9+ Off-Page SEO Audit Checklist: Essential Guide for 2024

If your on-page SEO is in top shape but the results still fall short, it may be time to look beyond your website. Many site owners focus exclusively on on-page efforts. As a result, they miss out on the significant impact off-page factors have on search rankings. Off-page SEO audit services can help boost your site’s visibility and authority in search engine results. You can change your site's performance with stronger backlink profiles and social signals.

At tiny lever, our off-page SEO audits cover every detail affecting your site’s search rankings. We check backlinks, brand mentions, and the most important ranking signals to build trust with search engines. To boost these effects, we also offer premium link-building services. This combination gives your site stronger authority, attracts high-quality traffic, and helps you rank higher on Google. 

Leveraging our expertise in SEO best practices, we will walk you through an effective off-page SEO audit checklist. We'll discuss steps like backlink analysis, checking anchor texts, and working on schema markup for local SEO. By the end of this article, you'll clearly understand how to conduct a thorough off-page SEO audit to identify areas for your website’s rankings and organic traffic improvement.

Let’s jump in!

10 Off-Page SEO Audit Checklist: Essential Guide for 2024?

An off-page SEO audit checklist reviews external factors that affect a website’s ranking. These include backlinks, brand mentions, social media, and online reviews. The checklist highlights areas for improvement to help build authority and boost visibility. Even if a site has no content, this audit shows its current standing.

1. Analyzing Backlink Quality

The first step in this list is to evaluate the quality of your backlink profile. Premium backlinks from authoritative and relevant websites can boost your search engine rankings. On the other hand, low-quality or spammy links can harm your SEO efforts. Here are the steps to assess backlink quality:

1. Generate a Detailed Backlink Report: Use tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, or Moz to generate a comprehensive list of your backlinks.
2. Evaluate Domain and Page Authority: Examine linking sites' domain authority (DA) and page authority (PA). Higher DA/PA scores generally indicate more valuable backlinks.
3. Check Backlink Relevance: Check the relevance of linking pages to your content and industry. Relevant backlinks carry more weight.
4. Check Anchor Texts: Analyze anchor text distribution. A natural mix of branded, naked URL, and relevant keyword anchor texts is ideal.
5. Asses Link Context and Placement: Evaluate the context in which your links appear. Links within high-quality, relevant content are more valuable.

Identifying and Disavowing Toxic Backlinks

Toxic backlinks can negatively impact your SEO performance. This is one of the reasons websites get penalties from search engines. So, you must know how to identify and address these harmful links. Here are the steps to manage toxic backlinks:

1. Look for red flags like links from low-quality, irrelevant, or spammy websites.
2. Check for sudden spikes in backlink acquisition, which may indicate unnatural link building.
3. Use tools like Google Search Console or third-party SEO software for a thorough backlink audit.
4. Create a list of potentially toxic backlinks based on your analysis.
5. Attempt to manually remove harmful links by contacting website owners.
6. For links that cannot be removed, use Google's Disavow Tool to request that search engines ignore these links when assessing your site.

2. Check Anchor Text Distribution

A balanced anchor text distribution is crucial for maintaining a natural-looking backlink profile. To achieve diversity, use a mix of anchor text types, including:

• Branded Anchors: Your company name (e.g., "Happy Paws").
• Naked URLs: Direct website links (e.g., "happypaws.com").
• Generic Phrases: Non-descriptive terms like "click here" or "learn more."
• Relevant Keywords: Terms related to your niche (e.g., "pet supplies" or "dog food").

Context matters—anchor text should align with the linking page and set clear expectations. For example, use "professional dog grooming tools" instead of vague terms like "click here." Avoid overoptimized, exact-match anchors, as search engines may penalize this practice.

Instead of repeating the exact keyword-rich anchor text, focus on a balanced distribution. If you're targeting "organic dog food," your anchor texts might include "natural pet nutrition," "healthy dog meals," and "premium organic dog food," along with branded and generic anchors. These are essential to your off-page SEO checklist to ensure a healthy backlink profile.

3. Evaluate Link-Building Sources

To strengthen your backlink profile, evaluate the quality and diversity of your link-building sources. This involves analyzing the websites linking to you, such as industry-specific blogs, forums, news platforms, and social media channels.

