30 Off-Page SEO Checklist to Skyrocket Site’s Ranking and Authority
As we all know SEO is incomplete without keyword research, on-page, technical, and off-page SEO. In this off-page SEO checklist blog post, I have covered the complete 30 factors that you should perform. This is the ultimate guide on off-page SEO where every point has been covered.
Most of the markets think, just getting backlinks for the site is off-page SEO.
But it is beyond that!
Google says there are tons of ranking factors associated with on-page, off-page, technical, local, global SEO that we consider to rank a web page. Out of many ranking factors The Blue Oceans Group research and guide shows, there are 100 critical ranking factors of Google that you must not ignore.
How Does Off-Page SEO Work?
Off-Page SEO or Off-Site SEO is a way of promoting your site on other sites. If your website has its presence on multiple sites in the related niche, it sends signals to the search engine that it has high authority and trust. Also, searchers can find your site easily due to its wide presence.
(A) What is Off-Page SEO in Digital Marketing
All the activities that are performed outside of your website to improve its rankings on SERPs are OFF-PAGE SEO. You take all the actions outside of your website to establish a robust brand presence.
The most effective way of doing off-page SEO is through high-quality link building. Now, there are certain ways to build high authority backlinks.
These are white hat and black hat SEO techniques of doing off-site SEO. White hat techniques bring positive results, improve site’s rankings on search engines, whereas black hat techniques badly affect your website from the penalty to permanent blacklist. In other words, blackhat SEO completely violates Google guidelines and if you do so, Google bans your website permanently.
We will know both white hat and black off-page SEO techniques.
So, let’s start with all 30 off-page SEO checklists to build high domain authority, robust brand presence, and high ranking.
1. Accomplish Off-Page SEO with Help A Reporter Out (HARO) Technique
Using a free service “HARO” by becoming a source for Journalists is an effective way of building high-quality backlinks from authoritative news or blogging sites.
HARO service is free to use, simple to understand, and extremely powerful in off-page SEO marketing. You only need to sign up as a source and provide some basic information about your company; you’ll receive three emails per day with media opportunities. Now, make a quality pitch by answering journalists’ queries. If you do a good job, your site could receive backlinks from authority news sites like Mashable, The Huffington Post, The New York Times, etc.
2. Site Audit Backlinks
Keep auditing your site’s backlink at least once a month. You will see many backlinks are being made or lost including do-follow/no-follow. You need to see what are good links and what are bad links. Because sometimes your website gets so many spammy links that do more harm than good.
The most common spam tactic is using exact match anchor text. Google penalizes you for it.
The second most common spam tactic is irrelevant anchor text. Famous examples are:
Texts that are related to casinos, gambling, payday loans, and the likes.
These links are pathetic and hurt your site badly.
If you can not remove them, inform search engines of the same. You can identify these bad links by using SEO tools such as Semrush, Serpstat, Ahrefs, Moz, or Ubersuggest.
3. Contribute as Contributor Editor or Guest Author
Writing for high-authority websites and becoming a contributor to media giants like Forbes, Entrepreneur, and Medium can boost your site’s domain authority. You should also contribute to the high-authority websites in your niche.
People who contribute as guest authors on such platforms, their site’s presence, trustworthiness, traffic, leads, and conversions boost automatically.
The process is simple: look for the sites that accept guest posts, Carefully read their contributor guidelines, pitch them your blog idea and thus, gain links once the guest post is live. Guest posting is one of the best off-page SEO techniques to build powerful links.
You can find websites that accept guest posts by:
Leverage lists of websites that accept guest posts
You need to Google: “list of blogs that accept guest posts” or “list of – your keyword – blogs that accept guest posts” thus Google will result in numerous lists of blogs. But still, you need to research them if they are outdated.
Google your search terms to find guest blogging websites
There are a variety of search terms you can try to help you find numerous websites. Basically, you need to start the search with your keyword + one of the following terms mentioned below:
Keyword + “guest blog”/”guest post.”
