Off-Page SEO Checklist

Run the Ahrefs or Semrush Link Intersect / Backlink Gap report against three direct competitors. Filter by DR/AS 30+, English-language, and dofollow. Export the referring-domain list as the prospecting seed for this cycle.

Score each prospect for topical relevance, organic traffic floor (Ahrefs 500+/mo), spam score, and outbound-link density. Drop PBN-style sites, link farms, and anything with a sitewide footer-link pattern — Google's link-spam update treats these as manipulative.

Use Pitchbox, BuzzStream, or Respona to build a three-touch sequence. Reference a specific piece of the prospect's content in touch one — generic templates underperform 5–10x. Cap sending volume per inbox at 50/day to protect sender reputation.

Crawl the prospect set with Screaming Frog or Ahrefs to find 404s and outdated resource links. Offer your equivalent asset as the replacement. Reclamation pitches convert 3–5x guest-post cold outreach.

Original research, survey data, or first-party benchmarks earn editorial coverage. Use HARO / Connectively, Qwoted, and Muck Rack to surface journalist requests matched to your dataset. Lead with the headline number, not the methodology.

Vary anchor text across the campaign — branded, naked URL, partial-match, and exact-match in roughly 60/20/15/5 split. Over-optimized exact-match anchors are the single clearest Penguin / link-spam signal.

Once live, confirm the link is dofollow (or attributed correctly with rel=sponsored / ugc), uses the agreed anchor, points to the agreed target URL, and renders in server-side HTML (not JS-injected). Use the Detailed SEO Chrome extension or View Source.

Reply to the editor with the agreed terms and request the link be restored or the attribute corrected. If unresolved within five business days, flag the placement as non-counted and remove from forecast.

Use Ahrefs Content Explorer, BrandMentions, or a Google Alerts feed for the brand, founder names, and product names. Filter out social and the company's own domains. The list of unlinked mentions is your highest-conversion outreach segment.

Name, address, phone must match the Google Business Profile exactly across BBB, Yelp, Apple Maps, Bing Places, and the top vertical directories. Use Moz Local, BrightLocal, or Yext to reconcile. NAP drift suppresses local pack rankings.

Prioritize directories that real users actually use (Clutch, G2, Capterra for B2B SaaS; Houzz, Angi for trades). Skip generic web directories — they correlate with manual-action risk and contribute no traffic.

Send through the existing post-purchase or post-onboarding flow (Birdeye, Podium, Trustpilot Invitations). Never gate by sentiment first — review-gating violates FTC Endorsement Guides and the policies of Google, Yelp, and Trustpilot.

Reply on Google Business Profile, Trustpilot, G2, and any vertical-specific site within 48 hours. Response rate is a documented local-ranking factor and is the most common reputation gap on competitor audits.

Escalation triggers: legal/defamation language, claims about a specific employee, mentions of regulatory bodies, or a coordinated negative campaign across platforms. Route to legal and customer success before public response.

Loop in legal and the account owner. File a removal request on the platform if the review violates ToS (off-topic, employee dispute, competitor-authored). Document the request ID and decision — most platforms close within 7–14 days.

Review Ahrefs / Semrush new-referring-domain reports for negative-SEO signals: sudden volume spikes, foreign-language casino/pharma anchors, sitewide footer links. Google's stance is to ignore most spam automatically — only disavow when patterns are coordinated or after a manual action.

Edit the existing disavow.txt — never replace it without a diff. Use domain: directives, not URL-level. Submit through Google Search Console's disavow tool and note the timestamp; Google retains the file until the next upload.

Pull referring-domain delta, average DR/AS of new links, anchor distribution, organic traffic lift for linked target URLs, and review-volume change. Tie placements back to the target keyword cluster they support — links without a target page tell the client nothing.