We all know that more links = higher rankings.
But building links isn’t always easy.
So I am going to share 16x incredible link building strategies with you today.
(Download our link building checklist here)
You can use any of these proven link building strategies to attract high quality links to your website quickly and easily!
These are the exact strategies my link building team use to build links with great success-
….but you should only use 3x of them.
Why?
Because it’s easy to get overwhelmed and do nothing
That will stop you from getting distracted & help you increase your search traffic in 2024!
So without further ado:
Here are 16 foolproof link building strategies that you can start using to build free backlinks today.
Don’t know how many links you should build? Read this NOW! Otherwise please keep reading to learn about the top link building strategies you can implement right now.
What Will I Learn?
This link building strategy almost seems too easy…
Well…
That’s because it is!
With just a few minutes work you can create powerful homepage links to your website.
Let me explain what I mean.
By reaching out and offering positive testimonials for services and/or products that you are using…
…you can have your testimonial published with a link back to your website.
Here is one of my testimonials based on the findings of my Surfer SEO review–
Which includes a backlink to my homepage.
So let’s take a quick look at how to build a number of external links with testimonials!
To get started with this link building tactic, you need to find the websites for services and products that you could provide a testimonial for.
Each site needs to-
So start by writing a list of tools/products/services you are already using in your business.
If you’re struggling to come up with any ideas you could cheat a little bit.
Look at what other tools and services people in your niche use….
And you’ll quite often find that a free trial will be on offer to test the tool…
Now we need to find the right person to contact.
Sometimes you can just ask via the contact form on the website and some will even have dedicated testimonial submission forms.
Or you can use one of these handy extensions to help you find email addresses-
Then you can add each email address to your spreadsheet and start to contact everyone on your list with a pitch.
Before spending time creating a testimonial…
First pitch them with the idea that they could have a testimonial created by you.
Here are some thing’s to keep in mind when putting together your pitch:
Just keep it short, simple and sweet.
Writing the perfect testimonial is pretty straight forward.
You want to write a short piece of text that includes-
Here are some good example testimonials from my readers-
To learn more on testimonial link building, including exactly how to build these links from start to finish, checkout my full guide-
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Using testimonials as a link building strategy is a fantastic way to build high quality homepage links.
- Generate a list of target services and products
- Find the right person to pitch to
- Send them your pitch
- Write the testimonial
It really is that easy and if you need any more help you can see my full testimonial link building tutorial.
Crowdfunding is one of the most unknown and underused link building strategy.
Someone who is raising money for their business through crowdfunding will often place a link to each person that contributed…
See where this is going yet?
The donation can be anything from $1 up to thousands of dollars and can be found for all kinds of projects across all niches.
There are two ways to obtain links.
Donor links are from pages that publish the details of all donors, including a link to the donor’s website:
Package links are when links are offered as part of a package you get if you donate a certain amount of money:
Sounds easy right? It really is!
There are hundreds of crowdfunding sites out there to search through. But we are gonna take a closer look at Indiegogo.
There is a simple way to look for crowdfunding projects without trawling through the site. Simply do a Google search using these keywords:
You need to be prepared to sift through the results…
But they will be vastly narrowed down to projects that either add donor’s details to their donor page or projects that offer links in exchange for your donation.
You will be able to find a bunch of crowdfunding projects that are affordable and an easy way to get links to your website.
You might even benefit from some of their other perks too!
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Crowdfunding is an underused link building strategy.
You can build backlinks from crowdfunding projects by either:
- Being included on their donation page
- Receiving a link back as part of a package
Make a list of crowdfunding sites to search.
Use Google searches to narrow down opportunities:
- site:[website URL] inurl:projects +“link to your”
- site:[website URL] inurl:projects +”donor page”
And find crowdfunding pages within your niche that allow you to build links and are within your budget. Check out my full crowdfunding link building tutorial to learn more.
Did you know that you can use events as part of your link building strategy?
They could be local, national, and international events that you can utilize to build links.
There are two ways you can do this…
You can create your own event and then have it advertised on third-party event sites which then link back to your website.
These links are usually extremely relevant and come from high authority sites.
Alternatively, you can sponsor an event being hosted by someone else as most hosts will list (and link to) all their sponsors.
This is also a great way to build good relationships with other authorities in your industry.
I am going to give you a quick glimpse of how to find events to sponsor. This type of event link building offers all the benefits without actually having to host an event.
Firstly you need to figure out what type of events are relevant to your niche.
This could be workshops, conferences, lectures, clubs etc…
Then you need to make a list of where these events are likely to be hosted online.
Depending on the event, local events may be hosted on local sites, but national or international events can usually be found on sites like:
To find events that you can sponsor…
You can use these Google searches for each of the hosting sites:
And if you want to pull in more specific results, just add a keyword at the end:
Search through the results and make a list of any events that are relevant to your niche.
Rinse and repeat for each event hosting site using each search term.
Once you have exhausted all opportunities and set up your sponsorships for each event, you can set up Google alerts to find any new sponsorship opportunities as they appear.
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Event link building is a great way to get backlinks that Google approves of.