Analyzing Existing Backlinks

Start by reviewing your current link-building sources to identify patterns and gaps. For example, an e-commerce store specializing in fitness equipment may predominantly receive backlinks from fitness blogs. While these links are relevant, you could miss opportunities from complementary sources like health news platforms, sports forums, or lifestyle magazines. Identifying these gaps allows you to diversify your profile and reach untapped audiences.

Assessing Content Effectiveness

Examine which types of content attract the most backlinks. For instance, a fitness store's how-to guides on proper exercise techniques may outperform product pages in drawing reputable links. Use these insights to align your content strategy with high-performing formats, ensuring consistent quality link acquisition.

Expanding Link Sources

Explore untapped link-building opportunities within your niche by researching competitors' backlink profiles and identifying overlooked platforms. Strategies to consider include:

• Partnering with Local Businesses: Seek links from nearby gym websites or community wellness groups.
• Collaborating with Influencers: Work with fitness influencers to review your products and generate backlinks.
• Guest Blogging: To enhance your authority, contribute to health and wellness blogs or industry publications.
• Exploring Complementary Niches: To expand your audience reach, target related industries like nutrition, sports injury prevention, or mental wellness blogs.

When evaluating potential sources, consider domain authority, relevance, and traffic potential metrics. This ensures your efforts focus on high-value backlinks that boost your search engine performance.

4. Assess Social Media Engagement

Assessing your social media strategy is a part of an off-page SEO audit. Here are the steps to effectively do this:

1. Review Your Brand’s Presence: Check your profiles on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Make sure your profiles are complete and consistent. Focus on the platforms that fit your business. For example, LinkedIn is good for B2B, while Instagram works well for fashion.
2. Measure Engagement Levels: After reviewing your profiles, look at how your target audience interacts with your blog posts. Check important numbers like likes, comments, shares, and clicks. If you see high shares on LinkedIn, your content is valuable. On the other hand, low engagement on Facebook might mean you need to change your strategy.
3. Evaluate the Quality of Interactions: Next, assess how people respond to your posts. Quality interactions include thoughtful comments and questions from followers, especially on Instagram. If your Twitter account gets few mentions or retweets, it’s time to rethink your approach on that platform.
4. Analyze Content Performance: Using a clear view of interactions, identify which types of content perform best on each platform. For example, video tutorials on YouTube can bring website traffic, while infographics on Pinterest lead to more inquiries. Use this information to adjust your strategy and focus on what your audience enjoys.
5. Identify Opportunities to Increase Engagement: Finally, look for ways to boost audience interaction. You could run social media contests, respond quickly to comments, or partner with influencers. For instance, a tech company might host a Twitter chat about industry news. This can encourage followers to share their thoughts and engage with your brand.

5. Monitor Brand Mentions

Monitoring brand mentions is a key part of an off-page SEO audit. Here, you track where your brand appears online, even without a direct link to your site. However, finding unlinked mentions of your brand online can take time and effort. Here are a few tools and methods that make it easier:

• Google Alerts: Set up Google Alerts for your brand name, product names, and any unique terms associated with your brand. Google will notify you of any new mentions it finds, even if they don’t link to your site.
• Social Listening Tools: Tools like Brandwatch, Mention, and Hootsuite track mentions of your brand across social media and websites. They often catch mentions that standard search engines miss, helping you monitor conversations and mentions in real time.
• Advanced Search Operators: Use Google’s advanced search operators. For example, search for your brand name with a “-site.com” operator to exclude mentions from your site.
• SEO Tools: Platforms like Ahrefs and SEMrush offer “content explorer” or “brand monitoring” features, which allow you to search for brand mentions across the web. These tools provide more detailed insights. These include where and how often your brand appears without links.
• Reverse Image Search: If your logo or unique images are often used, a reverse image search on Google or tools like TinEye can help you find unlinked mentions that use your visuals without tagging your site.
• Forums and Niche Communities: Check popular forums, industry communities, and Reddit for discussions about your brand. You can manually search for your brand name or use tools like BrandMentions, which scan various online spaces.