Keyword + “write for us.”
Keyword + “submit an article”/”submit a guest post.”
Keyword + “contribute a guest post.”
Keyword + “contribute to our blog.”
Keyword + “become a guest blogger.”
Keyword + “guest blogging guidelines.”
Keyword + “contributor guidelines.”
Keyword + “send a tip.”
Keyword + “guest post by”
Keyword + “guest author.”
Research your competitors they are guest posting upon
Identify bloggers in the same niche as you who are already guest blogging and then search using these search queries:
Site:domain.com “guest post by blogger_name.”
Site:domain.com “a guest contribution by blogger_name.”
Use tools to help you find guest posting opportunities
Leverage tools can help you with research: content research tools, social listening tools, or audience overlap tools such as Buzzsumo.
You can also check this list containing 500+ lists (different categories) of sites that accept guest posts.
4. Collaborate with Big Media Houses as a Content or Knowledge Partner
As a newbie, it is very hard to be a guest contributor on big media giants like Washington Post, The New York Times, Forbes, Entrepreneurs, and the like.
But you can collaborate with the guest post contributors as a content partner and pitch them accordingly. You can research contributors from tools like Ahrefs, Buzzsumo and thus, you can build relationships with them through email or social media channels. Personally, LinkedIn will help you build relations with them.
This way, you and your website can be mentioned.
5. Create Comprehensive Blog Posts
There is no rocket science that comprehensive content (more than 3000+) words perform better on search engines, and other digital marketing channels.
Webpages that cover topics in detail get maximum engagement, better conversion, and backlinks.
People do share your high-quality blog posts and link back to their sites. This way you earn tons of backlinks for a very long run.
Tip: Use Semrush Content Writing Assistant Tool to create comprehensive and competitive content. Create content better than the content that ranks on search engines. Get Content Template and Suggestions from Semrush!!
Also Read: SEO Content & Copywriting: Tips to Rank #1 in 2023
6. Create Industry Reports and Research Papers
If you create industrial reports, and research papers, it opens the gate of earning thousands of backlinks on thousands of referring domains. Neil Patel made more than 90,000 backlinks just with two marketing reports. One report was on; “17 Charts That Show Where Content Marketing Is Heading”. and second was on “New Study: What 100 Social Media Followers are Really Worth”.
7. Mention Influencers in Blog Posts and do Outreach
Remember, No matter if you are new or old in space. SEO is an ongoing task that you need to perform for years. So, grab every opportunity to build a brand.
And building good relationships with influencers in your niches is another super important thing. Do mention them in your blog post and link their website along with their quotes or names. And then you can inform them via email that we mentioned you in our blog post. In most cases, they share your post on their social media profiles. Even 9%-30% of people respond in YES and link back to your blog on their relevant web page.
8. Social Reputation Shares, Likes, and Links
You can do better branding via social media as there are higher chances of getting engagement and backlinks. The most common and high domain authority social media platforms are YouTube (100 DA), Facebook (100 DA), Twitter (100 DA), LinkedIn (100 DA), Pinterest (100 DA), Instagram (100 DA), and Quora (92 DA).
These social media channels not only drive quality traffic on your site but also help to get quality backlinks and brand awareness.
9. Email Outreach
Email is a super-powerful marketing tool among all digital marketing channels. You own your prospect without anyone’s mediation. Here, you have a golden opportunity to build a relationship with your customer.
So, when you keep sending personal emails to your subscribers, then you get clicks on your site. It sends signals to Google and other search engines that “Hey, this blog is getting clicks from outside, let’s rank it better”.
These tactics will not only increase the clicks and traffic on your site but also improve sites’ off-page SEO scores.
Get Suggestions from Semrush to create quality links by cold emails. Semrush provides you email database of the sites/marketers that your competitors are using to create a link. Try Free for 14-Days Now!
