There's a common consensus amongst SEO (search engine optimisation) professionals that the most important part of website optimisation actually takes place off the page, with Google and the other major search engines these days largely determining the importance of sites based on Links From External Sites.
Probably largely due to the ease with which on-page factors can be manipulated search engines now place more weight on so called off-page factors. Google initiated the shift in major search engine made through its patented Page Rank algorithm however researchers had been discussing the application of off page concepts such as link anchor text as far back as 1994.

Off Page SEO criteria are obtained from sources other than the website. Sounds a bit obvious but it's worth stating. Off Page SEO is what can be achieved off the pages of a website to maximise its performance in the search engines for target keywords related to the on page content and keywords in off page direct links.
Search engine optimisation, high search engine ranking and online PR are inextricably related through Link Building and any company wishing to maximize profile by establishing itself at the top end of the search engines would be wise to consider online PR in the form of Off Page SEO as a vital contributor to their search engine rankings.

The importance of off page optimization can't be stressed enough for achieving long term search engine profile. Now more than ever where you end up in the SERPs (search engine result pages) is based on Authority. Authority isn't established solely through what's on your web pages. It is derived from a combination of many factors including inbound links, outbound links and how many websites with authority you are affiliated with.

Modern Off Page SEO involves encouraging syndication and socialising of you site content (and links) by providing major news, media and RSS feeds powered by your data. As you content propagates deep links evolve into your site from blogs, aggregators, news and media companies and so your Authority grows.
Also increasingly influential for Off Page SEO is the weight contributed by social bookmarking services such as Stumble Upon, Digg and del.icio.us. Socially Bookmarking posts on your blogs is an effective way to get high quality back links from authority sites. It's always preferable for Off Page SEO if someone else give you credit so encourage visitors to your site to use these social bookmarking services such as del.icio.us throughout your site, in order to add your content to their bookmarks and tag them - again, for the deep inbound links.

A balanced portfolio of fresh links is also important for Off Page SEO, as is a stable presence in leading directories. To search engines, the source of information or references matters, for example a link using your main keyword from a similarly themed site and a keyword used out of context from an unrelated site have different degrees of relevance.

The combination of any or all of such Off Page SEO tactics will assist you in establishing a virtuous circle of profile that leads to authority that leads to profile that generates authority and on. Success is driven by a range of quality Off Page SEO practices such as Internet marketing, peer-to-peer promotion, advertising and link building.

Of course all this time trouble and expense will be wasted if you don't adhere to the core Search Engine Optimisation and Internet business principle - Relevance. High search engine returns means increased amounts of visitors but additional traffic generated though applying Search Engine Optimisation will prove valueless unless the destination site has content that gives visitors what they want.

Content is king and high quality content that matches the needs of site visitors reigns supreme. There's no getting away from this basic principle - search engines live for relevance - relevance is why sites are elevated to high search return positions. Off Page SEO if applied professionally to a professionally developed site will work to highlight the relevance of the site.

Instead of using the keyword irrelevant phrase 'click here' on your websites internal links to refer to another page, you could use an Exact Match Link - a keyword or keyword phrase - a term you wanted to rank for and might summarize the topic of the page it refers to. Be sure to vary the anchor text to create the appearance of natural link progression.

Alternatively combinations of contextual qualifiers cover the basic word combinations that are pertinent to your business.
Listed below is a range of sources for inbound links:
· Themed portals - ezines, discussion forums, targeted vertical directories.
· Press releases / articles - Increasing numbers of news sites such as the BBC are including stories and linking to external web sites of all kinds. In addition to the fact that many of these media outlets have large audiences they will be crawled frequently by search engines. Online stories can continue to generate interest and web traffic for many months.
· Industry organizations - Many non-profit organizations offer directories of their membership with links to their websites. Join as many as make sense for your venture.
· Participate in discussion forums - Many Internet discussion forums allow hyperlinks in "signature files". Participate in discussions and offer advice and wisdom.
· Set up a search engine friendly affiliate program - Affiliate Marketing is a system that encourages other websites to become advocates for each others' products and services, Affiliate marketing widens the scope of your internet presence and rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by their marketing efforts.
· RSS news feeds - publish content though RSS syndication, sliced and diced in different ways (most popular, top rated, clearance, newest and latest, by category, etc.).
· Paid advertising - Many directories (like Yahoo), portals and websites offer paid advertising options from text links to banners.
PPC campaigns - Pay per click/PPC is deployed extensively across search engines, advertising networks, content-based websites and blogs. Be sure to use different keywords in your link-ads from the same site