Off-Page SEO Checklist Examples & Techniques That Actually Work in 2025

Off-page SEO helps improve your website's authority and reputation. 

It involves actions taken outside your website to boost visibility in both traditional and AI search.

Many business owners and marketers struggle with this. They don’t know where to start or how to track progress. Throughout this guide, we’ll provide real examples and visuals to help you learn how to implement these strategies effectively.

Here’s how this checklist can help:

• Understand Off-Page SEO: Learn what it involves, from link building to social media signals.
• Identify Key Tasks: Find the most effective techniques to improve your rankings.
• Track Your Success: Use tools to measure the impact of your efforts.
• Simplify the Process: This checklist breaks down everything into easy-to-follow steps.

Start with Off-Page SEO Audit

An off-page SEO audit is the first step in improving your website’s authority. It helps you understand how your website is performing outside of your actual site: what other sites say about you. 

Think of it like getting a performance review for your website, but instead of feedback from your team, it’s coming from search engines and other websites.

Here’s why this audit is important:

• Shows Where You Stand: The audit gives you a snapshot of your current SEO health. It tells you what’s working and what needs fixing (broken links, poor anchor text, etc).
• Highlights Areas for Improvement: It helps you pinpoint gaps. For example, if your competitors have more backlinks from high-quality sites, you definitely need to work on that as well.

Do Backlink Profile Analysis Using Ahrefs

Let’s talk about all this in more detail, starting with backlinks, since they play a big role in SEO:

• Check the Number of Backlinks: Backlink growth shows rising interest and authority. More backlinks often mean more trust. Still, you should track the trend, not just the total number. 

• Fix Broken Backlinks: Broken links waste hard-won authority. Recover value with redirects or updated pages.

• Review Referring Domains: Unique websites move rankings more than repeated links. Aim for steady growth from relevant, trusted sites.

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• Check No-Follow vs. Do-Follow Links: A balance is key for good SEO. Do-follow links pass SEO value; no-follow adds reach and trust signals. A natural mix looks safer and performs better.

• Analyze Anchor Text: Anchors tell Google what your page is about. Maintain variety and avoid exact-match phrases when relevant.
  
  
  
  • Branded vs. Non-Branded Anchors: Brand anchors build safety and trust. Descriptive anchors help keywords; use them, but don’t overdo them. Aim for 70% branded, 30% non-branded.

• Link Quality: We use Ahrefs to assess each backlink's quality, checking for relevance, real traffic, in-content placement, and natural anchor text. Links from trusted, relevant sites boost rankings, while off-topic or risky links can hinder growth.
  
  
  • Example: An e-commerce skincare website gains a valuable link from a dermatologist’s guide, but also receives multiple risky links from unrelated coupon sites. We keep the good link and clean up the bad ones.

• Competitor Analysis: Ahrefs helps us analyze your competitors’ backlinks to identify patterns, gaps, and potential link sources. By reviewing sites that link to them, we can find opportunities to close gaps and build authority.
  
  
  • Example: A software site’s competitors are linked by industry journals and integration partners. We target those sources for similar, high-quality links.

💡 Use Ahrefs to monitor and fix these areas. A healthy profile boosts rankings.

Do Competitor Backlinks Audit

Next up, look at the competitors. 

Analyzing competitor backlinks helps you find new opportunities. Here’s how:

• Check Competitor Backlinks: See where their links come from.
• Evaluate Link Quality: Get links from trusted, high-authority sites.
• Focus on Their Best Links: Copy their best strategies for stronger SEO.
• Compare your Backlinks: Find gaps and improve your backlink profile.

We have provided the exact steps and screenshots for checking a backlink profile for any website. These same steps apply to both general backlink analysis and competitor backlink analysis.

💡 Use Ahrefs to compare competitor backlinks. Close the gap and improve your SEO.

Measure Off-Page SEO Score

Finally, let’s measure your off-page SEO score. It shows your website’s backlink strength. Here’s how it works:

• Domain Rating (Ahrefs): Measures overall backlink strength. Higher is better.
• Page Authority (Moz): Measures a page’s ability to rank. Aim higher.
• Trust Flow (Majestic): Measures the quality of backlinks. Quality is key.
• Spam Score (Moz): Lower spam score is better for SEO.