10. Grab Opportunity from Broken Links / 404 Error Page Links
One of the best and quick ways to make backlinks is through 404 pages or broken pages. You can find 404 pages or broken links on other sites by using tools like Semrush. These tools will help you in identifying broken links of your competitors in just a few clicks.
You can start shooting emails to them by informing, this particular link is broken on your site. Then provide them with the resource so that they can replace the broken link with your article.
Sample format of sending an email can be;
Subject: Problem with (Their site name)
Hi [Name],
I was searching for some information on (topic) and I came across your amazing page: [Page Title/URL].
Great Stuff!
However, I noticed that few of the links didn’t seem to be working, I have jotted down a list for you:
(Broken URLs)
Also, I recently published a massive guide/an article on the same topic (article name-hyperlink with URL). It may make a good replacement for the [Broken link].
Please let me know, once you replace your broken link to my link.
As a thank you, we will write a custom intro and mention your blog post on our above mentioned article.
Looking forward to hearing from you for synergy.
Regards,
[Your First Name]
This way you acquire powerful backlinks from your competitors. It can hook the domain authority and ranking of your website very quickly. Marketers have been using broken links as a link-building strategy for ages. Even today, it works effectively.
11. Appear in Events as a Speaker or Participate in Interviews
Be a part of events as a speaker, moderator, or sponsor to enhance PR. People listen to you and search for your work. You should also participate in interviews. Event companies and news media publish your interviews and write a brief about your company. In this way your organic search increases, ranking improves magnificently on SERPs and you acquire high-quality backlinks.
12. Be Podcast Guest
Nowadays, podcasts are another trending content form. So why miss such a huge opportunity? Be a podcast guest and within a few weeks start getting organic searches and links.
Most of the hosts link your website to their episodes. And the more people will listen to you the more they know and search. It is as simple as that.
13. Submit Website on Social Bookmarking Sites
Site Bookmarking is now an outdated off-page SEO technique that doesn’t help in building authority and backlinks anymore.
But if you perform smartly, there are still a few social bookmarking platforms that can drive immense traffic and backlinks. Examples;
S. No. | Social Bookmarking Sites | Domain Authority (DA) |
1 | https://www.reddit.com | 95 |
2 | https://www.tumblr.com/ | 95 |
3 | https://digg.com | 92 |
4 | https://slashdot.org | 89 |
5 | https://diigo.com | 85 |
14. Join Forums and Interact with Communities
Submit your site on search forums related to your niche, acquire do-follow links and widen the site’s reach. High authoritative Forum submission sites are:
S. No. | Forum Submission Sites | Domain Authority (DA) |
1 | https://www.flickr.com/help/forum/en-us/ | 95 |
2 | https://www.addthis.com/forum | 93 |
3 | https://bbpress.org/forums/ | 83 |
4 | https://www.careerbuilder.com | 87 |
5 | https://www.chronicle.com/forums | 85 |
On these forums, you develop a network, thereby answering people’s questions, replying to threads, sharing suggestions and experiences that make your brand stronger.
15. Submit Articles to Blog Directories
Blog directory submission sites are also a great source of traffic generation and brand building. It brings good results over a time period. Though, it does make lots of impact on ranking but, it boosts your brand presence across the web. The effective blog directory list is given below:
S. No. | Blog Directories | Domain Authority (DA) |
1 | https://industrydirectory.mjbizdaily.com/ | 76 |
2 | https://directory.entireweb.com/ | 72 |
3 | https://www.elecdir.com | 46 |
4 | https://www.sitepromotiondirectory.com/ | 61 |
5 | https://www.a1webdirectory.org/ | 47 |
16. Submit Blogs to Article Submission Sites
Write high-quality unique content with an attractive title, then submit it on high authority article submission sites. Also, add links to your blog posts on these articles during submission.
