How To Get Backlinks: The Only 9 Link Building Strategies To Use

Innovative backlinking strategies play a crucial role in your company’s SEO success. Not only do backlinks drive traffic back to your website, but they also build your domain authority across the web.

On average, Marketers dedicate 28% of their SEO budgeting to link building. Whether these are inbound or outbound links, each and every one you score could improve your performance in an online marketplace.

With this in mind, we’ve put together the ultimate guide to building backlinks like a pro for an unbreakable SEO strategy in 2024.

Read on as we introduce the power behind backlinking and reveal the only nine strategies you need to see success on an online playing field.

What is a Backlink?

Before we dive head-first into the art of backlinking, let’s strip the term back to its core. What is link building? How can it improve your website performance?

A backlink is simply the process of linking from one website to another. For example, if a blog writes a roundup of the best financial magazines to read in the UK and chooses to list your website/blog/company, the chances are they will link out to your website in order to provide context for their readers.

This backlink provides a reader with a direct pathway to your content while also telling Google that your website is an industry player.

Therefore, it’s no surprise that the more backlinks you receive, the more traffic you drive to your website and the more visible you become to a search engine’s ranking algorithm.

Earning backlinks for your business plays a crucial role in where you stand on SERPs. However, obtaining them is not always an easy task.

Not all backlinks are created equally, so it’s essential to focus on building backlinks on high-DR websites, in reputable publications and in relevant industries–Don’t worry; we’ll get to that later.

For now, all that you need to know is that all positive backlinks can essentially be viewed as ‘points’ towards a better spot in a search engine result. The question is, where do you start?

The Different Types Of Backlinks

Before you start building your backlinking strategy, it’s important to know that there are numerous forms of ‘backlinks’. It’s not a one-fits-all approach.

Here are some of the most common forms of backlinks that you can find across the web:

Dofollow Backlinks

The most common type of backlink is a dofollow link. By default, every hyperlink is dofollow, unless it is specifically altered by its creator.

Dofollow links provide the sweet link juice you’re looking for by alerting a search engine of your mention in on a new website.

Diving deeper into the code, a dofollow link is a backlink with an unchanged HTML code. When websites include a dofollow link in their content, Google assumes that they aim to endorse the source that they are linking to.

The HTML code of a dofollow link looks a bit like this:

<a href=”https://example.com/”>Visit ACME’s homepage</a>

A dofollow link is best used when creating internal links, indexing inbound pages, and looking to place a link on a high DA/DR site/publication. This type of link will provide you with one of the highest SEO payoffs.

Nofollow Backlinks

On the flip side, nofollow links do not pass on any link juice to your website. The act of making a link ‘nofollow’ tells a search engine like Google to not count the ‘point’ towards credibility. Essentially, this tells the search engine not to endorse the source despite it appearing on another website.

You might wonder why nofollow links exist. Surely if a site links out to your website, they plan to also endorse your company? Not always. Nofollow links were created to combat low-quality links, otherwise known as spam links. This ensures that the source linked out to does not rise up the rankings as a result of gaining a backlink.

Nofollow links look a bit like this:

<a href=”https://example.com/” rel=”nofollow”>Visit ACME’s homepage</a>

If we’re talking code, these links contain the rel=“nofollow” adjustment. This blocks the source from receiving any link juice.

That said, not all nofollow links are useless. They still provide a consumer with a direct pathway to your website, driving traffic to your linked page and increasing brand visibility on the web.

UGC Backlinks

Backlinks can also be built organically within user-generated content (UGC). UGC links are built by consumers of media themselves, either on their own platforms or in the comments of someone else. These differ from branded dofollow backlinks as they follow the same style as a nofollow approach with a rel=“UGC” attribute.

UGC backlinks are most commonly found in a blog post’s comment box, online forums and across social media.

They look a little bit like this:

<a href=”https://example.com/” rel=”UGC”>Visit my website</a>

While they are less likely to provide link juice for your company website, they are brilliant at raising your credibility. Online consumers love word-of-mouth marketing. If someone within their own demographic has mentioned your brand, they are twice as likely to engage with the link and find out what you have to offer.

Sponsored Backlinks

Last but not least, we have sponsored backlinks. This process is also known as buying backlinks and suggests that the website has offered another website an incentive to link out to a brand/service within its content.

