This is a post from a member of the Freelancers Union community. If you’re interested in sharing your expertise, your story, or some advice you think will help a fellow freelancer out, feel free to send your blog post to us here.

If you are trying to improve your site’s ranking, then you need to think about your off-page optimization. While there is no doubt that the information you share on your site influences your site’s rankings, there are many things that you can do off-page that influence your site’s rankings too.

These ideas aren't just speculation on results gained from trial and error, they are rooted in actual studies conducted by professionals of various backgrounds.

According to Sonya Zhang and Neal Cabage, in a study published in the Journal of Computer Information Systems, the three main aspects of an effective SEO strategy are content, link building, and social sharing. This article will discuss in greater detail some of these findings and how you can capitalize on them to improve the authority of your site.

Your brand becomes much more visible when you are found on the first page of Google.

Create links to your site

Google puts a lot of emphasis on getting links to your site as they think of them as a vote of confidence. The more domains that link to your site, the higher your site is going to rank.

Additionally, Google considers the number of individual pages that link to your site. Therefore, you need to spend time creating good content that others will want to link to, but you also need to spend time asking for links from other webmasters.

Usually, well-produced infographics produce the most links. You also need to spend time trying to get different different types of links. Now, realize that Google also considers the authority of the linking page before you rush out and buy 1,000 domains allowing you to link them all. Links that appear naturally in the content are seen as the most valuable.

Write guest posts

While you are seeking links from high-authority sites, explore the possibility of writing a guest post for other sites. Many times you will discover that writing a quality guest post will drive traffic to your site instantly. People who write guest posts also built their online influence and their credibility.

When given the opportunity, make sure to link naturally to your brand name in your post. Furthermore, writing guest blogs is a great way for you to find out what others think about you and your content, because they are more likely to tell you on someone else’s site.

Any guest posts that you write help build your online presence, but you should seek to write post on sites that have a higher ranking than your own.

Become an expert

Many people own websites in a niche where they are not an expert, but you could never tell. These people do their research so that they begin to understand the key concepts in the niche. They locate the people that are real experts through web filters, and they follow them using every means possible including hooking up to social media and attending industry conferences. One great tip is to analyze your key competitor’s sites to see what keywords they are using and what they are writing about on their sites.

Social sharing

In today's digital world, you must have a strong social media presence. Whatever your business is, you will greatly benefit from building a following on social platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. As you write articles, whether they be on your site or as a guest post, the more you can get your audience to engage with that content through likes, comments, and shares, the more your site will gain authority on Google.

If you employ keywords correctly, you can utilize these social media platforms to increase your rankings for specific searches that you are targeting. Create engaging content that gets people talking, post it regularly, and implement an aggressive social campaign to reach as many people as possible.

The larger your audience and the more you engage, the greater results you will achieve as you adopt all of the above tips.

Kevin Gardner is a Business Consultant and freelance writer. He enjoys writing about his work, experience, and relationships he has built through his career.