After you’ve optimized your site itself, there are several things to do in what’s called Off-Page search engine optimization. While it’s not quite as important as on-page optimization, the optimization done separate from your website is what will increase your rankings if you and your competitor have sites of equivalent value to the end-user.
Check out a video on our Slices of SEO YouTube that serves as an introduction to the question “What is Off-Page SEO?”