💡 These scores are estimates. Use them to track your SEO health. Regularly check them for improvement.

Implement Off-Page SEO Strategies

Now let’s focus on actionable off-page strategies that drive results. Each strategy includes examples from our real-world experiences. These examples are taken from separate, more detailed articles, but we’ll keep things short and direct.

Create Guest Posts & Insertions

Guest posting effectively builds backlinks and boosts SEO. By writing articles for industry websites that link back to your site, you enhance your site's authority and search engine rankings.

How to Use Guest Posting Effectively

• Find Niche-Specific Sites: Use Linkee.ai to surface niche-specific sites that accept guest posts or allow contextual insertions. Filter by relevance, traffic, DA, and spam score (as above), export your target list, then prioritize quick-win insertions while you pitch full guest posts.
• Check Content Quality: The site should publish content that is valuable and relevant.
• Measure Metrics we listed above, like Spam score
• Choose Sites That Accept Guest Posts: Ensure they have a clear process for submitting guest articles.

Below is a screenshot of a guest post we wrote for Mangools, an SEO tool platform, in the SEO niche. 

The article covered tested strategies for optimizing ecommerce category pages. This guest post allowed us to provide value to Mangools and earned us a highly relevant quality backlink. A win-win! 

💡 Prioritize quality over quantity when selecting guest post sites. A backlink from a high-authority, relevant site provides more value than many from low-quality sources.

What Makes a Good Guest Post Title?

The topics you cover should be clear, compelling, and relevant to the site’s audience. They should offer value and include the target keyword.

Besides, the titles you use for your guest posts are crucial to your open rates during the outreach stage. 

Here are formulas to help you come up with good topics and effective titles fast:

• How-To Titles → teach something actionable.
  
  Example: “How to Decorate a Pink Room” - relevant for an interior blog or homeware ecommerce.
  
  
• List/Checklist Titles → provide easy, structured takeaways.
  
  Example: “10 Essential Marketing Automations Every SaaS Startup Needs” - ideal for a B2B software company
  
  
• Why Titles → explain or persuade.
  
  Example: “Why Sustainable Fashion Is More Than a Trend” - perfect for an eco-friendly fashion brand
  
  
• Guide Titles → go in-depth on a process.
  
  Example: “The Ultimate Guide to Planning a Destination Wedding” - suited for a wedding planner, travel blog, or hospitality brand.
  
  
• Comparison Titles → help readers choose between options.
  
  Example: “Electric Cars vs. Hybrids: Which Is Right for You?” -  works well for an automotive review site.

Remember that the title has to be relevant to the specific URL you are trying to build authority for! 

And so don’t forget to check your guest post’s content clarity with Loopex’s free readability checker!

Launch Digital PR Campaigns 

Digital PR is a powerful way to build links and get featured on top websites you can’t reach with regular outreach. By working with journalists in your niche and sharing unique stories or data, you can earn strong backlinks, boost your brand’s visibility, and grow your SEO.

• Come Up With an Original Story: It’s as simple as choosing a trending topic in your niche and backing it up with real data. You can collect stats, run surveys, or do your own research. Or, think outside the box with a creative experiment that grabs attention and tells a unique story.

• Pitching Your Research: Pitch your research to journalists interested in your niche. You can find journalists in dedicated media databases or platforms like HARO. 

A great example of digital PR in action is this campaign by a beauty industry startup. They leveraged the TikTok "Barbie Botox" trend to promote their Botox treatments as a way to sculpt a longer neck, mimicking the iconic Barbie look. This campaign gained significant traction, going viral and attracting global media attention.

The campaign was covered by major publications, earning backlinks to their website. 

A backlink from a high-authority site with a Domain Rating (DR) of 83 and 596K organic traffic can massively boost your website’s SEO.

You can see how a digital PR campaign like this can secure dozens, or even hundreds, of similar backlinks, driving both brand awareness and SEO growth.