These types of backlinks contain rel=“sponsored” within the HTML code. This tells the search engine that the source linked out to has paid for their position on another website and should not receive the same amount of credibility as an organic dofollow link.

This is what a sponsored backlink might look like:

<a href=”https://example.com/” rel=”sponsored”>Check the newest shoe prices (affiliate link)</a>

Google is unlikely to consider sponsored backlinks when ranking a website because sponsored placements can be untrustworthy.

Building Site Authority Using Backlinks

Now that we’ve covered the most popular types of backlinks, let’s examine how they can alter a website’s authority.

A website’s domain authority suggests how likely it is to appear at the top of a search engine page. Awarded by search engines such as Google, sites with a high domain authority are considered to be authoritative players within their industry and credible sources that Google searchers can trust.

Here are just a few ways you can improve your website’s domain authority:

• Build A Strong Backlink Profile: If you have high-quality links for websites with high domain authority scores, Google is more likely to consider your website an authoritative player.
• Prioritise Content Quality: Ensure that your website content is well-researched, original and good enough to attract source links from other websites.
• Keep on Top of Your On-Site SEO: Factors such as a high bounce rate and traffic dips only send negative signals to a search engine’s ranking algorithm. Combat this by staying on top of your search engine optimisation, site navigation and keyword use to create a site that is both searchable and accessible to wide audiences.
• Engage With Brand Mentions: Tracking your brand mentions allows you to address any negative reviews/comments quickly. Reputable sites that stay engaged with their audience appear active to search engines and prove to Google that your website is responsive.
• Add Internal Links: Internal links also aid your domain authority. By adding pathways to other on-site pages, Google crawlers are more likely to index multiple pieces of site content at the same time, in turn raising your chances of receiving a higher DA score.
• Share, Share, Share: Ensure that you share your website links on all of your platforms, whether on social media or within an email newsletter. Increasing your brand awareness drives traffic to your site and tells a search engine that your web pages are in demand by your demographic.

A well-oiled backlinking strategy can also improve your domain authority in a number of ways. If you’re receiving numerous backlinks from other high-authority websites, you’re more likely to be classed in the same authority league as some of the largest players on SERPs.

It’s that simple. Or is it?

While gathering as many backlinks as possible sounds tempting, earning backlinks from low-quality sites with lower DA scores can actually harm your domain authority. This is why it is important to only place links on reputable, relevant websites that sit above your current ranking. This is how you rise on SERPs.

What Does The Perfect Backlink Look Like?

(Image Source: Ahrefs)

With domain authority in mind, what does the perfect backlink look like? There are plenty of tactics to use when crafting the ideal backlink, but here are just a few to get you started:

• Ensure That The Backlink Points To and From a Reputable Website: We may have already mentioned that scoring a backlink from a high authority site is essential, but you must also make sure the page/content you’re looking to earn a backlink for is both relevant and credible to the site you’re approaching. High-authority sites are more likely to link to brands that organically align with their industry, values, and customer base.
• Aim For A Dofollow Link: If you’re committing to backlinking as an SEO strategy, aim to score as many dofollow links as possible. Remember, these are the ones that don’t contain the ‘rel’ attribute that we spoke about earlier.
• Create an Organic Anchor: High-authority websites are less likely to publish your link request if your link anchor looks purely promotional or if the link/anchor is unrelated to the content it’s inserted into. Create anchors that naturally flow within a sentence and ensure that your anchor and link destination match for consumers who choose to engage.
• Insert Your Link On A Relevant Website: Just because a website has a high domain authority doesn’t mean that it’s a perfect fit for a backlink placement. For example, if you’re linking out to a pottery painting class on a used car website, you’re unlikely to see any real traffic on your link.

Valuable backlinking takes time, effort, and precision. To keep scoring DA points, each of your backlinks should be placed on high-authority sites relevant to your industry.

With this in mind, should we examine some of the easiest ways to place your link on a competitor’s website?

9 Valuable Link-Building Strategies For The Best Backlink Profile

Backlink building is one of the hardest SEO strategies to master in a modern-day search landscape.

In fact, it can take seasoned SEOs 1-2 hours to build a single link in the wake of new competition. As more websites battle it out to appear on the highest quality websites, blogs and publications, fine-tuning your link strategy could set you apart from the crowd.