There are two ways of building these links:
- Hosting An Event: Creating an event where third-party event websites link back
- Sponsoring An Event: Sponsoring a relevant event & receiving a link as a sponsor
Finding events to sponsor is easy to do with these Google searches:
- site:[website URL] inurl:events +“sponsors”
- site:[website URL] inurl:events +“link to your”
- site:[website URL] inurl:registration +“sponsors”
- site:[website URL] +“sponsors”
- site:[website URL] + “donation”
- site:[website URL] + “become a sponsor”
Just add the event hosting site (eg. eventful.com/) and if you need to narrow down the search to more relevant events…
Simply add another keyword to the search.
Rinse and repeat for a range of event hosting sites for each search term or check out my step by step guide to event link building.
Social media backlinks are generally considered by a lot of people to be a waste of time.
This is because they are nofollow and considered to carry little SEO benefit but still form an important base of links most genuine businesses should have. Healthy link profiles include both follow links and legitimate nofollow.
So I am going to show you 5 quick wins from Facebook (accessible for all skill levels) but there are 23 more from other networks listed in my full social media backlinks guide.
As Facebook is the most popular network I thought we would start there…
Let’s dive in:
The best way to connect a new visitor to your website is through your ‘Intro’.
Just add your website URL in your basic settings and be sure to have it set to public.
As well as adding your website to your about page contact info, you can also place your website URL in the description:
By having your website appear twice on your about me page…
You are doubling your chances of sending traffic to your website from there.
For those articles, you are posting that aren’t directing traffic to your site…
You can still add a link as a reference.
This can easily be worked into all your blog posts.
You can add page buttons underneath your cover photo.
These can be optimised to send traffic to your website when clicked:
Simply add or edit your page button and input your website’s URL.
You can add your website to the description of an image (which most people don’t do).
This works best when done for your profile picture and cover photo:
Don’t forget to update this each time you change your pictures.
To learn more about using social media backlinks on Facebook and other platforms like:
…head over to my full tutorial – 28 Social Media Backlinks To Increase Your Rankings
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Social media backlinks are more valuable than most people think and there are many ways you can build these links which I cover in my full tutorial.
But here’s a snap shot of how you can build social media backlinks on Facebook:
- Your Profile’s ‘Info’ Tab
- Your ‘About’ Page Description
- Include A Website Link In All Posts
- Page Buttons
- Picture Descriptions
Boring right?
But guest blogging is one of the most popular, simplest and most effective link building strategy there is…
But Google has given us multiple warnings-
And more importantly:
John Mueller advised to nofollow guest post links.
My point is:
And in the end…
All Google’s ranking algorithm wants to see is specific metrics. It’s your job to feed it those metrics.
And guest posts will always work very well as a marketing function to build a target audience and feed the algorithm the metrics it wants.
The idea behind guest blogging is simple:
I won’t lie to you:
Guest blogging isn’t what it’s used to be a few years ago.
It’s much much harder to earn a genuine link placement in 2024.
Most site owners have caught on and often want payments to place your guest posts.
Which is nothing more than just a long-winded way to buy links right?
And some people are much much more direct-
That’s not to say that guest blogging isn’t worth doing and it’s definetly easier if you use one of the recommended guest posting services.
Feel free to walk that line however you choose.
To get started with guest blogging, there are 5 steps you need to follow:
The first step to getting started with guest blogging is to find your prospects.
These are the websites where you are going to publish your piece of content. Ideally, you want to publish on sites with high DA (domain authority), page authority and high organic traffic.
But how do you find them?
Two words – SEO Footprints.
Think of SEO Footprints as digital imprints left around the web. You can leverage these footprints by using search operators to find potential sites for guest blogging.
Here’s an example:
Let’s say you run a site about sustainable living. Go to Google and do a quick search using the following: “proudly powered by WordPress” intitle:sustainability
This will bring up a list of WordPress websites about sustainability.
The reason this works so well is because lots of websites built on WordPress have blogs. This gives you a whole list of potential guest blogging opportunities on niche-relevant sites.
Cool, right?
And the best part is there are so many different variations of SEO footprints to try.
Here are a few of the top ones:
Make sure you check out our complete SEO footprints tutorial to get even more ways to find strategic guest blogging opportunities for link building.
With the list, you have created, run each site through Ahrefs (who just so happen to be the best backlink checker) to check their domain authority.
Take the first website in your list, and go to the Site Explorer. Once you are there, add the website you want to analyze and click on the orange loop icon.
In the menu, take the number that you see in the center of the screen, under the DR sign.
Add these numbers to your list and repeat the process until you have the DR of every site.
With the list of websites, go to each site and contact the manager to check if they are interested in your pitch.
To contact each blog you can use the following template:
Subject: Writing for SITE
Hi [NAME],I was checking out [SITE] today and found the guest post you published from [GUEST POSTER’S NAME].
I loved that article, I just shared it with my audience.
I’d love to be your next guest author. Here are some topics that I think would do really well with [SITE] readers:
- Topic #1
- Topic #2
- Topic #3
Do any of these ideas look good? Let me know your thoughts.