💡 Digital PR helps establish authority and improve brand awareness. It’s a valuable tool for SEO growth.

Claim Unlinked Brand Mentions

This one’s interesting and is an excellent opportunity to build backlinks easily.

• What are unlinked brand mentions?
  Unlinked mentions occur when your brand is mentioned but not linked.
  
  
• How to find unlinked mentions?
  Use tools like Ahrefs to track unlinked brand mentions.
  

1. Go to Content Explorer in Ahrefs: In the top navigation bar, click on Content Explorer.

2. Search for Your Brand Name: In the search bar, enter your brand name or any specific phrase you want to track.

You can refine the search to find mentions of your brand without links by using the filter options.

3. Apply the "Unlinked" Filter: When the "Highlight unlinked" filter is enabled, Ahrefs shows pages that mention your brand without a link back to your site, helping you identify unlinked brand mentions.

To confirm:

• Unlinked mentions would be the ones listed under "Highlight unlinked."
• If you see a page with no Ref. domains and no link back to your site, it's an unlinked brand mention, which you can then reach out to the publisher about for a backlink.

Once you find mentions, reach out and request a link.

• Why are they important?
  
  Unlinked mentions are easy wins for backlinks. They help improve domain authority.

💡 Converting unlinked mentions into backlinks is an easy way to boost SEO.

Start Citation Building & Get Listed in Directories

Citation building involves registering your business in high-authority directories. This boosts local SEO and credibility. Here’s how to get started:

• What is citation building?
  It helps your business appear in local search results. Registering in trusted directories strengthens your presence.

Let’s say you’re running a home services business or website, then getting listed in directories is important. It helps boost visibility and improve SEO. Here’s why and how:

• Why get listed in directories?
  Directories help customers find you. They also improve local SEO.

Now, let's see how to do it. If you offer home services, these are great directories to get listed in:

• Angi (Angie’s List): Connect with homeowners looking for trusted providers.
• HomeAdvisor: Be found by homeowners searching for local services.
• Houzz: Showcase your remodeling and design work to a wide audience.
• Thumbtack: Connect with local clients for specific projects.
• Better Business Bureau (BBB): Boost credibility with verified business listings.
• Yelp: Get local reviews and increase your rankings.
• Nextdoor: Build a local customer base through neighborhood referrals.
• Local Chamber of Commerce: Increase visibility and network with local businesses.

These examples are for home service businesses. If you’re in a different industry, find niche-specific directories. The right directories help your SEO and make it easier to find you.

Best Practices for Directory Listings

• Keep Your NAP Consistent: Ensure business name, address, and phone number are the same everywhere.
• Complete Your Profile: Add detailed information, service descriptions, and photos.
• Respond to Reviews: Show you care by replying promptly.
• Update Your Listings: Keep service details, pricing, and contact info current.

💡 Citation building boosts SEO by improving your online reputation and local visibility.

Come up with a Linkable Asset

A linkable asset is valuable content designed to attract backlinks. It can range from detailed guides to useful tools and infographics. The goal is to create something so valuable that websites naturally link to it.

Here are examples of linkable assets from different niches:

• Fashion: Infographic on "Fashion Trends Through the Decades."
• Health & Fitness: A tool like a “Personalized Workout Plan Generator.”
• Travel: Map with “Hidden Travel Spots in Europe.”
• Food & Drink: Recipe collection, e.g., “Healthy Weeknight Dinners.”
• Education: Quiz to find the “Ideal Study Method.”

💡 Create linkable assets that are valuable, easy to share, and help boost your SEO.

Do GMB Optimization

You also want to be found on Google Maps for local searches, and you need a Google Business Profile (GMB) to do so. Here’s how to set it up properly:

• Add Accurate Business Information: Include business name, address, phone number (NAP), website, and hours.

• List Your Core Services: Be specific (plumbing repair, HVAC, roofing, etc.).
• Write a Keyword-Friendly Description: Highlight your expertise and location.
  
