8x Ways To Build Powerful Edu Backlinks

Getting an edu backlink from an accredited university or school is not easy.

But when you get one… it’s definitely worth it.

Google doesn’t treat all links the same. Some links are valued as more trustworthy and therefore have more authority.

More authority = higher rankings.

So I’m going to show you 8 different ways to start building edu backlinks today!

PRO TIP: Use the free backlink blacklist to make sure you’re building good links

What Are Edu Backlinks?

Edu backlinks are links from a domain that has the .edu extension. Edu stands for education and not just anyone can get an edu domain.

To get an edu domain you need to get permission from a government body that verifies that you are a legitimate education provider.

That is why Google places more value and trust in a link coming from an edu domain than it otherwise would.

PRO TIP: Before starting any link building campaign, it’s best to determine how many backlinks you need to rank.

How Valuable Are Edu Backlinks?

Edu backlinks often take a lot more work than getting a link from a normal .com site.

But:

Here’s why it’s worth the time and effort to get edu backlinks for your site….

Edu Sites Usually Have Higher Authority And Great Reputation

Most academic institutions that have edu domains have been around for a while.

They often have large backlink profiles from a variety of trusted domains. This means that edu domains usually have very high domain authority.

Think about it… educational organisations produce a lot of quality content. This kind of content can include:

And so much more. This means they are often publishing content that naturally attracts links from other reputable sources.

Education sites often attract free backlinks from other powerful domains because of:

1. The link-worthy content they produce.
2. The reputation they have amongst the public.

How many times have you seen a news site mention a university or school?

This is also true if you get a gov backlink.

Edu Backlinks Are Not Created From Link Schemes

Link schemes are projects specifically used to generate links. Edu backlinks are almost impossible to create from link schemes.

You need to work hard to build a relationship with the person who controls the edu domain. There is no “link exchange” or simply listing your site in a directory. You need to:

Not Everyone Can Get An Edu Backlink

Link building is hard enough on its own- Finding high authority websites, contacting the owner and negotiating a link isn’t easy work.

Now think about this:

How many .edu domains are there online vs the number of .com domains?

Because there are fewer edu backlinks available, to begin with, your chances of getting one decrease significantly.

You can see why edu backlinks are hard to build (and why they are so worth it).

The truth is not just anyone can build them and frankly it requires:

Getting An Edu Backlink Is The Ultimate Proof That Your Content Is Trustworthy

Edu backlinks by nature have more authority in the eyes of Google. Organisations with edu domains are considered by Google to be:

Educational organisations tick all of the EAT metrics that Google loves so much.

Naturally, all of the content they produce makes Google’s heart beat faster (and algorithms rank higher).

Because a link from one site to another is a signal of trust, you receive all of that glorious authority with each edu backlink that you get.

Your site grows in authority because of it – and Google will reward you with better SERP positions.

8x Strategies To Help You Build Edu Backlinks

Building powerful edu backlinks is as much an art as it is a science.

To be successful you need to approach it with the right mindset. You can’t pitch guest blogs at scale and expect to pick up some nice edu links.

It just doesn’t work that way.

With that said, here are my 8 best strategies to build edu backlinks.

1. Get Listed On Resource Pages

Method #1 can be considered the guest post of edu backlinks.

Lots of educational organisations have “resource pages“. This is similar to a blog page.

Here’s where the difference lies:

Topics aren’t always centred around one specific niche like most blogs are. Education resource pages usually cover a bunch of niches that:

…are interested in.

If you find the right organisation with a community that you can provide value to, you can pitch them a piece of content. Here’s how you find these opportunities.

Go to Google and type in the following:

site:.edu + niche keyword + inurl:resource

This will bring up a list of sites with .edu domains that have:

1. Resource pages
2. Post content similar to the niche keyword you typed in.

Take a look at previous posts so you get a better idea of what kind of content they like. Then, just find the contact email address of the manager and pitch to them!

You can learn more about this strategy with my resource page link building strategy.

2. Offer Discounts To Staff & Students

You can provide discount offers to staff and students at educational organisations. There are actually two benefits to executing this tactic.

Lots of colleges and universities have dedicated pages on their website that show places where students and staff get discounts.