Best,
[YOUR NAME]
I highly recommend that you customise that a little bit and also take a peek at any specific guest post guidelines they may have.
Once you get accepted, start creating the content.
It’s important to write with the blog’s target audience in mind!
If you need to dig into the site’s audience, read the comments from previous articles and check the blog posts that got the most shares and comments.
Don’t hold anything back, write everything you know about the subject-
Take a look at this incredible guest post by James Johnson-
He teaches everything he knows about becoming a freelance writer.
And he holds nothing back!
Once you finish writing it, send it their way.
A great thing about guest blogging is that it helps you build relationships with the blog managers.
Creating a network is important if you ever need help promoting a specific piece of content from your site and you want to publish often in a high-authority site.
One of the most overlooked benefits of guest blogging is the ability to open direct conversation with someone elses audience.
What does that mean?
Well it means that you should-
If you do those 3 things alongside your guest post, you will accelerate your results.
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Guest blogging can take some time, and due to the amount of content you have to create, it can get messy.
- Find your prospects with the help of the Google footprints I previously shared
- Then, qualify every blog you found to make sure you are pitching to the right place.
- Reach out to the right people using the template I shared as a basis.
- Send your guest post and get it published.
- Engage with their audience as much as possible.
It can be a pretty long-winded process, but it is an effective one.
It will allow you to find, qualify and reach out to hundreds of blogs in just a few clicks.
If you need help with guest posting, check out one of these guest posting services.
Most websites have hundreds, if not thousands, of links. Many of them link internally, while others do it externally.
For whatever reason, these links can easily break and stop working.
Most site owners don’t realize this when it happens, and it can break their user experience, reputation, and SEO performance.
In fact as I am writing this, I just did a quick check on my own blog-
And I have broken links from an old a/b experiment where I didn’t redirect the test page!
Finding broken links represent a magnificent occasion for you to-
All of that makes this one of my favorite types of link building.
Broken link building is the tactic Nikolay Stoyanov used to acquire 15 links in 1 day with a 15% conversion rate.
It really is one of the most underutilized link building strategies in my opinion.
Here is how to do it-
The first step of this link building strategy is to define the website where you want to get a link from.
You can pick any website you want, but I’d recommend you be realistic about your expectations.
The chances of getting a link from Inc or The New York Times after you find a broken link are slim to none.
The best websites where you can get a link from are personal blogs and small companies.
The site owners and managers will be grateful for your help, and they will likely thank you with a link.
Once you have created the list of the websites you want to get a link from, you need to start searching for the broken links.
To do so, you can use seo tool like: Check My Links and Ahrefs.
Check My Links is a useful Chrome Extension that finds for links within a specific page.
Ahrefs will analyze the site thoroughly and will make a list of all the broken links it has.
You see exactly how to find broken links with these tools here.
Once you finished analyzing all the sites and pages, it’s time to contact the blog owner or manager to let them know about the broken link.
Your first goal should be to create a relationship and build some trust .
If you have a web page that’s relevant to the page where you find the broken link, then let them know about it.
Don’t do it to get a link; do it to help them have a great page for their readers.
If you don’t have something relevant to offer, focus on fixing the broken link at hand. It’s likely you will find more opportunities later on to ask for a link.
You’ll be amazed at the types of responses you receive from people!
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The key to broken link building is finding the right sites to pitch. Begin by picking websites that you’d want to get a link from.
You can find the sites with the most amount of broken links with the help of a tool like Ahrefs, or you can just check case-by-case with the help of Check My Links.
Learn how to scale this broken link building process with my full broken link building tutorial.
Internal link building is one of my favorite link building strategies.
Not only do you have complete control over where you place your links…
But:
It is super easy to implement and carries very little to no risk of penalisation.
An internal link is a link placed on one web page that links to another web page of the same domain.
For example-
And because they are internal links that we place on our own sites and pages-
It means that we have complete control over them and the anchor text that we use.
Internal links carry a lot of value and most people don’t realise just how much they help your SEO.
Here’s why…
And I don’t know why-
Because it’s very easy to implement!
There are 3x internal link building strategies that I like to use when it comes to placing links…
I’m going to show you the manual linking process here.
It takes a bit more time to apply…
..but you’ll end up with a powerful internal linking structure and a dangerous amount of know how.
However, you can still learn the other 2x easier methods in my internal link building tutorial.
First up you need to make a list of your URL’s and the target keywords.
Then use Google to search for blog posts on your website where you could add relevant links.
Add your links (try to use exact match anchor text) and then repeat for each URL/keyword in your list.
It might take a while – but I promise you it’s worth it.
And remember…
Internal link building is not a set and forget process. You must be sure to add internal links from old content to new content every time you publish!
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Take Internal linking seriously!
It can do wonders for your SEO and you can use them to-
- Help Google find your content and rank it better
- Use them to direct traffic to high conversion pages
Use the manual internal link building strategy to have complete control over your link placements.
And be sure to add internal links to each new post you publish from old content.
Learn more with my internal link building tutorial that also includes a downloadable smart template to help you out.
