As an SEO consultant who works with many e-commerce businesses, I know firsthand how crucial off-page optimization is for driving organic growth. My clients rely on high rankings and traffic from search engines like Google to thrive. In this guide, I’ll share the proven off-site SEO strategies I use to get results for online stores. Whether you sell physical products or digital offerings, these techniques can help expand your visibility and referral traffic from external sites.

Link Building

One of the most important off-page ranking factors is building quality backlinks to your e-commerce site from external websites. Backlinks act as ‘votes’ that signal to Google that your content is valuable. There are various ethical strategies you can utilize to build relevant links and earn referral traffic for your online store:

Guest Blogging

Guest blogging is an effective link-building method. You can write and contribute content to popular blogs and websites in your industry. Make sure to include a natural link back to your e-commerce site within the article content. Position the link appropriately within the flow of the article, such as when mentioning a related concept or providing context. To make the content better, create engaging infographics and add to the content. You can also create them with a link and pitch them to relevant blogs to republish.

🚩 Avoid forced placement just for the sake of linking. Finding relevant guest posting opportunities allows you to tap into an already established audience and earn a backlink from a domain with high authority in your niche. 

Broken Link Building

Another great link building technique is broken link building. You can search for broken links on high authority sites in your industry pointing to outdated or irrelevant content. Then identify pages on your own site that contain more up-to-date and useful information on the topic. Reach out to the site owner and politely offer to replace their broken link with your own relevant article containing a link back to your e-commerce store. 

You can also use the skyscraper technique to outperform the competitor content. Create content that’s vastly better and more comprehensive than existing competitor content. Reach out to sites linking to it and pitch your improved piece.

When building backlinks, be sure to diversify your anchor text links using your brand terms, relevant product keywords, and natural phrasing. Having a blend of different anchor text strategies makes your link profile appear more natural. 

Social Media Marketing

Promoting your e-commerce content, products, and brand on major social media platforms provides multiple SEO and marketing benefits:

1️⃣ Having high-quality content in your social media channels positions you as an authority in your industry while increasing overall brand awareness. The more people that interact with and share your content, the more visibility and backlinks you gain which signals value to search engines. 

2️⃣ Social media also helps drive direct referral traffic and new potential customers to your online shop. When you publish interesting social posts showcasing your latest products, promotions, or content, the post can entice followers to click through to make a purchase or explore your website. Referral traffic from social platforms is typically highly targeted as well.

3️⃣ Promoting user-generated content like customer reviews and testimonials on your social channels boosts credibility and trust for your brand. You want potential buyers to see real people having positive experiences with your business. Hashtags and tagging other brands or influencers in your niche help increase the discoverability of your posts and brand handles as users search these tags.

4️⃣ To maximize your social media SEO, use both organic and paid strategies consistently. Run exciting contests, giveaways, and influencer collaborations. Use relevant hashtags and always link to your site. You can also amplify high-performing posts through paid ads.

Content Marketing

Publishing informative, useful content like blog articles and guides positions your e-commerce brand as a trusted authority while attracting organic traffic and backlinks. Here are some proven content tips:

• Creating and distributing content externally from your e-commerce site is an off-page strategy. This includes guest posting informative articles on other websites and blogs in your industry. Be sure to include natural backlinks to your site within these contributed pieces.
• Promoting valuable content assets you’ve created, like in-depth guides, case studies, surveys, infographics, and press releases across channels also represents off-page content marketing. Identify publishers relevant to your niche and pitch your content to them for potential republication.
• Ensure all content you produce and distribute is 100% unique rather than duplicated from other sources. Google’s algorithms highly favor fresh, original content to help increase visibility and ROI.
• The key is to develop truly useful, engaging content that aligns with your e-commerce niche and buyer interests. This content can attract backlinks and new audiences at various stages of the purchasing journey. Promote your content across all marketing channels. Analyze performance to optimize future content efforts.

In summary, distributing your content externally through guest posting, outreach campaigns, and partnerships classifies content creation as an off-page SEO tactic. Focus on providing value to build brand awareness and links.

Influencer Marketing

Partnering and collaborating with relevant social media influencers in your e-commerce industry presents opportunities to tap into their established audience and increase brand awareness. Some creative influencer partnership ideas include:

➕ Negotiate sponsored post partnerships where influencers create dedicated Instagram posts, Instagram Stories, or Reels that showcase and feature your products in an authentic way. Ensure their content aligns with your brand image. Provide complimentary products and any brand guidelines. Ask to review their draft post before publishing to ensure quality and accuracy.

➕ Run an exciting giveaway or contest for their audience, requiring entrants to follow your brand account and tag friends to spread the word. Influencers often are happy to promote quality giveaways that offer real value to their followers.

➕ For YouTube influencers, provide free product samples for them to unbox and review in a dedicated video. Product unboxing and reviews are very popular right now. Ensure you send products you’re confident they will enjoy.

➕ Create an exclusive promo code or special offer for the influencer’s followers as an incentive to buy. Discount codes can help track sales driven specifically through the partnered promotion.

➕ Establish long-term brand ambassador partnerships with influencers who genuinely love your brand and products. They can organically showcase your products over time to their engaged audience.

➕ Vet potential influencer partners thoroughly to confirm their values and niche align closely with your e-commerce brand image and products. Review their content quality and engagement metrics. Look for genuine advocates of your brand, not just inflated numbers.

Carefully measure the performance and ROI of influencer campaigns through sales, promo code tracking, engagement metrics, and overall brand awareness lift. Ensure your budgets align with the value delivered. Tweak partnerships over time as needed.

