that looks similar to the image above.

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If you have multiple sites linked to your Webmaster tools, you will need
to select the site that you are dealing with from the drop-down box. If you
have only linked one site however, you will not have this choice.

Once you have selected the relevant site and clicked the button to
disavow links, you will get a warning from Google making you aware that
the tool is an advanced feature and should be used with caution.

On the next screen, we want to upload the text file that we created
above.

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Find the file on your computer and click submit. This will then be
uploaded to Google and they will go about disavowing the links as per
your request.

You should not expect these links to be disavowed quickly or for your
site to receive an immediate release from your penalty. It does take quite
a few weeks.

Conclusion
You should now have a good understanding of how offsite optimisation
works, along with the criteria that Google is looking for.
Offsite optimisation is a long-term ongoing project and is not something
that "usually" brings short term results, so bear this in mind as you work
through.

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