  
  • Example: "[Your Company Name] is a trusted provider of plumbing, HVAC, and roofing in [City, State]. We offer reliable and affordable services."
    
    
• Upload High-Quality Photos: Add before/after shots, team photos, and completed projects.

• Collect and Respond to Reviews: Aim for 4+ stars. Businesses with 4+ stars earn 32% more revenue.

• Update Details Regularly: Keep services, promotions, and hours up-to-date.

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💡 GMB optimization brings in local leads and boosts your online presence.

Start Podcast Building

Podcast link building is exactly what it sounds like, and here’s how to do it:

• Choose the Right Podcast: Find podcasts in your industry with an engaged audience.
• Appear as a Guest: Share your knowledge on the topic of your niche.
• Get a Backlink: The host usually links to your website in the show notes.

Examples of Reputable Podcasts

• E-commerce: Shopify Masters Podcast
  
  • Focus: Growth strategies for online stores.
    
• Tech & SaaS: SaaStr Podcast
  
  • Focus: Scaling SaaS businesses and fundraising.
    
• Health & Wellness: The Model Health Show
  
  • Focus: Health, fitness, and wellness insights.
    
• Fashion: The Business of Fashion Podcast
  
  • Focus: Trends and business strategies in fashion.

For example, in an episode of the Blamo! podcast, Graham Ebner shares his fashion journey. The show notes include links to his website and work.

💡 Podcast building is an excellent way to build credibility and gain backlinks.

Incorporate a Social Media Stratgey 

Social media is part of off-page SEO. It builds awareness, earns mentions, and sends qualified visitors to your site. 

The three main steps you should implement here are as follows:

1. Plan Your Mix:
   

• Pick 1-2 core platforms where your audience lives (e.g., Instagram + YouTube for D2C; LinkedIn + X for B2B).
• Map goals: awareness, traffic, or conversions. Match content to each.
  

2. Collaborate with Influencers:
   

• Micro-creators first: niche, engaged, affordable.
• Formats that earn links/clicks: product tests, how-to reels, side-by-side comparisons, unboxings.
• Give a clear URL to feature (UTM link in bio/story; track clicks).
• Ask for site mentions in descriptions/show notes when possible.
  

3. Turn Campaigns into Assets:
   

• Repurpose creator videos into shorts/reels on your channels.
• Add top clips to product pages and blog posts (with permission).
• Request permission to quote/testimonial and link back.

For example, a skincare brand partners with 3 estheticians for “7-Day Routine Test” reels. Each creator posts a reel + story link to the product page. Brand embeds the best reel on the product page and adds a short testimonial. 

Result: referral traffic bump and new branded searches.

💡 Keep relevance > reach. A smaller, on-topic creator beats a large, off-topic one for qualified traffic.

Be Active on Social Media

Connect your profiles to your site and post with intent.

• Link Your Site Everywhere:
  
  • Add your primary URL to bios, link hubs, and story highlights.
  • Include page-specific links in post descriptions when appropriate.

• Repurpose Content:
  
  • Turn blog posts into carousels, short videos, and quote cards.
  • Share case studies and before/after visuals to build trust.

• Engage + Be Consistent:
  
  • Reply to comments/DMs; run polls or Q&As to learn topics that resonate.
  • Post on a steady cadence (e.g., 3-4×/week). Maintain voice and visuals.

• Integrate Influencer Collaborations:
  
  • Share creator reviews and product tests on your feed and stories.
  • Run giveaways with creators (clear rules, landing page link).
  • Use trackable links (UTMs) to send users to the exact page you want.

Be Aware of Off-page SEO Ranking Factors

Finally, off-page SEO ranking factors help improve your site's authority and trust with Google. 

These factors are crucial for higher rankings and better visibility:

• Number of Referring Domains: More domains linking to your site improve trust.
• Link Authority: High-authority links pass more SEO value to your site.
• Anchor Text: Relevant anchor text boosts ranking for specific keywords.
• Link Relevancy: Links from relevant sites improve your SEO performance.
• Social Shares: Social shares show content is valuable, boosting visibility.
• Reviews: Positive reviews enhance trust and improve local rankings.
• Brand Mentions: Unlinked mentions increase brand visibility and authority.
• Google Business Profile: Optimized profiles help with local SEO rankings.
• Citations: Consistent business info across directories improves local SEO.