Online Reviews and Ratings

Positive online customer reviews, testimonials, and ratings on platforms like Google, Facebook, and Trustpilot build crucial trust signals that can boost your local SEO rankings and click-through rate from search listings. Here are some ethical ways to proactively generate more authentic customer reviews:

• Email customers a polite request to leave feedback on their purchase experience a few weeks after delivery. Provide an easy link to your reviews page. Offer a small incentive like a discount code on their next order for leaving detailed, thoughtful reviews of your products or service. Many customers are happy to share their thoughts when asked.
• On your post-purchase thank you page, order confirmation emails, and unboxing packaging, display prominent calls-to-action inviting customers to leave a review of their purchase. The prompt should stand out yet feel natural. Make it fast and easy for them to leave feedback right within the email or while the experience is still fresh.
• Run periodic social media and email campaigns expressly asking both new and returning customers to take a moment and review their overall experiences with your brand. Promote it as helping other potential buyers make decisions.
• Use feedback tool like trust pilot, youtpo, etc. that contacts customers automatically after their purchase to collect reviews. This takes the burden off your staff. Make the email personalized and friendly.
• When you receive negative reviews, always respond professionally and try to resolve the issue. Also, allow reviewers to vote on the helpfulness of other reviews so unhelpful rants get pushed down. Moderating reviews preserves the integrity of your pages.

A steady stream of positive word-of-mouth praise directly from real, verified customers can significantly influence conversion rates as social proof. User-generated reviews also add more diverse site content. Just ensure you have ethical practices for collecting reviews. Never publish fake or incentivized reviews. Focus on delivering excellent customer experiences that create authentic advocates.

Video and Podcast Content

Creating video and audio content represents a valuable opportunity to diversify your digital content formats and marketing channels while appealing to different learning styles.

Upload videos like product unveilings, tutorials, behind-the-scenes footage, and more to YouTube. Optimize the videos fully with descriptive titles, metadata, tags, and searchable transcripts. Embed them on your e-commerce site and promoted them on social media. Well-optimized instructional videos can rank on both YouTube and Google.

Launching a regular podcast allows you to get deeper into industry topics while establishing your brand as a thought leader. Record and distribute episodes on multiple platforms like Spotify. Promote new episodes across your other marketing channels. Consider inviting guest experts.

Short-form social videos present another option to engage audiences. For example, create fun TikTok videos showing behind-the-scenes production of your products or interesting industry trends.

Go live on platforms like Facebook or Instagram to stream virtual product launches, events, sales, or even the creative process behind your brand. Live video feels more raw and authentic.

Interview industry experts, influencers, or enthusiastic customers on video and podcasts. Host a branded video series answering common customer product questions. Instructional videos build trust.

Remember, rich multimedia content development presents a worthwhile investment to expand your marketing arsenal and provide more value.

Brand Mentions and Link Insertion Strategy

A creative indirect link-building technique involves strategically referencing or mentioning other reputable brands and websites to loosely associate your own brand with them in an implied way, without direct links.

For example, if you organically mention popular complementary products or influential companies in your own blog content, Google can pick up on these natural mentions and infer your brand operates in similar circles, even without a direct link.

You can reference your key suppliers, vendors, or other business partners you work closely with. Avoid keyword stuffing. This demonstrates you share the same wider industry ecosystem and relationships.

Likewise, casually name-dropping other premium brands your target audience also trusts and follows suggests your solutions provide value to the same users and customer demographic. Your brand fits thematically into their world.

This works best when the domains referenced have a higher domain authority and traffic than your own e-commerce site. Avoid over-optimizing anchor text within implied links. Weave in authoritative brands and sites contextually where relevant. Let Google make the connections.

Local SEO

For e-commerce brands with a local brick-and-mortar presence like stores, pop-ups, warehouses, or showrooms, optimizing for local SEO can drive more foot traffic, and in-store sales and establish your brand across geographic regions. Here are some best practices:

🔲 Claim and fully optimize your free Google My Business listing with your business name, complete address, great photos, descriptions of inventory and services, attributes, and other helpful information. This powers your business profile in local results.

🔲 Include your city name, region, postal code, and other localized terms throughout your site content where relevant. This helps you rank for searches by customers in your geographic area.

🔲 List your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) consistently across directories, review sites, citations, and local data aggregators frequented by nearby customers. Inconsistent business listings cannibalize local SEO strength.

🔲 Run targeted location-based ads and social media campaigns promoting special offers or events to engage nearby potential customers. Geofencing sends alerts when followers enter key locations.

🔲 Host or sponsor local community events, contests, workshops, or pop-ups to build connections and relationships with customers in your region. Support local organizations. Get involved.

🔲 Measure your local SEO results through sources of web traffic, calls and emails generated, foot traffic and in-store sales, and any online-to-offline conversions. Refine your strategy based on insights.

Optimizing for localized search visibility and engagement helps you connect with the customers who can actually visit your physical stores and locations.

My Final Thoughts

If you’ve made it this far, thanks so much for sticking with me! I know that was a ton of information to absorb. Let’s recap the key takeaways:

• Link building is essential. Guest blogging and outreach to fix broken links are effective strategies.
• Social media provides multiple SEO benefits.
• Content marketing represents both on-page and off-page opportunities. 
• Partner with relevant influencers to tap into their engaged following. 
• Customer reviews, testimonials, and ratings significantly influence conversions. 
• Diversify formats with video, podcasts, and multimedia content. 
• Technical factors like site speed and structured data impact how you rank. 

I’m cheering you on as you work to implement more of these techniques! Just stay patient, ethical, and focused on value. With a thorough off-page optimization approach, you can expand your e-commerce site’s reach and success. Let me know if any other questions come up!