This is a great way to get the edu backlink you’re after.

By offering discounts you should be able to get some sales as well.

Not bad, right?

The only thing you need to have is a physical product or service that would be attractive to students and staff. If you have that, you are good to go.

To find discount pages from edu organisations, go to Google and type in the following:

Open up a few of the pages and look at the offers that are listed on the page.

Then, create an offer that works well for that page and reach out to the person who manages the website to tell them about your discount.

3. Create A Scholarship For Students

This is a much higher risk strategy because it’s been on Google’s radar before but it does allow you to build links while giving back and that is a rare opportunity to consider.

You see, lots of students want to go to college but simply can’t afford it.

Scholarships have become a big thing for colleges and students alike. Most colleges and educational institutions have a scholarship page.

Note: This edu backlink tactic is going to cost you more than usual.

For this tactic, you are essentially providing some financial help to students to help them pay tuition for college.

In return not only will you be helping students with their tuition payments, but you will also receive a backlink by being listed on the scholarship page.

If you play this smart you can even get multiple edu backlinks.

Google the following:

You will see a list of results that are edu domains that have scholarship pages.

Now you need to browse the pages to see what scholarships are listed. Once you have an idea of what people are offering, it’s time to create a similar scholarship.

Create a page on your own website advertising scholarship opportunities that you are presenting.

The next part is important. You need to reach out to:

…to let them know about your scholarship opportunity.

You also want to tell them that you are happy for them to link to your scholarship page from their website.

You could potentially bag a bunch of edu backlinks as each college is likely to list you on their site.

Which college would pass up free money for their students?

4. Interview Prominent Faculty Members

Lots of professors, lecturers and teachers maintain a blog on edu domains.

These prominent faculty members love to link out to interviews and articles they have been featured in.

This creates an excellent opportunity for savvy link builders like you. Ideally, you want to:

1. Find these faculty members.
2. Reach out to get their opinion on a relevant topic.

For example, if you are writing a piece of content about the “effects of social media on young people“, you can reach out to a relevant professor to ask for their opinion.

How do you find these potential professors?

Simply head over to Google and type in the following:

Depending on the keyword you searched for, you may see a lot of the search results for courses or programs offered by a college or university. That’s fine.

You just need to dig deeper into the SERPs to find the results you are after.

Don’t stop at just one faculty member.

Find a bunch of faculty members from different academic institutions and get a comment from all of them.

The more comments you get the more link opportunities you have.

Once you get a few replies, you just need to:

Then, email each faculty member, let them know the content is published and thank them again for their contribution.

And this is the most important part:

At the end of the email let each faculty member know that you are happy for them to share the content on social media and link to it from their site.

This is where you get the result you came for!

5. Mention Edu Bloggers In Your Content

There are tons of bloggers out there who have been assigned to consistently write for their school or college website.

Most of the time these bloggers spend ages producing content that is underappreciated.

But you know what? You have the power to change that and snag yourself a high DA edu backlink while you are at it.

Here’s how:

Start by identifying bloggers for educational websites. You can usually find their work on:

Find one of their published pieces of content and mention it in one of your own blogs.

An example of the mention is this:

“Here is an interesting article written by [name of blogger] from [website URL of edu website] and they have found…”

The key to success with this tactic is making the mention seem very natural.

Once you publish the blog and mention the edu blogger, you need to immediately get in contact with them.

Find their email address and let them know that you mentioned them in your blog.

Make sure that you explain that their article was excellent – so good in fact that you linked to the article and gave them full credit.

Don’t forget to conclude the email by letting them know that they can share your blog on their website or social media.

6. Create A Careers/Jobs Page On Your Site

When executed well this strategy can attract a number of edu backlinks.

The goal of any educational institution is to educate its students. After students complete their education – what do they want next?

A Job– so they can pay off their student loans…

Lots of educational organisations will have career pages where they list potential job opportunities for students.

So, if you have jobs that current students or students just completing their education could fill, you have a chance to get a number of edu backlinks.

To be successful with this strategy you’ll need to have a few job opportunities open.

Putting up a careers page with one job opportunity isn’t going to cut it. If you don’t have full-time/part-time jobs available you can list potential internships.