This is one of my favourite white hat link building strategies!
Your competitors spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours developing their link building strategies to acquire high-quality links.
If you have a small budget, why would you try to compete with those companies? You’d most likely fail to get the same quality of links your competitors get.
Instead of hitting your head against your wall in anger and deciding to work harder, you should work smarter.
The idea I’m suggesting is simple:
Spy on your competitors and steal their best backlinks.
You are basically drafting with your competitors; they work hard to get links, you follow them and get the same ones.
This is also one of our most effective ecommerce link building strategies in terms of win rate and overall time invested per earned link-
Let’s take a quick look at the process:
Start by making a list of 5x competitor that ranks for a keyword you want to rank for.
It doesn’t matter if they are bigger or smaller than you. They will all teach you some valuable lessons.
Once you have your list of competitors, you will need to analyse their backlinks profile.
You can download my intelligent spreadsheets that make this a really easy process.
As you already know, my favorite tool for this is Ahrefs but my spreadsheets also work with SEMRush and SEO Powersuite.
If for any reason you don’t want to use my intelligent sheets, you can do it manually…
The analysis is simple: go to Ahrefs’ Site Explorer, add the link from one of your competitors, and click the orange loop button.
In the left-side menu, click on the link that says Backlinks.
In here you can see all the inbound links my competitor (in this case, a paleo blog) got.
To make your analysis more interesting, click on the little arrow next to “Nofollow” button in the bar above the results.
Here you can organize the links by those that are “Dofollow”, “Nonfollow”, “UGC” and “Sponsored”.
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Reverse engineering is simple, yet it takes some creativity from your end.
You want to know why your competitor got its links; your analysis will try to uncover just that.
- Start by making a list of your competitors in the top 5 search results.
- Then analyse the backlinks with the help of my awesome spreadsheets.
- Or do it manually with Ahrefs, go to the Site Explorer, add your competitor, and once you have the results, click on the link that says Backlinks.
- There, click on the Link type button, and export the whole list of URLs you get.
- With this list, you want to open each link and figure out how and why they got the link.
Ask yourself, is it because of the quality of their content? Is it because they offer something unique and valuable?
You want to know the why behind the link. Learn more about this strategy with my full competitorbacklink analysis tutorial.
Link Roundups are blog posts that “round up” links to awesome content.
This is usually done daily weekly or monthly and often includes a short write up.
Take a look at this blog post example from Matt Diggity’s Blog:
You can find these types of blog posts in nearly every niche.
All you need to do is-
It doesn’t get much easier than that!
Use Google to do the following searches…
…and then go through the results and add any suitable roundup sites to a spreadsheet.
For example:
If I wanted to build links to my Ecommerce SEO guide…
My Google search would look like this-
In a matter of seconds, I have a bunch of relevant search results to add to my list-
Repeat the search for each suggestion mentioned above.
And once you have a list ready…
Find the contact email address for each site by following my email address lookup guide or using a tool like FindThatLead.
Or if you’ve got time search their site for an email address or contact form.
The problem with this kind of pitch though…
Is that the bloggers that publish these kind of roundup posts get emails like this every day-
So if you want to get featured…
I suggest that you use a 2 pronged approach-
You could send something that looks like this at first-
Hey,
I am a frequent reader of #INSERTROUNDUPNAME# – thanks for putting it together every #WEEK/MONTH/YEAR#.
When you featured #INSERTURL# it really helped me to #INSERTRESULT#
Looking forward to the next roundup!
Thanks again for putting it together all the time!
– Your Name
Once they reply, then pivot with your link pitch.
And that’s it!
Link Roundup Link Building is so simple and easy to carry out.
All you need is-
Not only will you get a link, but you’ll likely receive targeted traffic as well!
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There are loads of blogs out there who regularly publish link roundup posts which you can take advantage of.
- Identify blogs in your niche who publish link roundups
- Find contact information
- Pitch your content
Be sure that any content you pitch is top quality & adds value to their roundup.
Most websites have a resource page where they list all the tools, guides and articles that they use or have found useful.
I have a few of them across the blog-
And it’s not just me.
Take a look at this resource page from the Goinswriter team–
This is in essence just a list of links with some added commentary.
I’m sure you have figured out where this is going right?
Voila!
Jump over to Google and search these terms-
If I wanted to build links to a meditation blog, it would look like this-
Just look through the results and pick any that fit your content.
Add those to a spreadsheet and you’re ready for the next step.
The next step is to reach out to the website and pitch them your content to add to the resource page.
But just like we did earlier, it’s better to take a 2 pronged approach to get the link placed-
It really is as easy as that!
The more people you ask, the more links you will get.
Simples!
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A simple, yet effective link building strategy is Resource Link Building.
Find resource pages that relate to your article, tool, product or service and pitch to the website owner to feature your content.
Give them useful evergreen content and earn a valuable backlink in return.
Want to learn more about how to do this? Check out my full guide to resource page link building.
Creating content that drives attention has become harder and harder as time goes by.
To create relevant and useful content, it needs to stand out.
Using unique data to develop and enrich your content can help it stand out, command the attention it deserves, and attract the link your website needs.
