Off-page SEO consulting
Off-page SEO covers what happens outside a website that shapes how search engines and AI systems judge it: who links to it, who mentions it and who cites it. I work as an independent off-page SEO consultant: I review who links to and mentions you, deal with what is risky, and plan and run link earning and digital PR with your team.
When you need off-page SEO consulting
Off-page SEO consulting is needed when the site itself is in good shape, but few sites link to it or mention it, or you don’t know whether your existing links help or hurt. These are the situations in which companies most often look for an off-page SEO consultant:
AI answers recommend your competitors. When someone asks ChatGPT or Perplexity about your category, other names come up and yours doesn’t. Or the AI works from your article but leaves your name out. AI answers often draw on independent sites, lists and comparisons, so what others write about you is what counts there.
A tool flags risky links. Ahrefs or Semrush suddenly shows hundreds of “toxic” links, or you’re worried about earlier link work, and you don’t know whether to disavow. The question is whether your link profile actually hurts, or only the tool’s score looks alarming.
You reach out to sites, and no links come back. You write to editors and industry sites, few reply, and even fewer link. That usually comes down to who you contact, and whether you have something worth linking to.
Competitors rank ahead, and you don’t know why. They have more referring domains, but that alone doesn’t mean links are the reason. Alongside the link gap I check the content (on-page) and the technical state, because the difference is often there.
Digital PR got you coverage, but no links. A journalist quoted you, or a campaign made the press, but the articles don’t link to you, and you don’t know whether it paid off. Coverage and links are two separate results, and the link can often be won afterward.
Your local listings are wrong, and you can’t get into them. Your business appears with the wrong address or phone number, or twice, in directories, and the login stayed with a former freelancer.
Off-page audit: what I check
An off-page audit goes through who links to the site and who mentions it, what of that helps, what is risky, and what is missing compared with competitors. These are the areas, and what I check in each:
Backlink profile. A backlink profile is every link pointing to the site: how many referring domains and links there are, and how those numbers have changed over the years. I work from two sources, Search Console’s links report and an external link index, because neither sees everything. The “domain authority” style scores of external tools are estimates, not Google’s metrics: useful for comparison, not for decisions.
Link quality. A link is worth a lot when an editor decided on it, the topic is related to yours, and visitors actually come through it. I also check the link attributes (such as nofollow), and whether a redirect or an HTTP header takes its value away.
Anchor text. Anchor text is the clickable text of a link. I look at the distribution by type: brand name, URL, generic text or exact keyword. If too many exact-keyword anchors point to one page, that is a risk, so I look at such pages separately.
Competitors. A link gap analysis shows who links to your competitors but not to you. Next to it I put how much of the search visibility they take (share of voice). The gap alone doesn’t prove that links are the reason, so it is a starting point, not a verdict.
Mentions. A mention is when a site writes about you, with or without a link. With media and brand monitoring tools I find where you appeared without a link, and I check what someone searching for your brand name sees: only your own site, or independent sources too.
Entity and context. The entity is who or what a link or mention names: the company, a product, a service or a person, such as the founder. I check which entity links and mentions point to, whether the name is written the same way (abbreviations, an old name, typos), and whether you get mixed up with a company with a similar name. The context is the text the mention sits in: what the article is about, whether you appear as a source, a recommendation or just one item in a list, and in what tone. That is how search engines and AI systems work out what you are known for, and why.
Local listings. For local listings I check whether your business name, address and phone number match across the important directories, whether there are duplicates, and who holds the logins. Google Business Profile and local rankings are part of local SEO.
Risky links: when to disavow and when not to
Disavow is a Google tool that lets you ask Google not to take certain links into account. Most sites don’t need it, because Google ignores most spam links on its own. This is how I decide:
A tool’s score is not a verdict. I check every “toxic” flag by hand. A link from a real relationship, such as your local chamber of commerce or an industry association, stays even if the tool paints it red.
A spam wave calls for monitoring, not a disavow. If links suddenly arrive from hundreds of automated, meaningless sites, there is usually nothing to do except keep an eye on it.
Disavow is needed when many artificial links that conflict with Google’s spam policies point to the site, and they have caused a manual action or are likely to. First we ask for them to be removed, the rest goes into the disavow file, and with a manual action a reconsideration request follows.
A manual action and an algorithmic drop are not the same. A manual action shows in Search Console, a drop doesn’t, and links are often not the cause of the drop.
If one page’s anchor text is one-sided, I first look at when the page started falling and what else changed, and only then decide.
Reputation counts too. It’s not only about rankings, but also about which sites your brand appears next to.
Digital authority: where links and mentions come from
Digital authority is what others link to, write and cite about you, and what search engines and AI systems use to judge how trustworthy a source you are. It is built from these:
Mentions and links in AI answers
In AI answers, what counts is what independent sources write about you. ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google’s AI Overviews often work from comparison articles, lists, forums and industry sites, not only from your own website. So your brand name and company description have to be the same everywhere, so that these systems see one company, and you need credible outside sources that show your experience and expertise (E-E-A-T).
How often AI answers cite a brand can be measured. I don’t promise that off-page work will get you into those answers, because how AI systems choose their sources isn’t transparent. Measuring citations model by model is part of generative engine optimization (GEO).
How I work: the off-page process
Off-page work has six steps for me. I look at the same metrics before and after the work, so you can see what it delivered.
01
Goals and baseline
The first step is the goal: which pages need links, and what we expect from them, such as more inquiries on a service page, or the brand appearing in independent sources. I record the baseline: the number and quality of referring domains, traffic from referring sites, qualified organic traffic and the visibility of the target pages.
The data comes from Search Console, analytics and a link index (Ahrefs, DataForSEO). I pay for the tools; their cost is included in the hourly rate.