Engaging with these mentions is just as important. When people discuss your brand online, it’s your chance to build relationships and strengthen your authority. You can address questions, respond to feedback, and show your expertise by joining these conversations. For instance, if someone asks about your product on social media, a quick, helpful reply can create a positive impression and even attract new customers.

Managing these mentions also protects your brand's reputation. Responding to positive and negative feedback shows that you care about customers and want to improve. 

6. Analyze Competitors' Backlinks

Off-page SEO is a vital part of any off-page SEO audit plan, and competitor backlink analysis is a big piece of this puzzle. Looking at your competitors’ backlinks can reveal their link-building strategies and show you ways to improve yours. Here are simple ways to do this:

• Identify Key Competitors in Search Results: First, find your main competitors in search results for your target keywords. Then, view their backlink profiles using Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Moz tools. These enterprise SEO tools show the number and quality of links pointing to their site and which popular pages get the most links.
• Spot Patterns in Competitors’ Backlink Sources: Once you have the data, look for patterns. Are your competitors getting links from industry blogs, news sites, or universities? This can guide your link-building. For example, if a competitor has high-quality links from industry conferences, you might try contacting conference organizers or submitting proposals to speak.
• Analyze Anchor Text in Competitor Backlinks: Next, check the anchor text in their backlinks. This reveals the keywords they’re targeting and how they’re positioning themselves. If you see a competitor with many backlinks using a specific product name, you can focus on it for your keyword research, content, and link-building.
• Find Gaps in Your Own Backlink Profile: Identifying gaps in your backlink profile is also essential. Compare your links with your competitors and note high-quality sites that link to them rather than you. These are prime link-building opportunities. For instance, if industry publications link to competitors’ resources but not yours, create similar or better page content and reach out for backlinks.

7. Review Local Citations

Reviewing local citations is an important part of any off-page SEO audit. In this step, you will check how your business appears on different online directories and platforms. The goal is to ensure that your information is accurate and consistent.

Start with Major Citation Sites

Audit your listings on key sites like Google Business Profile and Yelp. These are often the first places potential customers go for local business details. Make sure your listings are complete and correct. Log in to each site and check your business name, address, phone number (NAP), website URL, business hours, and other details like photos or services.

Identify Incomplete or Duplicate Listings

Next, look for any incomplete or duplicate citations online. Use an SEO audit tool like Moz Local to scan for your business across different directories. It can help you find inconsistencies or missing information. For example, you might discover that your old address is still listed on some sites or that your phone number needs to be corrected on others.

Take Corrective Action

After identifying issues, take action to fix them. You can do this by claiming unclaimed listings, updating old information, or asking to remove duplicates. For instance, if you’ve moved, ensure your new address is updated everywhere. If you find a duplicate listing on Google Business Profile, report it to Google for removal.

8. Track Online Reviews

Tracking online reviews shouldn’t be missed in your off-page SEO audit checklist. This can affect your brand's reputation and local search rankings if you don't. To monitor and manage your online reviews effectively, follow these steps:

• Set Up Alerts for New Reviews: You can set up alerts for your brand name and products on major review sites. These may be Google, Yelp, TripAdvisor, or others specific to your industry. Use tools like Google Alerts, Mention, or special review monitoring software to get real-time updates. This is helpful if you value feedback, as it can help you respond quickly to them.
• Regularly Check Your Google Business Profile: In addition to alerts, check your Google Business Profile regularly, as this is often where customers leave reviews first. Be sure to respond promptly to all reviews. Thank customers for their positive feedback and address any concerns in negative reviews. For instance, if someone complains about slow service at your restaurant, apologize sincerely and explain how you plan to improve.
• Encourage Customers to Leave Reviews: To enhance your review presence, have a follow-up system to encourage happy customers to leave reviews. After a purchase or service, send a friendly email or text asking for feedback. Make it easy for them by providing direct links to your review profiles. For example, a hotel could place a QR code on check-out receipts that direct customers to its TripAdvisor page.
• Showcase Positive Reviews: Showcase these reviews on your website and social media to provide fresh, user-generated content that search engines favor. Consider creating a dedicated testimonials page or featuring rotating reviews on your homepage.
• Monitor Trends in Reviews: Review trends to spot common issues or praise. This can help you improve your products or services while highlighting your marketing strengths. For example, if multiple reviews mention your excellent customer service, feature it prominently in your brand messaging.