💡 These factors help Google understand your site’s relevance and authority.

Use Off-Page SEO Tools 

All this sounds exhausting, but there are off-page SEO tools that make prospecting, outreach, and backlink audits easier. These tools help you find high-quality backlinks, monitor local rankings, and track your progress. 

Linkee - For Prospecting and Outreach

Linkee helps you build a clean target list. You search by topic, traffic, and authority. You see if a site is active and relevant.

What you're doing is finding sites that should mention you. 

Why does this matter? Because relevant links mean more rankings! Random links don't. So it is important to keep in mind that relevance always comes first, authority second, and freshness third. 

The process is like this:

• Vetting: Begin by confirming the fit, quality, and risk of a potential site. Check for bylines, publication dates, and comments to ensure it's a genuine, high-quality site. Skip link farms and paid post mills.
  
• Prospecting: Focus on finding relevant sites that align with your audience. Use specific, buyer-focused keywords to refine your search and gather a list of strong prospects. Sometimes, prospecting involves going through multiple URLs, which can be time-consuming. To speed up this process, you can use Loopex's Bulk URL Opener tool. This tool allows you to open multiple URLs at once without manually clicking on each one, saving you time and ensuring you can check a larger number of sites quickly and efficiently.
  
• Outreach: Craft short, meaningful pitches. Offer a topic that adds value to the site’s audience and includes a natural link to your content. Keep track of responses and follow up as needed

Watch this demo video on how to use Linkee.ai to streamline your guest post outreach: Linkee.ai Demo Video.

Semrush/Ahrefs - For Backlink Audit

Semrush and Ahrefs are excellent for backlink audits. They show who talks about your site and reveal strengths, gaps, and risks. 

You've already learned where to click based on our screenshots. Now, let’s see what everything you see means and how to think about it.

Practical path (Ahrefs):

• Site Explorer → Overview: Note domain rating (DR), referring domains, trend lines.
• Backlinks: Sort by DR and Traffic.
• Referring Domains: Look for unique, niche-relevant sites.
• Broken Backlinks: Reclaim lost links with a 301 or update.
• Anchors: Check for brand vs. keyword balance.

Backlink Audit (Ahrefs)

This is the “health dashboard” for your links. Ahrefs shows four core items: 

• DR (domain rating), 
• UR (URL Rating for the page you entered), 
• Backlinks (total link counts), and 
• Referring domains (how many unique sites link to you). 

The green or red numbers on the lower right show recent change. Trends matter more than a single number.

• DR reflects the overall strength of your site’s backlink profile. Think of it as domain-level trust. Higher DR usually means easier ranking across the site.
• UR reflects the strength of the specific page you checked (often the homepage). It changes faster than DR.
• Backlinks is the raw count of links. Many links from the same site increase this number, but won’t always help much.
• Referring domains count unique websites linking to you. This is the signal that usually moves rankings. Growth here is what we want to see.

What “Good” Looks Like

You want steady growth in referring domains from relevant websites. A small, consistent increase beats random spikes. 

DR will usually rise as referring domains rise. 

UR will rise when that exact page earns good links. If the total number of backlinks grows but referring domains remain flat, you are likely getting many links from the same few sites; the impact is limited.

What to Do When Numbers Move

• If referring domains rise, keep doing what earned those links: guest posts, PR, or mentions.
• If referring domains stall, start targeted outreach to new relevant sites.
• If numbers drop, visit Ahrefs → “Broken backlinks” and reclaim lost links with a 301 redirect or by updating the target page.
• If UR is very low but DR is decent, earn links specifically to that page or add internal links from strong pages.

What to Keep in Mind as You Track

Relevance beats volume. Unique referring domains beat repeated links from the same site. A healthy anchor mix helps (roughly 70% branded or URL anchors, 30% descriptive keywords). 

