10 Steps to Audit Your Website Authority

Would you like to assess your website authority?

Understanding the strength and credibility of your online presence and measuring its evolution overtime is critical in SEO.

I’ve created this 10-step process to help you audit your online authority, and the detailed version is in my course "Off-Page SEO Audit: Measure Your Website Authority".

What is Off-Page SEO?

Off-page SEO refers to your optimization efforts made outside of your website to improve its search engine rankings and increase its visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs). Off-Page SEO is arguably the most impactful component of SEO.

Why is Off-Page SEO Critical for SEO?

Search engines like Google consider that a website has credibility and authority when a significant number of other qualitative sites link to it.

See off-page SEO as a referral system. The more links point to your website, the more referrals your website receives, the more relevant your website seems to be.

Similarly, if websites with a high authority on a given topic link to your website, it would seem logic that your website has a high authority on that topic too.

Step 1: Gather Off-Page SEO Metrics

Multiple tools help you gain a comprehensive overview of your off-page data for free (or as freemiums), such as:

Semrush Backlink Analytics
Semrush Backlink Audit
Ahrefs Webmaster Tool
Moz Pro Link Explorer
Open Link Profiler

Step 2: Analyze Your Website Authority

Your website authority can be assessed by critical metrics such as:

Domain Authority (DA), thanks to Semrush and Moz
Domain Rating (DR), thanks to Ahrefs
Domain Ranking (DR), thanks to Open Link Profiler
Page Authority (PA) of your home page, thanks to Moz.

Step 3: Analyze Your Competitors Website Authority

Measure the website authority of your competitors.

For example, the website https://apple.com is the gold standard for SEO, with score up to 100 or A+:

Domain Authority (DA), Semrush = 100/100
Domain Authority (DA), Moz = 99/100
Domain Rating (DR), Ahrefs = 97/100
Domain Rank (DR), Open Link Profiler = A+/A+
Page Authority (PA), Moz = 93/100

Assess the difference and find out reasons behind the different values between your website and your competitor websites.

Step 4: Review Your Backlinks

Backlinks, or inbound links, are the hyperlinks located on web pages from other websites linking to your website.

List all your backlinks with Ahrefs Webmaster Tools or Moz Pro Link Explorer.

Review them in details. There’s a lot to learn here from the links, their referral domain, the webpage they are located on, the anchor text…

Step 5: Assess Link Diversity

Link Diversity is the range of sources from which backlinks originate, encompassing different domains, IPs, and types of websites, such as news sites, personal blogs, social media platforms, etc. as well as different anchor texts.

A diverse set of backlinks is recommended.

Step 6: Assess Link Juice

Link Juice is the authority passed by a backlink. It affects your page's search engine ranking.

There are 2 types of backlinks with opposite link juice:

DoFollow: The DoFollow hyperlinks allow search engine crawlers to follow them and pass authority from one webpage to another. This brings link juice.
NoFollow: The NoFollow hyperlinks instruct search engine crawlers not to follow them or pass any authority from one webpage to another. NoFollow links are often used for user-generated content, sponsored links, forum comments… This does NOT bring link juice.

Ensure you increase your number of DoFollow links.

Note that having little-to-none NoFollow link is unnatural and penalized by search engines, so don’t over-optimize.

Step 7: Assess Link Velocity

Link Velocity is the speed at which a website gains new backlinks over time, which can influence its search engine ranking and credibility.

Some interesting metrics are:

New Backlinks
Lost Backlinks
New Referring Domains
Lost Referring Domains
Net Link Growth = Lost Backlinks - New Backlinks
Assess monthly and compare the evolution of these measures over time.

Step 8: Assess Link Toxicity

Link Toxicity is the presence of harmful or low-quality backlinks that can negatively impact your website's search engine performance and authority.

While Google does not officially recognize such concept, in practice, identifying and mitigating toxicity is useful for maintaining a healthy and reputable online presence.

Use Moz Pro Link Explorer Spam Score (free) to discover your toxic backlinks and referring domains, as well as to assess their evolution over time.

You can always reach out to webmasters for removal of their links, or you can disavow toxic links directly.

Step 9: Assess Anchor Text

The Anchor Text is the clickable text of a hyperlink, typically indicating the linked page's content or topic.

You can’t really optimize the anchor text from websites you do not own, but if you have created some of these links on external websites, personal blogs, social media profiles or pages, etc. then you can at least optimize these ones.

Make sure your anchor text is:

Succinct
Relevant to the linked page
Low keyword density (not overly keyword-heavy)
Not generic (not “click here”…)

Step 10: Check for Penalties in Google

There are 2 types of penalties you can get from Google:

Manual Penalty: A manual action is when an employee from Google reviewed your website, detected some bad practices, and implemented a penalty. Check in Google Search Console for any manual actions and solve the issue.
Algorithmic Hit: An algorithmic action is an automatic punishment from the Google algorithm which happens after a Google algorithm update or rollout with the implementation of new rules. Check for Google Algorithm Updates and find out if any coincides with changes in your website performance.

Off-Page SEO Audit Results

These 10 steps will give you a strong understanding of your online presence and authority in your field.

Don't forget to audit regularly your website to assess the evolution of your authority.

I understand that this process might be complex to handle thoroughly. So, I created an Off-Page SEO Audit Course based on these 10 steps to help you to measure your off-page SEO performance.

In addition, I am giving you as a course bonus a Google Spreadsheet containing all the information, data, and formulas (already implemented!) for you to measure and assess all the off-page SEO metrics you need now and during every future audit iteration.

Each step has a tab in this spreadsheet to make it crystal clear. And you only have to copy-paste you data in the dedicated fields, the rest is calculated automatically. I know, I’m too kind :). You will save HOURS of work thanks to this file.

Measure your website authority today and find out how to improve it.