What are the four off-page strategies?

Earned media (links and mentions through coverage: digital PR, original research, expert quotes, podcasts, the highest authority and hardest to replicate), owned assets (linkable research, tools, and guides on the site that attract links passively and compound over time), partnerships and relationships (case studies, co-marketing, integrations, and associations, which are trustworthy and contextually relevant), and citations and listings (Google Business Profile, review-quality directories, and Wikidata, foundational for local and entity SEO). Most programs blend all four.

How should a new site allocate effort?

A new site typically goes roughly 70/20/10/0 across owned assets, citations, partnerships, and earned media for the first year, then leans more toward earned media as it builds authority. The mix follows the goal: 'rank top 3 for X by Q4' needs a different tactic mix than 'build category authority over 18 months.' Allocate effort deliberately across the four strategies rather than chasing whichever tactic is easiest in the moment.

Does buying links work?

No, and this skill does not endorse or facilitate it. The risk of a manual penalty is real, and cost-adjusted the return rarely works out, so the durable path is earning links through owned assets, real relationships, and genuine coverage. Volume tactics fail for the same reason: 100 directory submissions help less than five editorial links from category-relevant sites, so the program optimizes for quality and relevance rather than raw count.

How do I keep anchor text natural?

Aim for a distribution led by branded and naked-URL anchors, then generic and partial-match, with exact-match keyword anchors a small minority, in roughly that order of frequency. If 40 percent of inbound anchors are an exact-match keyword like 'best running shoes', it looks engineered and risks tripping spam filters. Because off-page earns links from other sites, you cannot fully control anchors, but the asset, the pitch, and the suggested link text all influence the mix.

What should I do before off-page work?

Make the site worth linking to. A poorly-designed, thin-content site will not convert outreach however good the pitch, so fix the on-site fundamentals first. Then audit the current backlink profile (referring domains, anchor mix, toxic links, and lost links) before building, because recovering a lost link is faster and cheaper than earning a new one, and a 5 percent monthly loss in referring domains compounds if no recovery workflow exists.

Skill · Off-page SEO

Off-page SEO.

Build the external signals that earn rankings: backlinks, mentions, citations.

Build the external signals that earn rankings: backlinks, brand mentions, citations, and trusted sources pointing back to the site. Off-page work splits into four strategy types, and most programs blend them: earned media, owned assets, partnerships and relationships, and citations and listings.

The strategy mix follows the goal and the site's phase. Outreach is personalized and value-first, links are earned rather than bought, and the work assumes the site is already worth linking to.

Audience: SEO and marketing teams planning a link-building program, running digital PR, building local citations, or developing linkable assets.

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The framework

Four strategies, blended to the phase.

Off-page work splits into four strategy types. Most programs blend them; pick the mix that fits the goal and the phase.

01Earned media: links and mentions earned through coverage. Digital PR, original research, expert quotes, and podcast appearances. The highest authority and the hardest to replicate.
02Owned assets: linkable assets on the site (research, free tools, definitive guides, data trackers) that attract links passively and compound as each new link points at an evergreen asset.
03Partnerships and relationships: links from real business relationships. Customer case studies, co-marketing, integrations, and association memberships. Trustworthy and contextually relevant.
04Citations and listings: the Google Business Profile, review-quality directories, niche associations, and Wikidata. Foundational for local and entity SEO, mostly one-time setup with occasional refresh.

Pairs with these platforms

The backlink tools for prospecting and monitoring.

Off-page work needs a backlink tool to prospect targets and monitor the profile, and the required inputs name Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz, or Majestic. Ahrefs and Semrush are the two with integration pages here, supplying referring-domain trends, anchor distribution, and the lost-link and competitor-gap data that outreach targets.

How to earn links

Quality over volume, earned over bought.

Quality beats volume. Five editorial links from category-relevant sites help more than 100 directory submissions, so the program optimizes for authority and relevance rather than for the count. Buying links is off the table: the manual-penalty risk is real and the cost-adjusted return rarely works out, so the durable path is earning links through assets, relationships, and coverage.