But do remember, if your content quality is low or having keyword stuffing issues, then there are higher chances that your article will get rejected. Free Listing Article submission sites are:
S. No. | Article Submission Sites | Domain Authority (DA) |
1 | https://hubpages.com/ | 88 |
2 | https://ezinearticles.com | 89 |
3 | https://www.thefreelibrary.com/ | 78 |
4 | https://www.brighthub.com/ | 76 |
5 | https://www.magportal.com | 51 |
17. Actively Participate in Question Answer Platforms
Q/A platforms like Quora, and Yahoo are a great source of getting high interaction, traffic, and links. Participate in these sites regularly and answer people’s questions. While responding, you can add your blog link that can help to explore the topic more. In that way, you can earn trust, backlinks, and traffic. Some of the question answers platforms are:
S. No. | QA Sites | Domain Authority (DA) |
1 | https://www.quora.com/ | 92 |
2 | https://answers.yahoo.com/ | 86 |
3 | https://www.ehow.com/ | 88 |
4 | https://answerbag.com/ | 65 |
5 | https://www.blurtit.com/ | 62 |
18. Submit Video Content to Video Submission Sites
Video is the most engaging medium of any form of content. After watching a branded video, 65% of business decision-makers decide to visit the marketer’s site. With such a huge percentage of visitors, the site’s SEO highly improves. It results in driving organic reach, traffic to your homepage, that finally helps you in earning backlinks. Free Video Submission sites are given below:
S. No. | Video Submission Sites | Domain Authority (DA) |
1 | https://www.youtube.com/ | 100 |
2 | https://vimeo.com/ | 96 |
3 | https://www.dailymotion.com/in | 92 |
4 | https://vine.co/ | 88 |
5 | https://www.metacafe.com/ | 82 |
19. Submit Images to Image Submission Sites
To get more clicks and quality backlinks, image submission is an excellent way of performing off-page SEO. With proper URL, title, description, tags and optimized images you can submit a high-quality image.
Free Image Submission Sites are:
S. No. | Image Submission Sites | Domain Authority (DA) |
1 | https://instagram.com/ | 100 |
2 | https://in.pinterest.com/ | 97 |
3 | https://www.flickr.com/ | 95 |
4 | https://www.mediafire.com/ | 92 |
5 | https://imgur.com/ | 92 |
20. Use Infographic Submission & Infographic Outreach Method
These days, infographics are getting very popular. Kissmetrics got more than 42,000 backlinks by creating only 54 Infographics. marketing and advertising publishing platform, The Blue Oceans Group, has created only 5 excellent infographics and acquired backlinks from big sites like SocialMediaToday, and MarketingProfs.
Hence, start submitting amazing infographics along with the reference link of your web page on infographic submission websites. Do remember, sizes may differ from website to website. So, keep optimizing accordingly. Also, outreach bloggers with similar content can embed your infographics in their existing or upcoming blogs.
(Pro tip: Analyse your competitor’s links they are outreaching with their infographic, create a list, and start reaching the destination sites. Free Infographic Submission Websites are:
S. No. | Infographic Submission Sites | Domain Authority (DA) |
1 | https://www.reddit.com/r/Infographics | 95 |
2 | https://visual.ly/ | 86 |
3 | https://www.nerdgraph.com/ | 52 |
4 | https://www.infographicsarchive.com/ | 58 |
5 | https://submitinfographics.com/ | 52 |
21 Document Sharing Sites
Creating informative documents in the form of PPT or PDF and submit on document sharing websites to acquire high authority backlinks.
Pro tip: Insert your links in the document, it gives do-follow links back to your site. Free Document Sharing Websites are:
S. No. | Document Sharing Sites | Domain Authority (DA) |
1 | https://issuu.com/ | 95 |
2 | https://www.slideshare.net/ | 93 |
3 | https://www.box.com/ | 91 |
4 | https://www.scribd.com/ | 91 |
5 | https://en.calameo.com/ | 91 |
22. Press Release
The press release (PR) is another excellent method of performing off-page SEO. Hence, try to get media to cover your website especially on Google News, Yahoo News, Forbes, Entrepreneur, and the likes.