Better still, Google now considers more than 200 factors in their ranking algorithm, so there are more backlinking tactics than ever before to sink your teeth into and trial for SEO success.

Here are nine of our favourite link-building strategies, which together form the backlink profile all SEOs dream of.

1. Guest Posting

First, let’s discuss guest posting. Guest posting is one of the most well-known organic backlinking strategies for a reason.

Guest posting is an effective way to get your link onto a high-authority website while also offering the domain something in return – high-quality content.

The idea here is to write up a blog post or an article for a relevant website that you’re looking to score a backlink from and include the link within the content you’re planning to outreach.

Simple right? Well, it’s much harder than it looks to score a guest post on a particularly powerful blog/publication. Top websites are inundated with guest post pitches and requests, so it’s vital that your piece stands out from the crowd.

Here are some factors to consider when writing a guest post for a reputable blog/publication

• Is My Content Relevant? Popular publications will only accept topic pitches that are right on brand with their current published works. Ensure that your content aligns with previously published blogs and offers a fresh perspective on a relevant topic.
• Is My Pitch Strong Enough? Once you’ve written your piece, it’s time to start outreaching. In order to secure a guest post placement, your email pitch must stand out from the crowd. Grab your recipient’s attention in the subject line, and really sell your article in the body of the email.
• Is My Link Organic? If your backlink stands out like a sore thumb, it’s likely to be removed, meaning that all of your hard work will go to waste. Ensure that your link is relevant to the topic you’re writing on, isn’t directly promotional, and is accompanied by an organic anchor that flows seamlessly within the text.

Another key factor to consider is your link placement within the guest post. If you’re looking to drive traffic, place your link in the top half of the guest post to capture readers who click away before finishing the article.

(Image Source: Blogging Wizard)

For websites with stricter linking policies, you can also include a link to your portfolio, business, or services in your author bio for another shot at success.

2. Hunt For Broken Backlinks and Pitch Replacements

Next up, we have broken link hunting. While we may have earned a backlink in the past, not all remain permanent.

Broken link building is the process of finding broken links on high-DA websites and convincing publishers to replace them with a fresh source from your website.

Whether the broken link was originally yours or happens to be a historical competitor link, offering a fresh source to a reputable website could benefit both their content quality and your backlink profile.

This is an effective backlink strategy simply because no website editor wants to find broken links within their content.

The key here is to offer a new link that is relevant to the published content and seamlessly replaces the broken link.

So, how do you find broken links?

There are plenty of ways to hunt for broken links. However, the easiest way to discover link opportunities is to use a broken link checker like Ahrefs or Semrush. Using these platforms, you can input the URL of any blog or website and quickly reveal every broken link that is currently live.

For the best results, input URLs of websites with powerful domain authority and those that are the most relevant to your industry. Here, you will find broken links that you have an organic replacement for.

Once you’ve tracked down your broken link, it’s time to pitch its replacement to the editor of the content you want to feature within.

Position yourself as a helpful source. Tell the publication why your content should be linked to their piece. If you offer your link as a solution rather than an inconvenience, you’ll be building your backlink profile in no time.

3. Add Comment Backlinks To Your Strategy

One of the easier ways to gain backlinks is to become active online. Start engaging with comments on your social platforms, regularly contribute to forums, and get down to business in a popular blog’s comment section.

While inserting backlinks into comments sections provides less link juice, they are still an effective way to build brand visibility online.

Due to comment links being indexed as UGC backlinks, they often contain the rel=“ugc” attribute. This said, when placed in front of the right audience, they can stimulate a significant traffic drive to your website.

For example, if an industry-relevant forum is talking about the best skincare brands and you’ve just released a new skincare product, dropping a link to your best-seller page could drive clicks from an actively engaged audience.

This form of building backlinks simply provides leads with a streamlined path to your website. This traffic influx informs Google that your content is helpful, which, in turn, builds up your authority on SERPs.

4. Add Value to Quality Websites With Link Insertion

Taking a similar approach to broken backlink hunting, link insertion remains one of the most effective ways to earn backlinks from reputable publications.

If you can convince a publication that your link will add value to their content, you could score yourself quite a few backlinks on popular blogs and websites.