Create a careers page on your website where you list:

After you have created a career page, contact relevant educational institutions and let them know that you have a careers page and often have opportunities for current students or graduate students.

Tell them that you are more than happy to share this on their website and link to it.

The benefit of this tactic is that you can create one page and reach out to lots of colleges and schools.

This allows you to acquire a number of edu backlinks in one go.

7. Take Advantage Of Broken Link Building

Broken link building is one of the most underrated link building strategies.

This tried and tested method can land you really high-quality link placements while also making you look like a superhero.

There are two keys to success with this method:

Ahrefs is the best tool for broken link building. It helps you find quality broken links fast and at scale.

Here is how the broken link building method works:

Use Ahrefs Open Site Explorer to crawl any website you want a link from. Filter the crawl results for 404 links.

This provides you with a list of potential link opportunity placements.

Next, use Wayback Machine to see what used to be published on the broken link.

Now you have everything you need in place.

Just recreate the same content in your own words or use a piece of already written content that closely fits the topic.

Once that’s all done just reach out to the website manager and let them know they have a broken link and offer your piece of content as a replacement.

Check out my complete broken link building guide for more information on this strategy.

8. Take Advantage Of Alumni Pages And Associations

Schools and universities often like to keep track of their alumni.

Whenever alumni achieve something they feel is worth promoting, they write a piece of content about it on their site.

This provides an excellent opportunity for you to get an edu backlink from schools or colleges that you attended.

Find out if your previous colleges or schools have alumni pages. If they do then this is probably the easiest way to get an edu link.

The first thing you need to do is establish something considered newsworthy that you can leverage. Newsworthy content can include:

It just has to be something that the school would consider an achievement.

Reach out to your alumni association and let them know what you have been doing. They will likely be excited to publish a piece of content about you.

Make sure you mention the success you’ve had is partly due to the education they provided (only if it is true of course).

This is exactly what they want to hear and can significantly increase your chances of getting published.

A Few Things To Remember About Edu Backlinks

As you can see there are a number of great ways to build edu backlinks.

But:

Before you get on your way and build some for yourself, there are a couple of things to remember…

Not Only Ivy League Colleges Have The .Edu Extension

This might seem obvious.

But edu links don’t just come from the huge colleges that you read about on the news. There are tons of places to get edu backlinks from:

The list goes on and on. This is good news for you because you have a range of different organisations to approach to get backlinks.

Getting An Edu Backlink Is Hard Work

Getting edu backlinks is not for the faint of heart.

That’s why so many people never bother to chase them. It can take a long time and effort just to secure one placement.

But that one placement is worth every penny.

Don’t forget – only use these tactics once you’ve built a bit more of a brand and authority around your site.

Otherwise, the chances of you scoring an edu backlink are very low

Most education organisations only want to link out to trusted sites, so if your trying to push your 100% Amazon affiliate site that only has “best” product type posts it’s unlikely you’ll gain traction.

Work on growing the brand of your own site and start building relationships with the right people to secure a placement.

Getting An Edu Backlink Doesn’t Necessary Mean You’ll Rank Better

Here’s the truth.

Getting an edu backlink doesn’t guarantee that your website will skyrocket to the top spot.

But SEO research and testing seem to show that edu links can improve your rankings more than the average .com link.

In SEO there is no single quick fix or super-secret to getting really high rankings.

You need to be consistent with your SEO work, adding edu link building to your overall strategy.

Don’t Focus Your Strategy On Building ONLY Edu Backlinks

A quality link building strategy hinges on a diversified link profile. That means you don’t just want to focus on only building edu backlinks.

You want to place links from a variety of relevant websites with different top-level domains.

Remember: Edu backlinks provide the most benefit when you already have an established backlink profile.

Wrapping It Up

So there it is.

All the white hat link building strategies you need to build your own high authority edu backlinks.

While it takes a lot more time and effort than other link building activities, it is definitely worth the time.

Choose 2 tactics from above and work at them until you get the results you want. This is what will separate you from the pack.

Want help with high authority link building?

LinksThatRank builds the best links across the internet. They have a strict quality control process that ensures every link they place moves the needle forward.

Also, check out my review of the top link building services.