Plan and execute off-page SEO including link building

Off-Page SEO

Build the external signals that earn rankings: backlinks, brand mentions, citations, and trusted sources pointing back to the site. Stack-agnostic.

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When to use

• Planning a link-building strategy
• Running digital PR or earned-media campaigns
• Building citations for a local business
• Developing linkable assets (research, tools, calculators)
• Recovering lost backlinks after a migration or audit
• Auditing a backlink profile for spam or toxicity
• Pitching guest posts, podcast appearances, or expert quotes

When NOT to use

• On-site optimization (use seo-onpage or seo-technical)
• Keyword research and content planning (use seo-keyword)
• Competitor backlink research alone (start with seo-competitor, then return here for outreach planning)
• Paid link buying (this skill does not endorse or facilitate that)

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Required inputs

• The site or brand getting the links
• The audience and category
• A backlink tool (Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz, Majestic, or similar) for prospecting and monitoring
• A target outcome (rank for X, build authority in Y, recover from Z)

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The framework: 4 strategies

Off-page work splits into four strategy types. Most programs blend them. Pick the mix that fits your phase.

1. Earned media

Links and mentions you earn through coverage, journalism, or contribution.

• Digital PR (data-driven studies, original research, surveys)
• Expert quotes (HARO, journalist platforms, expert request services)
• Podcast appearances (relevant shows in your category)
• Speaking engagements and conference content
• Newsworthy product launches or company milestones

Strength: Highest authority, hardest to replicate. Cost: Time-intensive, often requires PR or content budget. Volume: Low to medium per quarter.

2. Owned assets

Linkable assets on your own site that attract links passively over time.

• Original research and reports
• Free tools, calculators, and generators
• Comprehensive guides (the kind that become "the X resource for Y")
• Visualizations and interactive content
• Templates and frameworks
• Industry data trackers (regularly updated benchmarks)

Strength: Compounds over time. Each link points at an evergreen asset. Cost: Upfront content investment. Volume: Slow to start, accelerates as the asset earns mentions.

3. Partnerships and relationships

Links earned through real business relationships.

• Customer case studies (where they link back)
• Partner programs and integrations
• Co-marketing campaigns
• Industry association memberships
• Speaker and expert contributor relationships
• Affiliate and referral programs

Strength: Trustworthy, contextually relevant. Cost: Time to develop relationships. Volume: Medium and consistent.

4. Citations and listings

Local and category-specific listings that establish entity legitimacy.

• Google Business Profile (for local businesses)
• Bing Places, Apple Business (formerly Apple Business Connect)
• Industry directories (review-quality only, skip spam directories)
• Niche association directories
• Wikipedia entry (where the brand qualifies for notability)
• Wikidata entry
• Trade publications and category indexes

Strength: Foundational for local and entity SEO. Cost: Low to medium, mostly setup time. Volume: One-time foundation, occasional refresh.

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Workflow

1. Audit the current profile. Where a metric below cannot be obtained, state the gap per the data-availability rule.

   • Total referring domains
   • Domain rating trend
   • Top referring pages by traffic value
   • Anchor text distribution (over-optimized exact-match anchors are a risk)
   • Toxic links (spam directories, link farms, irrelevant categories)
   • Lost links (referring domains that disappeared)

2. Define the goal. "Rank top 3 for X by Q4" requires a different tactic mix than "build category authority."

3. Pick the strategy mix. Allocate effort across the 4 strategies. A new site typically goes 70/20/10/0 (assets/citations/partnerships/earned) for the first year. An established site can lean more toward earned media.

4. Build the prospecting list.

   • For earned media: relevant journalists, podcast hosts, publication beats
   • For owned assets: identify what assets to build based on what gets linked in your category
   • For partnerships: list 50 to 100 potential partner sites
   • For citations: standard list per category, plus niche directories

5. Outreach. Personalized, value-first. Generic templated pitches damage the brand more than they help.

6. Track and measure.

   • Referring domains gained per month
   • Domain rating trend
   • Anchor text mix (avoid over-optimization)
   • Pages on the site attracting links
   • Lost link recovery rate

7. Audit and disavow. Quarterly review for toxic links. Disavow only when there is real evidence of harm (manual penalty notice, sudden drop after spam attack). Most sites should not need to disavow.

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Failure patterns

• Volume over quality. 100 directory submissions help less than 5 editorial links from category-relevant sites.
• Buying links. Risk of manual penalties is real. Cost-adjusted, the ROI rarely works out.
• Over-optimized anchor text. If 40 percent of your inbound anchors are "best running shoes," it looks engineered. Aim for natural distribution: brand, naked URL, generic, partial-match, exact-match (in roughly that order of frequency).
• Generic outreach templates. "Dear [first name], I love your blog about [topic]" gets archived in seconds. Personalize or do not send.
• Ignoring lost links. A 5 percent monthly loss in referring domains compounds. Build a recovery workflow.
• Treating disavow as a routine cleanup tool. Disavow is for confirmed spam attacks or penalty recovery, not preemptive hygiene.
• Working off-page before the site is worth linking to. A poorly-designed, thin-content site will not convert outreach. Fix on-site first.

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Output format

Default output is a markdown plan at offpage-strategy.md plus tracking spreadsheets for prospects and outreach.

Structure:

1. Current backlink profile summary
2. Goal and target metrics
3. Strategy mix (allocation across the 4 types)
4. Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4 tactical plan
5. Prospecting lists (in spreadsheets)
6. Outreach templates (personalized, never generic)
7. Tracking and measurement plan

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If required data is unavailable

This skill's output depends on data, measurements, or tool results it cannot generate on its own. When a required input, tool, or data source is unavailable or unverifiable, the sanctioned output is the deliverable with the gap stated: what was needed, what was actually obtained or verified, and which parts of the output are affected. Fabricating, estimating, or interpolating a required number to complete the deliverable is never sanctioned. A stated gap is a complete answer.

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Reference files

• references/outreach-templates.md - Templates for guest posting, expert quotes, broken-link outreach, podcast pitches.
• references/linkable-assets-guide.md - Categories of linkable assets with examples and effort estimates.