Free Press Release Sites are:
S. No. | Press Release Sites | Domain Authority (DA) |
1 | https://www.prnewswire.com/ | 91 |
2 | https://www.prlog.org/ | 85 |
3 | https://www.openpr.com/ | 76 |
4 | https://www.issuewire.com/ | 63 |
5 | https://express-press-release.net/ | 53 |
23. Use Google My Business (GMB)
Google My Business is a product of Google. It is another essential component of getting backlinks. This is a must to do the task for all local businesses. Be consistent with NAP and put the same name, address, and phone number on GMB that you mentioned on your website.
24. Get links from Resource Page
Getting links from resource pages is not an easy task especially when you are doing cold outreach. But, if you do it in an appropriate way as you inform them about 404 pages or broken links, then yes, chances of getting links are very high. And if you are creating excellent and very informative content then you can directly outreach bloggers and ask them to add your blog as a resource page.
Recommended personalized email outreach for better conversion in earning links:
Subject: Addition of resource/references on [Page Title]
Hi [Name],
I was looking for some information about [topic] and I came across your amazing resource page: [Page Title/URL].
Great Stuff! The section [Topic] also helped me to reach the (Resource page) that I was searching for.
Also, I recently published an article/guide on [Topic]. [Brief Description].
In case you’d like to check it out: [URL] and consider mentioning it in your blog post. It might make a value addition to your page.
As a friendship note, we will write a custom intro and mention your blog post on our above mentioned article.
Looking forward to hearing from you for synergy.
Regards,
[Your First Name]
Click to learn, how to do email marketing: Step by step Guide
25. Paid Promotion
To get initial traction and shares, spend a few dollars on top social media platforms like Facebook.
If you have high-quality infographics, ebooks, or industry reports then spending a few dollars on platforms like Facebook, Pinterest, Linkedin, Twitter, and Google will be worth it. These paid promotions not only drive very high-quality leads, sales but also increase brand awareness and earn backlinks.
26. Try to Get Do-Follow Links
If you are only focusing on generating links, then it is not enough. Search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, and more do not consider no-follow links, sponsored links, or UGC links neither considered as ranking factors nor increase site’s domain authority.
Below are the types of links that Google almost nullify and do not consider as ranking factors;
- Paid Promotion
- Sponsored Content
- Press Releases
- Blog Commenting
- UGC links
Therefore try to earn do-follow links from high authority websites.
The part that’s problematic is the links — if you’re providing the content/the links, then those links shouldn’t be passing signals & should have the rel-sponsored / rel-nofollow attached. It’s fine to see it as a way of reaching a broader audience.
— ? John ? (@JohnMu) June 11, 2020
27. Blog Commenting
Blog commenting is also one of the ways to perform off-page SEO and drive traffic to your website.
Do quality blog commenting by sharing your point of view, ideas or raise a query on that blog. It may help you in building relationships with the author or website owner. You need to make sure that you have created a well-defined profile on gravatar with profile picture, website link, company information, social media linking, and others. Consider blog commenting as a bonus.
28. Reclaim Links
If you have never used link reclamation for building links, start doing it right now. It is one of the quickest and most effective methods to build great links. Reclaim links by finding the unlinked URLs and Brand mentions. Then, send emails or do social outreach to the concerned publisher with a friendly reminder that you have used my brand name, image, or company name but not linked it to the original source, please link it or remove it. People generally link back to your website. You can use tools like Buzzsumo and Mention.net to find mentions.
29. Invest Money to Get Links
Though this method needs investment, it is completely worth giving it a try. You can
- Sponsor events in your space. They mention your brand and give complete coverage to your brand. Not only this, they write about your work, and promote all over digital platforms.
- You can also donate to NGOs and various foundations. This way, you not only help the society but also NGOs give mentions and write stories about your contribution and link back to your site. Remember, most of the NGOs have .org extension that hold very high credibility in search engines eyes.
30. Build Links by Buying Expired Domains
Many people have had great success snapping up expired domains and using those sites for link building purposes. Various sites offer a list of Expired/ Expiring domains.
