Off-Page SEO – search engine optimization – refers to the part of SEO that attempts to manipulate “web-importance” to achieve rank for a given keyword. Often, billions of web pages compete for the same keywords, and search engines like Google try to gauge which, among several relevant pages, are most important. Since search engines cannot comprehend content the way a human can, they rely on behavioral inputs from users and webmasters to tell them which web pages should rank. Webmasters communicate web-importance by linking out to other web pages. In the simplified world of off-page SEO, a link to a web page is like a vote for that web page. So linking could be considered a “social” behavior. But how can well-behaved webmasters and bloggers hope to acquire links without gaming the system? After all, Google’s webmaster guidelines are clearly against any form of search engine manipulation. Here is where SMO – social media optimization – comes into play.  ... Read This »