Take a look at this post-
I built 12 tests sites across 12 of the most popular hosts to try and find out who really offers the fastest WordPress hosting.
Then I published the results (data)-
Now, this took quite a lot of time, effort, and money to do.
But it answered a common question with data and attracted a bunch of links-
I also shared data with my case studies and my monthly income reports for the same reason.
To get started, here are a few ideas you can implement to make your content more data-driven:
There is no step-by-step plan for this. Rather, it’s a process you need to follow.
Before you hit the “Publish” button, ask yourself-
Does this article has any unique data?
If not, try to add some so you give it more substance.
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You can make this as simple or as complicated as you want.
- Find a common question in your niche
- Then compile data to answer that question
That might mean running your own tests or aggregating the data of others.
You could even take someone else’s data and do a better job of presenting it with graphics/infographics/interactive charts/tables.
This approach also works well with the NewsJacking strategy above because it’s often easy to compile quick reference data/infographics when a story breaks.
If you have a respected brand in your industry or location, people likely write about you. When someone mentions you online, an opportunity to get a link appears.
Unfortunately, many times people forget to link to your site when they mention you but fixing that is easy!
In a moment I am going to show you an easy way to automate this but for now, I want you to understand the process.
First, search your site on Google-
“searchlogistics.com” -inurl:searchlogistics.com
This returns a list of results that mention my domain name but excludes all the pages from my own blog.
Be creative with your keywords; people may misspell your company’s name more often than you think.
Make a list of all the sites you find where you have gotten a mention.
Check for-
Once you have created the list of websites, find the person who’s responsible for managing it.
If you are in doubt, use the “Contact” page, but it’s better to go straight to the person who can actually fix the mention.
Once you have the email addresses you can just use this template-
But don’t forget to customize it first!
Hey [NAME],
I’ve seen you mentioned us on [PAGE].
Thanks a lot!
By the way, I’ve seen you haven’t linked to our site. It’d be of great use for your readers if you added a link, so they can learn more about us.
Here’s the link you can use: [URL].
Thanks a lot,
[YOUR NAME]
And of course:
Don’t forget to send those follow-ups-
Or you’ll be leaving a bunch of links on the table!
Many people won’t answer you because it’s been a long time since they published the page where they mentioned you.
That’s why it’s so important to respond fast whenever you get a mention without a link.
To do this, you should learn how to setup Google Alerts so you’re always ready.
But in essence – every time you see you get a new mention alert, make sure to check there’s a link.
Otherwise, contact the writer or editor of the website and ask for the link, using the template shown before.
This way, you’ll be able to bring high-quality links to your site with no effort from your end.
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Link reclamation is one of the easiest link building techniques there is.
You are basically getting links from people who already like you, so your pitching will be more effective than usual.
- To get started, look for mentions your company or site has gotten via Google.
- Whenever you find a mention without a link, contact the site owner asking for a link with my template.
- Finally, set up alerts with the help of Google Alerts to make sure never to miss any future mentions.
This is one of the more quick win link building strategies that nearly anyone can apply instantly!
One of my favourite link building hacks is to recycle expired domains.
Why?
Because some aged domains–
Regardless of which side of the stupid white hat/black hat argument you subscribe to-
You should be wielding their power for your business.
You can buy them for the same price as new domains! (more about that later)
You have a few choices when you buy an expired domain-
We used one to build out a new site in November which has already taken 15 number 1 positions and featured snippets-
This is why so many people use them because if you build out a site on a highly authoritative and relevant expired domain it can give you a serious head start.
But the trick is finding RELEVANT expired domains that have authority in the first place.
Finding expired domains can be as hard or as easy as you want it to be.
I have used every tool under the sun over the years and for me the best tools by far are Domain Hunter Gatherer and Spamzilla.
They will help you to find expired domains and pull in key metrics for you.
What you do with an expired domain once you have found it is up to you.
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Expired domains that have great backlink profiles are worth their weight in gold!
Buying these domains and either building your websites on them or using them to create links is an intelligent strategy.
Learn more about expired domains and how to recycle them.
PRO TIPS: Selling expired domain names is a great way to make extra income. Learn how to sell a domain name.
One of the key elements of any effective link building campaign is creating great website content that stands out and commands attention.
Creating content that has a higher likelihood of going viral, however, isn’t easy.
Instead of wasting time trying to figure out what people may like, you can take what people are already talking about and use that as inspiration for your next piece of content.
This tactic is known as “newsjacking” because you are taking advantage of a popular topic from the news and using it to create and promote your own content.
A classic case of newsjacking is what Oreo did in the Superbowl 2013. After the energy shut down in the stadium, they tweeted the following:
This Oreo tweet got more than 15,880 retweets and 6,200 favourites in just a few hours.
They also got a lot of press (and the links that come with it), including mentions in The Huffington Post, Wired, and CNET.
You can use this same press to get links to your site.
Here’s how you do it:
Research what people talk about with the help of Google Trends.
You can put your own ideas in the top search bar and see their popularity, or write down the list of topics that show up on the homepage.