9. Assess Forum and Community Engagement

Assessing forum and community engagement can also affect your online store’s presence and search rankings. Identify the forums and online communities where people talk about your industry, brand, or products to get started. Think about platforms like Reddit, Quora, or social media groups.

Analyze Your Brand's Current Engagement

Once you've found these platforms, check how your brand is currently engaging. Look for mentions of your company name, products, or relevant keywords. Pay attention to the sentiment around these discussions. Are they positive, negative, or neutral? This can give you insight into your brand's reputation and ways to improve.

Evaluate Your Participation

Next, take a look at how involved you are in these forums. Are you joining discussions, answering questions, and sharing helpful information? If you’re inactive, creating a strategy to boost your engagement is time. For example, if you run a software company, you could regularly participate in programming forums by advising on common coding problems. This builds your expertise and opens doors for natural backlinks.

Consider Team Involvement

Consider setting up a dedicated team or assigning team members to regularly monitor and engage in these communities. They should understand your brand's voice and values, be ready to address concerns, and create good relationships with community members. For instance, if you're a fitness equipment maker, having a fitness expert on your team engage in health forums can be very helpful.

Focus on Adding Value

When you engage in these communities, focus on adding value rather than just promoting yourself. Share insights, offer useful tips, and respond thoughtfully to questions. This builds trust and credibility, leading to organic mentions and backlinks to your site. For example, if someone asks for the best running shoes and you make them, you can provide a detailed answer on choosing the right shoes and mention your product as one option.

Track Your Impact

Finally, monitor the impact of your engagement. Monitor any increases in referral traffic from these platforms, changes in brand sentiment, and any backlinks gained. This data will help refine your strategy and focus on the most effective channels for your off-page SEO audit efforts.

10. Verify Schema Markup for Local SEO

Schema markup is structured data that helps search engines understand your website's content. For local businesses, using local business schema is very important. This markup gives search engines specific details about your business, like your name, address, phone number, hours of operation, and services. 

When done right, schema markup can improve your search engine results. It’s your stepping stone to rich snippets, knowledge panels, or enhanced search features.

Verify Schema Markup with Google's Tools

Use Google's Structured Data Testing Tool to ensure your schema markup is correct. In this free tool, you can input your URL or paste your HTML code to check for errors. Just enter your website's URL and run the test. You’ll see any issues with your markup, like missing required properties or formatting mistakes.

Another helpful tool is Google's Rich Results Test. It checks your schema markup and shows how your page might look in search results with rich features. It's especially useful for local businesses since it previews how your business info could appear in local searches.

Ensure Accuracy and Consistency

When adding schema markup, be accurate and consistent. Make sure your business name, address, and phone number in the schema match exactly what is on your website and other online directories. Any inconsistencies can confuse search engines and hurt your local search engine optimization.

Use Multiple Schema Types When Needed

Sometimes, you might need to use different types of schema markup. For example, a restaurant could use local business and menu schema. In these cases, ensure all markup types are nested correctly and do not conflict. Regularly auditing your schema markup is key, especially after changing your website or business info. This helps maintain accuracy and effectiveness in boosting your local SEO performance.

Key Takeaway

Off-page SEO is often seen as building backlinks. However, there’s more to it. A complete off-page SEO audit requires a holistic approach. It must examine various parts of your online presence, not just your website. The focus here is to manage your brand’s reputation, engage with your audience on social media, and build authority in your industry. 

An off-page SEO audit sounds powerful, but it has limits. You can’t fully control how others perceive your brand or manage negative content from outside sources. Plus, it relies on backlinks and social shares—which are out of your hands and can be unpredictable. Additionally, if you focus too much on off-page, you might miss critical on-page elements that directly impact rankings and user experience.

Looking to navigate these limitations and still get real results? tiny lever is an SEO marketing agency that offers a focused approach to off-page SEO. We go beyond the usual backlinks to build authority and trust that lasts. From proactive reputation management to strategic backlinking and industry engagement, we ensure your off-page SEO strategy isn’t just about quick wins. Contact us it’s about long-term growth and credibility.