Here are a few instances where approaching high-quality websites could earn you a backlink:

• Unlinked Brand Mention: Start by searching for your brand mentions online. If you’ve been mentioned in a popular blog or publication without a following link to your products or services, here is a great opportunity to introduce yourself to the editor and pitch a link insertion.
• Resources & Statistics: Do you have any data that could add value to a published piece of content? Have you conducted an industry study? Do you have a set of resources that could add value to a point made in a published article? If so, now is the time to pitch your sources to the blog editor with the intention of adding value to the published content.
• How-To Guides: Following the same method you’d utilise to pitch helpful statistics, how-to guides are also a brilliant addition to published articles. Find blog posts that talk about topics you specialise in and offer to link to a guide that goes into further detail on a specific practice or point.

The key here is to streamline your outreach and only approach relevant blogs and publications that talk directly about your industry.

5. Create Your Own Infographics

One of the more uncommon methods to apply to your backlinking strategy is creating your own infographics.

While it is easier to source infographics for your own blog content from the web, remember that other blog editors think the same way you do.

If you spend time creating brilliantly designed infographics, they are likely to be used by other reputable publications, which will automatically link to your website as a source.

Take this example from CleverTap for instance:

(Image Source: CleverTap)

The key here is to add infographics to some of your well-ranking informative content.  This will increase your chances of receiving topical blogger links as a pose to those from infographic farm sites that could further harm your domain reputation.

However, if you’re struggling to gain backlinks on your infographics naturally, you can also pitch them for insertion in the same way you would a value-added link.

Pitch your infographic to an editor with the intention of adding value to a published piece of content. You may have a chart, graph, or visual diagram that better explains a point in the article.

Why not include a sneak peek of the infographic within your pitch email before directing the editor to your original article?

6. Become an Expert Source for Other Content Creators

If you are an expert within your industry, did you know that you can leverage your expertise to aid your backlink building?

If another journalist or publisher quotes you in an article, they will most likely link to your website as a source. This is one of the most effective ways to score backlinks on the highest-quality publications that are less likely to accept guest posts and link insertions.

The question is, how do you position yourself as an expert source? Don’t worry; we have a solution for you.

Formerly known as Help A Reporter Out (HARO), Connectively is a free contributor platform that connects expert sources with reporters seeking insights for their next big story.

(Image Source: Connectively)

Anyone can sign up as an expert; however, with so much competition, it’s important to use the most experienced player within your company as a credible source, especially if their name carries weight within the industry niche.

Once you fill out Concetively’s short questionnaire, bio details, and contributor topic specialities, you’ll be sent frequent emails with queries about relevant topics within your industry. Simply answer the questions to the best of your ability and add a link to your personal website or company site as a source.

The key here is speed, speed, speed. If you’re among the first experts to respond, you’re more likely to be used within the article and see your link live on a high-DA publication.

While your link could take up to a month to go live in a lengthy publish queue, the wait is often worth it for a high-quality backlink profile.

Being recognised as an expert and thought leader within your niche also has benefits outside of backlink building. The more visibility your brand has as an industry expert, the more credibility you’ll gain within your demographic.

7. Make Your Content Share-Worthy

Content marketing still remains one of the most versatile ways to build site backlinks.

There are plenty of ways to create and share content online; however, creating content with the intention of building links takes an extra level of skill.

Sharability is vital when crafting content that will build links. Whether this is an innovative social post, an expert industry guide, or a powerful infographic, your content must encourage your demographic and other industry publications to share your work for a chance to build a link.

Creating linkable assets is one thing, but crafting organically sharable content is another. Your content must attract attention, be unique, and offer a fresh perspective on industry topics.

For continued backlinks beyond the initial publishing buzz, create content that is continuously updated on the same live link.

Take marketer Alex Birkett’s Ultimate Guide to A/B Testing as an example:

His piece of content on A/B testing is updated yearly and remains an extremely sharable/bookmarkable source for anyone in the industry.

“An Ultimate Guide doesn’t have to explicitly tell you it is an Ultimate Guide. It must go above and beyond in its utility or perceived value.” Birkett mentions.

“I recently wrote a 6,500-word guide on A/B testing. It ranges from beginner issues all the way through advanced topics and fringe cases. Basically, it’s a bookmarkable article for anyone who runs A/B tests. Not only did it get a really solid initial spike of traffic from social shares, but it consistently gains organic links month-by-month.”