The young royals, for example, represent a great idea for many articles, especially if you are in the design, beauty, and fashion industry.
Go broad with your list of ideas; later you will analyse them in more detail.
With your initial list of popular topics, brainstorm a list of content articles. You want both to have some relationship with one another.
For example, if you have a blog that talks about leadership, you could write something related to Tim Cook’s leadership style-
With your list of content ideas, define one that suits you best, and start creating the content fast.
Time is your friend in here. The popularity of some topics lasts only a few weeks, if not days.
Make sure to have the article done no longer than a week after you found it.
Talking about a popular topic makes promotion easier, but it’s not a fool-proof way of creating viral content.
As it always happens with content, focus on the promotion. Don’t promote it on social media alone; use it as a way to get the attention of people both within and outside your industry.
Reach outside your industry. Using the previous example, you may want to reach blogs that talk about technology, business, Apple, and Uber.
This Section In Short
Newsworthy content always attract attention (and link opportunities).
It’s really easy to do and there are new opportunities every single week!
- To find newsjacking opportunities, get to know what people are searching for with Google Trends.
- You can go deeper with the help of the categories section.
- With the results, brainstorm potential ideas that tie your expertise with the news.
- Create the content fast, and aggressively promote it.
Remember, people like sharing content that’s new and unique; newsjacking can help you achieve just that.
Dale Carnegie said once
Similarly, if you play on people’s ego, the chances of getting links from high-authority sites increase significantly.
First, you build relationships with people that manage high-traffic, high authority blogs/sites.
As you know, relationships are one of the key ways to get anything in life, including links.
If you get influencers interested in your article, they will feel invested. Once you publish it, they will feel “pushed” to share and link to it, even if you don’t tell them.
This is the basis of influencer marketing.
Creating ego bait list posts (ELP for short) has helped get 2000 views to a blog that wasn’t even getting 50 visits per month.
In the image above you can see the sessions went up 482%, while the pageviews increased 1382% and the users 624%.
If you want to get started with ego bait, follow these steps:
As I recommend on the ego bait list article, start with the headline, which sums up the idea of the article.
You can use the following structure:
Number + (industry) blogs/experts + promise/keyword
Pick a list of influencers from your industry, and define the promise that your article will fulfil.
You can pick as little or as many as you want, depending on how much in-depth you want to go with each influencer.
For example you might want to ask what everyone’s favorite link building tools are.
That makes it easy for the influencers to know exactly what they are expected to write about. The audience will also appreciate a specific piece of advice they can use on their own.
Even though you have already specified the main promise of the article, you want to define the question you will ask the influencers.
Be specific and focus on one question only.
Influencers are busy people, that’s why you want them to answer your question with the greatest level of detail possible.
When defining the question, remember what people would want to read about.
Pick a unique angle for the question.
For example, if I were to do another SEO ego bait article like the one I showed you before, I’d focus on something like the best local SEO strategy or favourite 30 minutes SEO quick win.
It still focuses on SEO but has a new angle that brings a good answer to people’s problems.
Create a list of all the experts you want to contact. You can brainstorm the experts or search on Google for other expert roundups in your niche & with similar target markets-
Make sure to define experts that have sites with high domain authority & page authority as well as social following. This will make the sharing as well as the linking more powerful.
After you define the list of experts, find their contact information. Look in their personal websites, use LinkedIn, or simply ask them on Twitter.
Finally, send the influencers an email with your question. If they don’t answer right away, wait a few days.
Follow up two times more, and if they don’t answer, ask a different influencer. Don’t be a pushy link builder.
You should get a response rate of around 10-25%, maybe more if you already have a relationship with some of the influencers or if you are one yourself.
This Section In Short
Creating egobait articles is simple.
The key to success is to structure your article for success and be organized with the pitching.
- Start by defining your headline.
- It must convey the value right away so people want to click on it.
- You can use the structure I recommend which is: Number + (industry) blogs/experts + promise/keyword
- Then, define the question (or questions) you want to ask to the influencers.
- Make sure to make it super concise and actionable.
- Then, define the experts you want to contact.
- Finally, contact the experts with the question you previously defined.
- Once you publish your content, make sure you contact the experts so they help you promote it.
Also, remember it’s all about the relationships; once an expert knows about your site, it will be easier for them to link to your site in the future (assuming they like your site).
BONUS EGO BAIT STRATEGY: Take a look at this awesome link building tutorial that you can use to ego bait people in a different way.
I won’t lie to you…
Even with the best link building strategies – link building is still hard work and takes time. That’s why so many people choose to outsource link building to reputable link building services.
That way you can focus on running your business while letting SEO pros take care of your links.
You don’t just want to hire any link building service.
You only want to hire a link building agency you can trust.
Here are some things to think about:
Remember:
With link building services – You get what you pay for.
Don’t go looking for the cheapest link buliding service you can find. Hire a link building service with a reputation for delivering quality links and the results showing they know what they are doing.
LinksThatRank is the best link building service we can recommend.
They have a strong reputation for delivering quality links to clients and even display case study screenshots on their home page to prove it.