Aim for consistent month-over-month growth in referring domains, and use this view to confirm your campaigns are working.

Local Falcon – For Maps and Google Business Profile

Local Falcon shows where a website ranks on Google Maps across a real grid of nearby locations. 

We run a scan for a target keyword and see a heatmap of positions across the city. This removes guesswork. You see strong pockets near the business and weak pockets farther out. You also see who wins those weak pockets.

What we do with it:

• Track rank by neighborhood, not just one ZIP.
• Compare against top map competitors on the same grid.
• Spot “proximity” limits, filtering issues, and category mismatches.
• Prioritize actions: reviews in weak zones, local links, posts, photos, and service-area landing pages.
• Re-scan after updates to prove movement and ROI.

For example, a dental clinic ranks #2 within 1 km but falls to #15 on the north side. 

We focus on patient reviews from those neighborhoods, add a “Northside Emergency Dentist” section, earn a link from the local community blog, and update categories. The next grid shows positions rising in the weak cells.

Majestic - For Backlink History

Majestic shows how a website’s authority changes over time using Trust Flow (TF, quality) and Citation Flow (CF, quantity), along with Fresh/Historic indexes and topical categories. Those distinguish real authority growth from noisy link spikes. 

We read TF vs. CF to guide actions (TF up = better sources; CF up with flat TF = low-quality volume); for example, a skincare store gaining TF from dermatologist articles is a win, while CF jumps from coupon blogs signal cleanup and better outreach targets.

Create an Off-Page SEO Report to Measure Results

Measuring the impact of off-page SEO is crucial for tracking progress. You can use tools like Ahrefs and Google Search Console to monitor these key performance indicators (KPIs). Here's what you should track:

• Domain Rating (Ahrefs): Track your DR score every week.
  
  • Aim for steady growth in DR over time.
    (Check the "Domain Rating" in your KPI sheet to track this.)

• Organic Traffic (Search Console - Branded Terms Included): Monitor organic traffic (clicks), including branded terms.
  
  • Track how traffic from your branded terms changes each week.
    (Review this data in the "Search Console (Branded Terms Included)" column.)

• Organic Traffic Without Branded Keywords (Search Console - Branded Terms Excluded): Measure the traffic (clicks) that comes from non-branded keywords.
  
  • This shows your site's ability to rank for generic terms.
    (See the "Search Console (Branded Terms Excluded)" column in your KPI sheet for updates.)

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• Organic Impressions (Search Console): Track how often your site appears in search results.
  
  • Higher impressions often lead to more organic traffic.
    (Check the "Organic Impressions" and "Organic Impressions without branded keywords" columns for insights.)

• Referring Domains (Ahrefs): Monitor the number of domains linking to your website.
  
  • Aim for a steady increase in referring domains for stronger SEO.
    (This is tracked in the "Referring Domains" section of your sheet.)

• Number of Backlinks (Ahrefs): Track how many backlinks your site has.
  
  • Focus on growing your backlink profile.
    (Check the "Number of Backlinks" in your KPI sheet for weekly updates.)

• Referring Domain Changes (Ahrefs): Monitor changes in your domain level over the last 7 days.
  
  • This helps you track how your backlink profile is evolving.
    (Track this in the "Domain Level (Ahrefs) Changes Last 7 Days" section.)

• GMB Reviews and Position: Monitor and respond to GMB reviews.

💡 Use the KPI sheet to track all these metrics weekly, focusing on the changes from Monday to Sunday. This will help you stay on top of your SEO progress.

Downloadable Off-page SEO Checklist

We’ve created a detailed checklist to guide you through off-page SEO. This checklist includes the top-level strategies and action steps you need.

• Top-Level Steps: Our checklist covers the most important off-page SEO tasks.
• Breakdown of Each Step: We’ve broken down each task to make it easy to follow.
• Actionable Steps: The checklist includes clear, easy-to-complete steps.

Download our Off-page SEO Checklist now to get all the steps in one place. Download Here

If this feels like a lot, we can help you out, just as we have for over 540 other businesses. Check out our off-site SEO services.