By updating the guide based on new industry trends, the piece remains constantly sharable, yet it remains tied to the same URL, meaning that previous backlinks are unbroken and new ones continue to extend the URL backlink profile.

8. Collaborate With Thought Leaders

Another way to improve your online footprint and earn backlinks for your website is to collaborate with an industry expert or influencer who can vouch for your credibility and act as a catalyst for engagement.

Opinion leaders within an industry often have large followings across multiple platforms, which can increase your chance of securing links in high-traffic spots on the web.

If you connect and collaborate with a thought leader on a sharable piece of content, your work is likely to be shared on the expert’s blog, social platforms and any other publication they have access to.

You also increase the credibility of your content by adding expert comments from authoritative thought leaders, which naturally encourages more people within your industry to share.

The age-old networking quote also works quite well here: Connections lead to connections. If you collaborate with one thought leader within your industry niche, other figureheads are likely to contact you about another collaboration.

If your backlinks are crawled on some of the most credible blogs in your industry, Google will take this as a sign that your domain is also an authoritative player on SERPs and automatically pushes your site up the ranks.

9. Add The Right Backlink Checkers To Your Link-Building Toolbox

Last but not least, let’s discuss one of the most important strategies for perfecting your backlink portfolio, otherwise known as monitoring.

Backlink monitoring is a vital activity to add to your SEO strategy for a number of reasons. Not only can you stay on top of where you’re building backlinks, but you can also track the success of your link-building tactics and react accordingly.

While there are plenty of backlink monitors to choose from, we’ve ranked a few of our favourites below for seamless recording of all of your backlinking efforts:

Ahrefs Backlink Checker

First, we have Ahrefs. As our favourite backlink checker tool, Ahrefs offers its users a huge database and comprehensive backlink reporting for any URL.

Using their site explorer feature, you can access an overview of your website’s domain rating and URL or choose their ‘backlinks’ feature, which pulls up a report of all the backlinks tied to your site pages.

(Image Source: Ahrefs)

Here, you can split your backlink monitoring into dofollow and nofollow for easy viewing as well as filter other search terms, keywords and low-quality pages.

Better still, Ahrefs also has a competitor backlink monitoring feature that allows you to directly compare your website results with those of your closest competitor. In doing this, you can spot opportunities to approach websites that your competitors have scored a link on. If a publication is happy to feature a competitor, they are likely to respond positively to your link-building request.

Price: Starting at $99 per month, Ahrefs is a great choice for a small-medium enterprise.

SE Ranking

Next, we have SE Ranking. SE Ranking is one of the best tools on the market for backlink checking due to its extensive reporting on link profile health.

SE Ranking’s backlink checker allows you to identify your site’s referring domains, backlinks, and anchor texts in just a few seconds and customise your results using a wide range of metrics/filters.

(Image Source: SE Ranking)

Like Ahrefs, SER will show you the distribution of dofollow and nofollow links for each URL. However, one stand-out feature we must mention is SE Ranking’s toxic backlink detector.

If the monitoring algorithm detects a backlink from a low-quality site that may harm your domain authority, SE Ranking flags the backlink based on low-high danger, ready for you to take action.

Price: SE Ranking Starts at $55.00 per month. SER also offer a 14-day free trial.

Majestic

Majestic also deserves a mention in our list of top backlink checker tools. Offering many of the same features as Ahrefs and SE Ranking, Majestic makes it onto the list because of its affordable price.

(Image Source: Majestic)

Majestic is a brilliant tool for backlink-building beginners thanks to its easy-to-navigate dashboard.

Its ability to turn in-depth backlink insights into easy-to-understand report charts and infographics helps SEO teams salvage comprehensive backlink data with little to no fuss.

Price: For the Lite version of Majestic, prices start at just $49.99 a month.

Wrapping Up

It’s no secret that building backlinks is a lengthy process that requires a lot of time and effort from an SEO team.

However, using our handy list of nine link-building strategies, you can trial various tactics and discover what method works best for you.

The key here is to constantly monitor your progress. Whether you use a backlink monitoring tool like Ahrefs or SE Ranking or simply track your rise on SERPs, staying on top of your backlink profile gives you the opportunity to act fast on broken links and reduce any low-quality link building.

Backlink building may be considered one of the hardest SEO practices to master, but when you do, the reward is sweet.