But what we really love about LinksThatRank is that they are laser-focused on quality control.
Unlike other services they-
Crazy, right?
LinksThatRank also offers a quick and easy buying process that’s entirely hands-off.
All you have to do is choose the links you need and tell them which keyword you are targeting – they take care of the rest.
The truth is that there is no blanket answer to this question.
Every single keyword, niche and search result is different.
The good news is that it’s possible to calculate how many backlinks you need to rank for a target keyword.
Just follow this simple 3-step process.
Don’t build links to every page on your site.
Why?
Because not every page is worth it. Link building costs time and money.
You should only build links to pages that include keywords that generate real leads and sales for your business.
So, the first thing you need to do is work out which pages they are.
Here’s how we do it:
You can do all of this for free using Google Search Console.
Need some more help?
Watch the video below for more information.
Now that you have your shortlist of target keywords, you can calculate the “link gap”.
The link gap is simply the minimum number of links you need to rank in the top 3 positions on Google for your target keyword.
For this, you will need a premium tool like Ahrefs or Semrush.
Here’s how the process works:
The video below outlines this entire process in more detail.
Now you are ready for the last step…
Link building is the trickiest part for many SEOs.
Some people feel comfortable enough to do it themselves with any of the above link-building strategies.
Others prefer to outsource it to a service link LinksThatRank.
You decide which method is right for your business.
Either way…
You now know which pages to build links to and how many links you need to build. The last step is simply to build them.
Getting your newly built links indexed is essential.
Why?
They will only help your rankings if Google knows they exist. Now you could let Google naturally find them or…
You can take matters into your own hands to make sure they do.
Using a proven indexing strategy and service is the easiest way to index your links quickly.
So I tested 14 popular indexing methods to see which was best. You can see the full results of the backlink indexer test here.
For those who don’t want to read…
There were only 3 services that worked:
These were the only services that got Google to visit the URL and index the junk content we added to random pages. If you want your new links indexed faster – use one of the services above.
I’ve shown you 16x link-building strategies you can implement in 2024 for maximum results.
And the best part is… you don’t need any technical SEO knowledge or SEO skills to get started! But remember, before starting link building, make sure:
Then, master each of them!
I recommend you get started with the competitor backlink analysis because it’s the easiest for most people to pull off, it has stood the test of time and has consistently delivered fantastic results for us-
Before long, your website will have gotten dozens of high-quality links that will drive lots of traffic to your site and boost your search engine optimization.
Otherwise, you can just:
…To do the hard work for you and build a number of links pointing to your domain.
And before you go:
Please tell me-
Which 3x link building strategies are you going to be focusing on this year?
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A vast collection of back link list, Thanks for sharing with us!
No problem! Which link building strategies are you going to use?
This post is really very useful. I found some new strategies for link building. Thanks for sharing such a knowledgeable post.
Glad it was helpful! Cheers, Nikita!
thankyou for this wonderfulblog post about link building stratigies
No problem! Cheers, Mary!
Thank you so much for such an informative piece of information. I am struggling these days to know how exactly I should promote my blog and I believe this article is Gem for me. I already started implementing it. Thanks again for your time and help us with the common problem.
Glad it was helpful- Good luck, Richard!
It’s always good to think about what strategies you’ll use a few months or years into the future. Here are my 2 ideas:1) Be an expert in one specific field (medical, environmental, etc.). A site which is focused on a niche will always be able to build links easier than other types of sites.2) Create multimedia content (video, audio podcasts). People love high quality content and with so many new ways to listen to music or watch videos, it becomes very easy to get people interested in your work if the quality is there. Photos can also attract traffic these days if they are interesting and/or thought provoking.
Thank you for sharing these tips with us, Ivan!
Hi Matthew.Compliments on a superbly crafted article.You have certainly put a different spin on a facet of SEO that I have read countless articles on. I will definitely begin to implement and work on my three link building strategies.
Glad to hear that, Mark- Which strategies are you going to implement?
Good and informative article.
Thank you, Alex!
Thank you for sharing this information
Always happy to help! Which strategies are you going to use?
Thanks for this great article and for sharing valuable information.
No problem!
Great ! your Blog is worth it, this is really helpful
Thank you!
Great tips!
Very detailed and comprehensive. Thanks for providing such an insightful blog. This would be helpful in my blogging.
No worries!
Hey Matt,Nice write-up. Love to read your link-building guides.I love that you mentioned “Create Data-Driven Content”. Which is the hardest thing for me to promote now. Yeah I have great data studies, but I really struggled in promoting them. I tried to press realize but it didn’t work. How do you find and make a pitch for journos? Can you share your exact strategy please how you get links from data studies?
Hey Vlad, I usually promote my content via my social networks. People really love this kind of content so it usually gets attention, comments and shares. I also send an email including a link to the new “data-driven content” to all my subscribers to promote it. I don’t really contact journos to promote my content but if you want to do so, you should try HARO.
Hey Matthew,Thanks for sharing this wonderful strategies it was very much helpful. I will try doing the roundup and gust blogging strategy.
