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This In-depth Off-site SEO checklist we’ll help you improve your off-page SEO signals, which will help you rank higher on Google and other search engines.

If you are also interested in On-Site optimization, please read our Advanced On-Site SEO Checklist.

Let’s get started!

Off-site SEO Checklist

Anchor Text Diversity

Your anchor text should be varied. This reduces the likelihood that you might be penalized for over-optimization.

Branding

You should focus on building your brand, not just building a link network. Your goal should be to position yourself within your market, not just earn SERP rankings.

Competitor Research

Do competitor research but do not obsess about it. Your competitor may be using tactics that are against Google’s or Bing’s guidelines, so it is important to not follow them blindly.

Consumer Review Sites

Make sure you let your clients know that you have a Google My Business or Yelp Business accounts so they can leave you reviews.

Never pay for reviews, as search engines are paying special attention to them, and doing so is illegal.

Content Marketing

Generate content that will make people want to visit your site. By being helpful and providing solutions, you can build your brand and position as an industry leader.

Directory Submissions

Nowadays, most directories are spammy and low quality.

Only submit to trusted and quality directories like Better Business Bureau, local chamber of commerce, and business.com that go through editorial reviews.

In this video, Matt Cutts (former head of Google’s Webspam team) explains why Google does not like most Web Directories.

Video Date: Aug 8, 2011

Guest Blogging

Limit guest blogging to sites that are well-trafficked and offer high-quality content that’s overseen and reviewed by an experienced editor.

How to check the quality of the website for guest posting?

  • Confirm traffic volume by looking into social shares.
  • Confirm site reach by typing site:yourdomain.com into your browser’s address bar and look at the number of indexed page results in the upper left-hand corner. The higher the number, the better the result.
  • You can also use tools like Moz, Majestic, or Ahrefs to check domain authority and page authority.

Harmful Links

Scan and check your website for irrelevant or inappropriate links. Those that come from adult sites or malware-infected sites can have a negative effect on your search ranking.

Here are a few tools that you can use to scan your site for bad neighborhood links, IP addresses, and domains.

Infographic Directories

Create beautiful and informative Infographics and submit them to High-Quality Infographic Directories.

Infographics are great for building traffic, links, social followers, and brand authority!

Keyword Research

Do keyword research before optimizing or building your site.

You can get information on search trends and keyword competition by Ubersuggest combined with Answer the Public.

Link Building

You should submit articles to trusted and quality websites that go through an in-depth editorial review.

SEMrush’s Blog, About.com, Wikipedia are excellent examples of this type of resource.

Link Cleanup

Contact webmasters to remove any spammy links that come from past SEO efforts. If there is no way to contact the Webmaster, use Google’s and Bing’s disavow tool.

Link/Content Relevancy

Link and content relevancy are very important. Your anchor text should always provide a good context for where the link leads.

Links From Different C-Class IPs

You should not link to sites that share the same C-class IP address when Answer the Public or guest posting.
Google’s algorithm penalizes sites that seem to be engaging in shady link network building practices, and too many links to the same C-class IP are a red flag for this. Check IP addresses while link building.

Link Juice

You should analyze your link profile, so you know which links are providing the most juice. Ahrefs, Moz’s Open Site Explorer, and Majestic’s Site Explorer can do this.

Local Directories

Moz Local is a great resource to get local links and advertise your business in local directories. It also lets you know what sites you still need to develop your brand on.

No-Follow/Do-Follow

Having only do-follow links is a sign of spamming. Make sure you are also including no-follow links in your implementation.

Official Links

Links from trusted top-level domains like .org, .edu, and .gov can give you a significant boost in traffic. Google gives great value to such domains.

Press Releases

Only write/submit press releases if you really have something newsworthy to talk about. This can be anything including a new service, product, or promotion.

Promotion

You should work to promote your brand and website online and offline. Building a buzz around your brand is one of the most effective ways to drive traffic to websites and businesses.

Question and Answer Sites

Serve as an informed authority for public Q&A sites like Quora and eHow. Answer user questions clearly and accurately to build professional authority and get your name out there.

Identify yourself clearly, link to your site whenever possible, and use your own tutorials and articles to source your responses.

Quora Link Building

Scraping

Do not send automated queries to Google. It is against their Quality Guidelines and can result in temporary bans from the use of search services.

Sitewide Links

Links that are displayed on all pages can become a problem. Any links that may appear to be gaming search engines to increase ranking should be avoided.

Social Media Marketing

Be active on social sites and build your brand, network, and friends list. Share, follow and tweet your way to popularity and success.

Here are the most popular social media networks in the United States as of October 2018

Most Popular Social Media Apps In The Us In 2018 By Engagement
Most Popular Social Media Apps In The Us In 2018 By Audience

Spam Comments

Make sure you are not engaged in user-generated spam. Either posting to other blogs or allowing spammy posts to go through on your own blog. This can lead to SERP penalties.

Stay Up-to-Date

Stay current and informed about new techniques and algorithm updates.

Sites like Moz.com, Google Quality Guidelines, Bing Webmaster Guidelines, Search Engine Land, and our Blog are great resources to improve your knowledge and stay up to date.

Traffic Analysis

Always check your analytics account and reports. This can tip you off to shifts in the market, which may require you to tweak your own approach.

Underhanded 301s

Do not buy web addresses that pass page authority via 301 redirects just for SEO. You will always run the risk of those links either losing their juice or becoming harmful and reducing your rank.

Use Social Aggregators

Get involved with professional communities at social aggregator sites like Reddit, Design News, Hacker News, and Bizsugar.

Share links to your work and tutorials, answer questions, and make connections with like-minded professionals and prospective clients.

Be sure to be professional, if you do this and provide information that can allow interested people to find your site.

Video Marketing

Post tutorials and other useful information on YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, and Metacafe. Identify yourself clearly, provide high-quality content and link back to your own site so people can find you.

We hope you enjoyed our Off-site SEO checklist, we’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

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