Therefore, grab a site that already has content and High DA backlinks and then, 301 redirect to your site. Take care of risks, warning signs, and other factors as not all the domains are worth buying. You need to check the background of the domain backlinks, domain authority, index number, spam score, domain age, reputation, and other factors that should not inverse your expectations. A small mistake can lead to converting your site spammy or even a permanent ban of a website.
(B) Off-Page SEO Warnings
1. Be aware of Fraud
There are so many fraud sites and service providers who claim that they will give 25,000+ backlinks at only $150. These sites also claim that it will increase the site’s DA, as you get all the backlinks in less than 4-7 weeks.
Simply, they are frauds, who can ruin your websites. Hence do not get involved in buying links. Otherwise, Google can permanently ban your site.
For example, look at this website;
This website itself does not have enough DA and backlinks and they claim to provide you with 25000+ backlinks.
Apart from all this, these services are against the policies and guidelines of THE Google webmaster. And Google has a stringent policy against spammy links or black hat SEO techniques.
2. Paid Guest Postings
As discussed above, guest posting is one of the best tools to get high-quality, powerful backlinks. But reputed sites like TechCrunch, and Forbes will never ask you for money to publish your post. Getting do-follow links with paid guest posting is against Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. And if you do so, your site may get penalized.
In June 2020, Semrush added paid guest posting in their services but they need to remove this service from their website:
3. Avoid Fiverr Services
When it comes to any form of SEO such as On-Page SEO, Off-Page SEO, Local SEO, or even Technical SEO, Fiverr is completely useless.
Fiverr will land your site into the marshland. If you invest in Fiverr, then your marketing budget, time, efforts, or even the whole website heads for a tailspin followed by a collapse. Therefore, do not risk your site by taking Fiverr services.
4. Private Blog Networks (PNB)
Before 2017, Private Blog Networks was one of the favorite backlinks earning techniques. But with the regular updates in Google’s algorithm, the smart AI can easily filter the PNB backlinks. Not only this but Google manually de-indexes all networks that get visible on their radar.
Once you get de-indexed by search engines, all your efforts will be wasted.
5. Push Button Backlinks
There was a time when blog commenting, article directory submissions, Web 2.0 sites, or any other directories or bookmarking site mechanism worked immensely.
But those days are gone now. Google and other search engines have much smarter AIs that can easily identify all the activities happening on your site.
If you are getting hundreds or thousands of backlinks on a single push button, that means these links are shady or spammy.
Search engines will penalize your site partly or ban it permanently. In any of the cases, it will take several years to recover.
6. Comment Spamming
Some SEO firms or SEO marketers provide the service of increasing the “x number of” backlinks in exchange for money. To complete the promised order, they drop comment spam using automated tools or manually with a predefined format.
Leaving these meaningless comments on other blogs does absolutely nothing in the site’s ranking or authority. All these links in comments are considered “no-follow” that attributes no value.
Ensure that these activities are not happening with your site if you are hiring an SEO agency.
Conclusion on Off-Page SEO Checklist
You want to share this infographic on your upcoming or existing blog?
Email me at [email protected], and I will give you the setup.☺️
I hope you find this blog post helpful. These are the complete off-page SEO checklist and excellent strategies that you must try. As the Chief Marketing Officer of a reputed marketing agency, EchoAd Media, my team and I are implementing these off-site SEO methods to my client’s sites, and it’s working superbly!
Even with these off-page SEO strategies, I made more than 2000 high-quality backlinks on more than 200 referring domains in less than 4 months, and my marketing blogging site’s DA increased from 0 to 48.
So, what are you waiting for? Go with these suggested techniques and implement these off-page SEO practices on your website.
Also, let me know in the comment box, how do you reach out for backlinks? And if you want any suggestions or help then drop me an email at [email protected].
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Hi Sugandha, I love this article. I just wanted to know whether traditional link building will work or not in the upcoming days..
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