The best is to pick only 3 strategies at the beginning and become a master of these 3 before trying more 😉
Hi Matthew Awesome Job! This really useful informaiton 2021 offpage Link building task. I really apricates your affords to explain briefly Link Building. Thanks for sharing valuable information. I am highly recommend your blog article.
Thanks, Raj!
Link building has evolved so much over time. It is no longer about simply getting backlinks. The quality of the backlink also plays a vital role.
Amazing, very useful tips. You have explained a step-by-step guide on link building strategy which is impressive. However, if you could tell more about finding high-quality links, it would be more beneficial. Overall, nice article
Hey! You can’t “find” them, you need to build them. And this is what this post is about. I showed you how to build high-quality links. If you want to know what a good link is made of so you can recognise a good link from a bad link, then, read this: https://searchlogistics.com/seo/link-building/Hope this helps!
good article and I am very impressed with this article, allow me to recommend this website to my friends.
Sure thing. Thank you, Kaos!
Thanks for writing this article guide; link building is definitely a science that takes time to learn. look fwd to working through these strategies and seeing what works
Way to go, Tom! Good luck!
Great post. All these tips are really informative. After reading this post I think it is help me to post write more consistently. thanks a lot.
No problem!
Hi Matthew,Thank you for this information! It’s great to see a step-by-step guide for a range of options. I’d only really considered the competitor analysis before! I will be looking into Event Hosting and writing Testimonials in more detail as two other possible options of backlink building.Thanks!
Way to go, Jonathan! Good luck!
Useful article thanks for sharing
No worries!
No-follow links make very little impact in link-building strategy.
“nofollow links are considered to carry little SEO benefit but still form an important base of links most genuine businesses should have. Healthy link profiles include both follow links and legitimate nofollow.” Just read the article 🙂
Some great tips here Matthew! Really top advice to help people take their SEO efforts to the next level!
Thank you, Declan! Glad it helps! Cheers
great post helped me big time to get relevant information for link building for my website
Glad to hear that! Cheers 🙂
Building a link is a matter but quality is a must. As nowadays people only focus on the number of backlinks
Hey Nicholas! I totally agree with you. Because bad links can hurt very badly a website! So building high-quality links is the key!
Link Building is Really Important Thing when we looking to Build our Domain as Band
Correct!
thank you for writing this post this is very helpful to me. I try this and get the result very helpful thanks to author
Glad it helped! Keep it up!
Really a great article is published by you and also helping material.
Thanks 🙂
Hi Jason! I am speaking about buying expired domains. If want more info about that, read this dedicated post- https://searchlogistics.com/seo/expired-domains/
This is very informative and exciting for those who are interested in the blogging field.
Glad you found this article helpful!
I’m using the Link roundup technique in my case and it was a really very helpful and effective method for me.Thanks, Matthew, I really love your contents and strategies.
Glad to hear that! Keep the hard work up!
Thanks for this great info
No worries! 🙂
It’s really helpful for me thanks for sharing this.
No worries!
You’re right. It might happen that no one answers our questions, but like you said, weeks later someone may.
Yep, exactly! 🙂
Thanks for the amazing tips and tools I have read the blog thoroughly and it’s really impressive it will hopefully help me in my work as being a part of the SEO service provider company
Thank Seerat! Wish you good luck with your work 🙂
Hi there you mention about buying dead websites and touch on the price being like cheap new pages? You say more on that later but then don’t elaborate,? Carter to share here?Cheers and very useful
Thanks for these awesome link building tips. I want to ask one question can you please write about scholarship link building is it effective or not?
To be honest, I have never done it so I am not the right person to write about it or give advice 😉
Very nice blog
Glad to hear that!
Great post. You have provided valuable information through this post. Thanks for sharing it with us.
Cheers!
Thanks for sharing very informative and helpful article. I’m really appreciated.
Thanks for those kind words!
Thank you so much as you have been willing to share information with us.Dandelion Team
Always happy to share tips with my readers 😉
AisleyThank you for this blog. You’ve clearly explained all the Link building strategies in it.
Thanks, Roy! Glad you found it helpful 🙂
Thank you for this blog. You’ve clearly explained all the Link building strategies in it. Also, the images added to the blog acts as a plus point and makes the reader more into reading the content. Great and appreciable work.REPLY
Glad you found it helpful!
Great content finding ideas, Thank you for sharing
Personally, I Never knew deleting content can change the whole scenario for the website’s SERP, would do the same thing for Assetmonk.io as well.
Yes, it can be a game-changer! Try it and let me know if you notice any positive changes!
Very informative article regarding resource page link building. I’m gonna use this valuable information in my future studies on SEO. This topic can be quite overwhelming but thankfully there are a lot of resources like this to help me understand it easily
Glad to hear that! Wish you good luck, Cirilo, and let me know how it goes and if you have any questions!
nice
Cheers!
this is helpful, thanks for sharing this article.
No worries! Happy to help!
HiThanks for sharing your knowledge and Useful Post .
No problem!
Hey thank you so much for your amazing content on seo link building strategies.Your content is really helpful.regardsseo check point
Thank you very much – Glad it helps.