The Ultimate Off-Page SEO Checklist: Boosting Your Website’s Visibility in 2023
Off-page optimization is extremely important in the field of search engine optimization (SEO) for defining a website’s exposure and authority. Off-page SEO is the term used to describe strategies and actions taken outside of your website to raise its position on search engine result pages (SERPs).
You may increase organic traffic to your website, establish your website as a trustworthy resource, and entice high-quality backlinks by putting an efficient off-page SEO plan in place.
The ultimate off-page SEO checklist is provided in this article to assist you in optimizing your website and improving your website’s search engine rankings. If you didn’t read my previous blog on Off-page SEO key factors, so I recommend you read that article first for a better understanding. ❤️
Evaluate your backlink profile
Summary: Use a tool like Google Search Console, Ahrefs, or Moz to check your backlink profile. Take a look at the most frequent linking domains and the most popular pages on your website. Check your domain rating (DR) or domain authority (DA) for an overall backlink profile score if you use Ahrefs or Moz.
You must evaluate your backlink profile before you begin optimizing your off-page SEO, for example using one of these free tools:
You can also use a paid tool, like SEMrush, to investigate your backlink profile. But its kinda expensive though 🙄
You may most likely make use of a tool like Ahrefs, Moz, or SEMrush in order to get the fastest data and analysis. Remember that the amount of data you can view and explore with the free versions of some of these apps, like Moz, is restricted.
Whatever tool you choose, you should have access to the following data:
- Number of links to your site
- Number of domains linking to your site
- Number of pages with the most links
- Anchor text
Exporting the information to a Google Sheet or another convenient location will make it more accessible. You’ll also get a DA or DR score for your site if you utilize a program like Moz or Ahrefs. Based on the backlink profile of your website, these rankings evaluate its authority.
More authority equates to a better score. It’s important to note that while Google does take a site’s general authority or trustworthiness into account, it does not utilize DA or DR to determine where a website ranks in search results. These metrics are specific to Moz and Ahrefs and are helpful for analyzing your backlink profile and that of your competitors.
Once you finish checking your backlink profile, move on to the next step in this off-page SEO checklist.
Check your competitors’ backlink profiles
Summary: By analyzing the backlink profiles of your competitors, you can gain insight into the strength of your own backlink profile. Utilize a tool like Ahrefs, Moz, or SEMrush to examine the backlink profiles of your competitors’ websites and physical locations, and then export and store the information to a Google Sheet.
Next, Examine your competitors’ backlink profiles. To research your competitors, you can use a tool like Ahrefs, Moz, or SEMrush. However, there isn’t a way to look into a competitor’s backlink profile using Google Search Console. This is so because only website owners and webmasters have access to Google Search Console data.
You should look into the backlink profiles of your immediate rivals, but you should also go into the backlink profiles of your internet rivals.
You will go off against those competitors in search results. Your direct competitors and your online competitors may cross paths occasionally. You should export this information to a convenient location or document, such as a Google Sheet, just like in the previous stage of our off-site SEO checklist.
After exporting this data, you may begin analyzing it and contrasting it with your own.
Fix 404 errors
Summary: Broken links can impact your user experience and off-page SEO, which is why finding and fixing 404 errors is an essential part of any off-page SEO checklist. Crawl your website with Screaming Frog, and then work through its list of 404 errors to make your site seamless for crawlers and users.
Along with internal linking, your company should concentrate on 404 errors, which are broken links. When a link on your website is broken, all that is reached is a 404 page.
While these pages help keep visitors on your website by listing other sites that are pertinent to their needs, they are of little utility to users and raise a red flag for web crawlers. Additionally, having broken links may have an impact on your off-page SEO. A rival has a chance to reach out to you if they discover a domain that is linked to your website through a broken link.
That marketing opportunity may cost your company prospective clients in addition to a link. Find any broken links and fix them as a result.
Broken links tend to happen for the following reasons:
- Deleted page
- Mistyped URL
The simplest method for identifying and repairing broken links is offered by Screaming Frog. The free edition offers an easy-to-export list of URLs with 404 errors, including the broken URL, and will crawl up to 500 URLs. Your work is made easier by the fact that you can view the anchor text for the broken link.
Assess your link-building options
Summary: Choose the link-building techniques that will be most beneficial to your firm and that you can implement given your time, resources, and skills. Try to concentrate your efforts on at least two strategies, such as paid advertising, guest blogging, and broken links.
Off-page SEO is associated with link building. Although it’s one of the most popular methods for enhancing off-page SEO, doing so is frequently the most challenging because it calls for patience, expertise, and the cooperation of people who aren’t under your control.
Fortunately, there are a few options available to you for link development, including:
- Broken links
- Local citations
- Paid advertising
- Guest blogging
- Social sharing
The majority of the time, your business will employ multiple link-building techniques. However, your company and you will determine which ones you utilize. For instance, you can decide to concentrate on broken links and outreach because you lack the time or resources to write a guest blog.
Steal your competition’s links with broken link building
Summary: Get started with broken link building by checking for broken external links on sites you’d like to earn a link from, like an industry blog. Then, find content on your site that can replace that broken link. Next, reach out to that website. Repeat this process for other sites linking to that same broken link.
One of the simplest strategies to increase your backlink profile for your company is broken link creation. Broken link building can be distilled into the following steps:
- Find a domain you’d love to earn a link from (or check a competitor’s backlink profile)
- Check for broken external links with tools like Xenu, Ahrefs, and Check My Links
- Find a page on your site that would work as a substitute for a broken link
- Send an email to the writer, editor, or webmaster about the broken link and your page
The greatest benefit of broken link construction is the ability to target broken links in large quantities. If you discover one broken link, you may see which websites link to it and contact them with your repair.
Promote your content with paid ads
Summary: Promote your content, such as an infographic, tool, or research paper, using ad networks like Google Ads and Facebook to generate links to your website. By continually analyzing and enhancing ad campaigns, you can maximize the effectiveness of this off-page SEO checklist item.
Your business can also improve its off-page SEO with paid ads.
Remember that this link-building method suggests using content promotion to draw links rather than purchasing links to advance your content.
With sponsored advertising, you may aid in the exposure and momentum of excellent content, such as data-backed research, practical application, or must-share infographic. You can advertise your material on several sites, such as:
Make sure to produce appealing adverts if you choose to employ this link-building tactic. Create ad copy that interests and benefits your audience. How can they benefit from your content?
Additionally, you want to employ attention-grabbing visuals, such as an arresting image, a unique design, or an expert movie. Regularly check the effectiveness of your advertising activities. Regular monitoring — every week at first, for example — can aid you in identifying trends and potential targets.
You might discover, for example, that many mobile users view and click your advertisement but don’t browse your website for as long as desktop users, so you decide to exclude mobile users from your target market.
After learning the off-page SEO factors and implementing all of the checklist items into your daily off-page SEO strategies, the big question is how well is your off-page SEO?
How good is your off-page SEO?
No matter how much or little experience you (or your website) may have with off-page SEO, it’s important to gauge where you stand right now. For instance, how strong is your link profile in comparison to that of your main competitors? Use this free SEO checker to rapidly evaluate your backlink profile and find out!
WebFX offers off-page SEO services that can assist you in implementing the aforementioned off-page optimization checklist and obtaining the desired outcomes if you need assistance analyzing your results or raising your score.
