Off-page links can represent a real challenge as they are much more difficult to control than on-page links. The wrong mix of links to your site as well as an ‘over-optimised’ link network definitely can penalise your site out the search engines. View the five must-do steps for improving your off-page SEO infographic.

To avoid these penalties, below are five must-do steps for your off-page optimisation:

1. Remove links from de-indexed site

Examine your link profile for links from de-indexed sites. To check if a site has been de-indexed, put the site URL into Google and click ‘Search’. If nothing comes back then the site has probably been de-indexed.

2. Update the anchor text of your links

Review and change the anchor text of links you own and try to change it on links you don’t own (e.g. your signature links in forums and guest blog comments). You would need to change the anchor text of these  links to reflect the new recommended ratios: 40% brand links, 40% generic links, 20% target keyword links. Try to save your target keyword links for links from higher PageRank sites.

3. Clean up your link network

You may need to go through your link network one domain at a time and identify the low quality or spammy sites that are linking to yours.

4. Eliminate links from low quality content syndication networks and replace it with high quality link networks

You should  request that your articles be removed from low quality content networks (e.g. poor quality Article Directories or poor quality Blog Networks) and replace it with high quality article networks using the above – step 2 mentioned anchor text for your links to balance the link ratios as required. If you are going to reduce your link-building activities, then do so gradually over the period of several months, you don’t want to be penalised for that too.

5. Create a diverse Link Network

Make sure you are getting backlinks from a diverse range of sources. A diverse link network will include links from blogs, press releases, forums, Q&A sites, YouTube, social networks like Facebook and Twitter and  some social bookmarking sites like Reddit, Digg, Delicious and StumbleUpon.