Outreach is personalized and value-first, or it does not get sent. A generic 'Dear [first name], I love your blog about [topic]' is archived in seconds and damages the brand more than it helps. The same restraint applies to disavow, which is for confirmed spam attacks or penalty recovery, not routine cleanup, and to anchor text, where an over-optimized exact-match share looks engineered.

Off-page work assumes the site is worth linking to. A thin, poorly-designed site will not convert outreach however good the pitch, so fix the on-site fundamentals first. And build a lost-link recovery workflow, because a 5 percent monthly loss in referring domains compounds quietly, and recovering a link is faster than earning a new one.

Reference files

Two references that go alongside the SKILL.md.

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

Browse all reference files on GitHub

Bridges to other skills

What comes before the outreach.

Off-page work earns the links. These cover the profile audit, the competitive frame, and the on-site work that has to come first.

Audit first
seo-backlink-audit
Profiles the existing backlinks and surfaces the reclamation and gap lists. Audit the profile before a campaign; this skill builds against what it finds.
Find the gap
seo-competitor
Start with competitor analysis to find the link gap, then return here for the outreach planning. The two run in sequence, not in parallel.
Worth linking to
seo-onpage
A thin, poorly-tagged page will not convert outreach. Fixing the on-site fundamentals comes first, because links point at pages that deserve them.
The foundation
seo-technical
Crawlability, redirects, and a stable URL structure protect the equity links bring. A migration that drops redirects throws away the links a campaign earned.
What to point at
seo-keyword
Research decides which pages are worth building authority toward. Off-page effort follows the priorities the keyword work sets.

Open source under MIT

Read the SKILL.md on GitHub.

The skill source lives in the rampstackco/claude-skills repository alongside dozens of other skills covering the full lifecycle of brand and product work. This page is a structured overview; the SKILL.md is the source. MIT licensed.

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Frequently asked questions.

What are the four off-page strategies?: Earned media (links and mentions through coverage: digital PR, original research, expert quotes, podcasts, the highest authority and hardest to replicate), owned assets (linkable research, tools, and guides on the site that attract links passively and compound over time), partnerships and relationships (case studies, co-marketing, integrations, and associations, which are trustworthy and contextually relevant), and citations and listings (Google Business Profile, review-quality directories, and Wikidata, foundational for local and entity SEO). Most programs blend all four.
How should a new site allocate effort?: A new site typically goes roughly 70/20/10/0 across owned assets, citations, partnerships, and earned media for the first year, then leans more toward earned media as it builds authority. The mix follows the goal: 'rank top 3 for X by Q4' needs a different tactic mix than 'build category authority over 18 months.' Allocate effort deliberately across the four strategies rather than chasing whichever tactic is easiest in the moment.
Does buying links work?: No, and this skill does not endorse or facilitate it. The risk of a manual penalty is real, and cost-adjusted the return rarely works out, so the durable path is earning links through owned assets, real relationships, and genuine coverage. Volume tactics fail for the same reason: 100 directory submissions help less than five editorial links from category-relevant sites, so the program optimizes for quality and relevance rather than raw count.
How do I keep anchor text natural?: Aim for a distribution led by branded and naked-URL anchors, then generic and partial-match, with exact-match keyword anchors a small minority, in roughly that order of frequency. If 40 percent of inbound anchors are an exact-match keyword like 'best running shoes', it looks engineered and risks tripping spam filters. Because off-page earns links from other sites, you cannot fully control anchors, but the asset, the pitch, and the suggested link text all influence the mix.
What should I do before off-page work?: Make the site worth linking to. A poorly-designed, thin-content site will not convert outreach however good the pitch, so fix the on-site fundamentals first. Then audit the current backlink profile (referring domains, anchor mix, toxic links, and lost links) before building, because recovering a lost link is faster and cheaper than earning a new one, and a 5 percent monthly loss in referring domains compounds if no recovery workflow exists.