Off-Page SEO

Authority building through ethical link acquisition, digital PR and brand mentions that search engines and AI systems trust.

Building Authority Beyond Your Website

If on-page SEO is what you say about yourself, off-page SEO is what everyone else says about you. It’s the digital equivalent of reputation — built through backlinks, brand mentions, digital PR coverage, reviews and social signals. Search engines use these external signals to gauge how trustworthy and authoritative your website is.

The analogy we use with clients is academic citations. A research paper becomes influential not just because of its content, but because other credible researchers reference it. The same principle applies to your website. A link from the BBC, a mention in a trade publication, a citation from a respected industry blog — these all signal to Google (and increasingly to AI models) that your content is worth surfacing.

Quality Over Quantity

The days of buying 500 directory links for £50 are long gone — and good riddance. Modern off-page SEO is about earning links through genuinely valuable content, building relationships with journalists and editors, and creating resources that people naturally want to reference. One link from a relevant, authoritative domain is worth more than a hundred from spammy directories.

Our approach focuses on digital PR, where we create data-driven stories and expert commentary that publications genuinely want to cover. For clients in the legal sector, like Olliers Solicitors, this has included expert commentary on landmark cases, which generates backlinks from legal publications and news sites simultaneously — building both traditional SEO authority and AI visibility through brand mentions.

Brand Mentions and AI Citations

Here’s something most SEO agencies aren’t talking about yet: off-page mentions now feed into how AI models represent your brand. When ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google AI Overviews reference your company, they’re drawing on the same web of mentions and citations that traditional search engines use. Off-page SEO and AI optimisation are two sides of the same coin.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is link building still important for SEO in 2026?

Yes, but the nature of what matters has evolved significantly. Google still uses links as a trust signal, but the emphasis is firmly on quality and relevance rather than volume. A single editorial link from a relevant industry publication carries far more weight than dozens of generic directory submissions. Additionally, brand mentions — even without a hyperlink — are increasingly recognised as authority signals, particularly by AI systems building entity profiles.

What is digital PR and how does it differ from traditional link building?

Digital PR involves creating newsworthy content — original research, expert commentary, data studies, interactive tools — and pitching it to journalists and editors at relevant publications. Unlike traditional link building which often focuses on manipulating link metrics, digital PR earns coverage naturally because the content is genuinely useful or interesting. The result is high-authority editorial links that also generate brand awareness and referral traffic.

How do brand mentions affect AI visibility?

Large language models are trained on vast amounts of web content. When your brand is consistently mentioned alongside relevant topics in authoritative sources, AI models learn to associate your company with that expertise. This directly influences whether AI tools recommend or cite your business when users ask relevant questions. Think of it as building your brand's presence in the AI training data.

Based in Southampton, serving Portsmouth, Winchester, London and beyond.

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