02
Audit
The audit goes through seven areas: the backlink profile, link quality, anchor text, competitors’ links, mentions, which entity is named and in what context, and local listings. The result is a prioritized task list: what is risky, what is missing, and where to start.
03
Risk management
If the audit finds risky links, there are three options. If many artificial links have caused, or are likely to cause, a manual action, we first ask the site owners to remove them, and the rest goes into a disavow file. If it is automated spam, we only monitor it. A link from a real relationship stays, even if a tool marks it as risky.
04
Strategy and targets
The strategy says who is worth contacting, and with what. I filter possible targets on three criteria: is the topic related, does the site have real readers, and does an editor decide what gets published. Then comes the content we approach them with, and in which language and market. If we work in several markets, outreach is separate work for each language.
05
Outreach and PR
Outreach can run two ways: I send it in your name, or your team sends it based on my list and copy. Either way, you approve every target and every message before it goes out. I keep the contacts in a tracking system, and outreach follows GDPR and ePrivacy rules.
06
Tracking and reporting
Tracking happens page by page for the target pages. This is what I look at:
- the links won, and whether they stay (link index, Search Console links report);
- traffic and conversions from referring sites in analytics, by source and landing page;
- the visibility of the target pages in Search Console, by query.
I compare the result with the same period a year earlier and with the pages we didn’t touch. If content or technical changes happened in the meantime, I mark them separately, because their effect can’t be separated out precisely. You get a report every month or quarter: what came in, what was lost, and what the next round is. I don’t promise timelines. I tell you what we measure and what we compare it against.
Pricing
I charge €50 per hour. Every figure below is hours × €50, so you can see what each budget buys.
Hourly consulting€50 / hour
Example project
Website
Up to around 1,000 referring domains
- 01
Off-page audit
Backlink profile, anchor text, risky links and a disavow recommendation, competitor link gap, mentions, local listings, a prioritized task list.
€500
10 h · one-off
- 02
Strategy and first campaign plan
A qualified target list, content worth linking to and PR topics, outreach copy.
€600
12 h · one-off
- 03
Outreach and digital PR
A monthly budget. Outside costs, such as data collection or a distribution service, are charged separately.
€500
10 h / month
These are indicative budgets, not fixed prices. The platform, the number of templates, how the site is built and what the audit finds all change the final quote.
No VAT is added to these figures — I’m VAT-exempt under Hungarian law.
When does off-page SEO pay off?
Off-page SEO pays off when the new links and mentions bring more inquiries or orders from search and from referring sites than the consulting, the content worth linking to and your team’s time cost. The audit and the strategy together cost €1,100. If you earn €1,500 on a new client, one new client already covers that. An editorial link can bring visitors for years, while cleaning up a risky link profile takes more work the longer it waits.
What the monthly budget covers
Research, strategy, implementation or coordination with your developers, monitoring, meetings and reporting. Reporting time counts in the hours.
You get access to the project management tool, where you can see the priorities, who is responsible, progress and what comes next. Each month starts with agreed priorities and ends with a review of what changed and what the data shows.
Priced separately
Content writing and production, including an external writer if needed.
Setting up or repairing measurement. The audit analyzes your existing data; new tracking and integrations are scoped separately.
Development beyond the agreed hours, including external developer fees.
AI search research or monitoring beyond the agreed topics, languages and AI systems.
Before you start
You receive a proposal with the scope, the estimated hours, the audit fee and the monthly budget. It also states whether the first phase includes implementation, when the ongoing work begins, and what your team needs to provide.
There is no lock-in. Any change to the scope or budget is agreed before the extra work starts.
Questions
Should we disavow what a tool flags as toxic?
Not automatically. Tools flag links by their own estimates; “toxic link” isn’t a Google concept. Disavow is needed when many artificial links have caused, or are likely to cause, a manual action. If you include good links too, you can do harm, so I check every flag by hand.
Can you tell us whether our current link profile helps or hurts?
Yes, that’s one of the first results of the audit. I assess the link profile, not whoever built it: I tell you what helps, what is risky and what is neutral.
Will off-page work help us get mentioned in AI answers?
It can, because AI answers often draw on independent sources, and more credible mentions count there. I can’t promise it, because how AI systems choose sources isn’t transparent. We measure how mentions and citations change.
What do we do when a journalist quotes us but doesn’t link?
We ask for the link. A short, polite email to the editor, naming the article and the source, is often enough. If no link comes, the mention still counts: your brand name appeared in an independent source.
Where do we start: links, content or a technical check?
With whatever holds you back most. If pages aren’t indexed, links won’t help; if there is nothing worth linking to, outreach won’t work. I settle that order at the start of the audit.
How long until links make a difference?
I don’t promise timelines. Google has to discover and process new links, and the effect differs by page. I tell you what we measure: the links won, referral traffic and the visibility of the target pages.
Do we need a link builder or PR person on the team?
Not necessarily. If there is a full-time job’s worth of outreach, hiring in-house makes sense. If not, I provide the strategy and the target list, and either I send the outreach or your team does, with my material.
Can we work with you as an agency on our clients’ off-page and PR work?
Yes. I handle the off-page part for agencies as a subcontractor: the audit, the strategy and the outreach. Whose name we use with the client is agreed up front.
Who keeps access to the listings when we stop working together?
You do. I manage the listings through your company’s accounts, so there is nothing to hand back at the end.
How do we know off-page work delivered?
We measure it on the target pages: how many links came in and stayed, how many visitors and inquiries come from referring sites, and how the target pages’ visibility changes. The effect of content and technical changes can’t be separated out precisely, so we mark those separately.
Not sure who links to you?
Send me your site’s address, and I’ll tell you what is risky in your link profile and where links are worth earning.