16 Link Building Strategies That Work In 2024

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link building strategiesWe 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-

link building win rates

….but you should only use 3x of them.

Why?

Because it’s easy to get overwhelmed and do nothing

 This is what you should do- 

  • Read through this post
  • Pick your 3x favorite link building strategies
  • Do the one that is easiest and quickest to do first

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?

1. Leverage Testimonials In Your Niche

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.

testimonial link building strategy

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

surfer SEO testimonial

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!

Step #1 – Generate A List Of Targets

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-

  • Be relevant to your niche
  • Have existing testimonials
  • Actually be a product/service that you use

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….

research the best mobile video editor

And you’ll quite often find that a free trial will be on offer to test the tool…

Step #2 – Find The Right Person To Pitch To

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-

  1. Find That Lead
  2. Hunter

Then you can add each email address to your spreadsheet and start to contact everyone on your list with a pitch.

Step #3 – Send Your Testimonial 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:

  • Introduce yourself
  • Tell them how their tool has helped you
  • Include specific results
  • Ask them if you can put together a testimonial
  • Keep it simple

Just keep it short, simple and sweet.

Step #4 – Writing The Perfect Testimonial

Writing the perfect testimonial is pretty straight forward.

You want to write a short piece of text that includes-

  • What you liked most
  • How the tool/service helped you
  • Specific results
  • Your personal recommendation

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-

This Section In Short

Using testimonials as a link building strategy is a fantastic way to build high quality homepage links.

  1. Generate a list of target services and products
  2. Find the right person to pitch to
  3. Send them your pitch
  4. Write the testimonial

It really is that easy and if you need any more help you can see my full testimonial link building tutorial.

2. Support New Business Growth

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.

 Meaning this is a brilliant opportunity to get link back to your website.

There are two ways to obtain links.

  • Donor links
  • Package links

Donor links are from pages that publish the details of all donors, including a link to the donor’s website:

Crowdfunding donor

Package links are when links are offered as part of a package you get if you donate a certain amount of money:

Crowdfunding perk link

Sounds easy right? It really is!

How To Find Crowdfunding Sites For Link Building

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.

crowdfunding search result

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!

linksthatrank link building strategies

This Section In Short

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.

3. Sponsor Real World Events

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…

#1 – Hosting An Event

You can create your own event and then have it advertised on third-party event sites which then link back to your website.

event link building third party sites

These links are usually extremely relevant and come from high authority sites.

#2 – Sponsoring An Event

Alternatively, you can sponsor an event being hosted by someone else as most hosts will list (and link to) all their sponsors.

event link building 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.

How To Find Events To Sponsor

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:

event link building google search

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.

This Section In Short

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.

4. Show Your Presence On Social Media

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.

How To Build Backlinks With Facebook

As Facebook is the most popular network I thought we would start there…

Let’s dive in:

#1 – Your Profile’s ‘Intro’

The best way to connect a new visitor to your website is through your ‘Intro’.

intro facebook page

Just add your website URL in your basic settings and be sure to have it set to public.

#2 – Your ‘About’ Page Description

As well as adding your website to your about page contact info, you can also place your website URL in the description:

about section facebook page

By having your website appear twice on your about me page…

You are doubling your chances of sending traffic to your website from there.

#3 – Include A Website Link In All Posts

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.

#4 – Page Buttons

You can add page buttons underneath your cover photo.

These can be optimised to send traffic to your website when clicked:

facebook button

Simply add or edit your page button and input your website’s URL.

#5 – Picture Descriptions

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:

facebook cover photo description

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:

  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Youtube

  • Pinterest
  • Instagram
  • Quora

…head over to my full tutorial – 28 Social Media Backlinks To Increase Your Rankings

This Section In Short

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:

  1. Your Profile’s ‘Info’ Tab
  2. Your ‘About’ Page Description
  3. Include A Website Link In All Posts
  4. Page Buttons
  5. Picture Descriptions

 

5. Strategic Guest Blogging

Boring right?

But guest blogging is one of the most popular, simplest and most effective link building strategy there is…

 The funny thing is most people label guest posting as a white hat strategy. 

But Google has given us multiple warnings-

guest-post-warning

And more importantly:

John Mueller advised to nofollow guest post links.

My point is:

 ALL FORMS of link building are against Google’s guidelines. 

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:

  • You create a high-quality piece of content
  • You add a few links in the content piece pointing to your site
  • You get the piece published in another site, preferably one with a high DA

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?

guest post reply

guest post request response

And some people are much much more direct-

direct guest post reply

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.

guest post opportunitues

To get started with guest blogging, there are 5 steps you need to follow:

  • Find your prospects
  • Qualify the right blogs
  • Send outreach emails
  • Create great content
  • Build relationships

Step #1 – Find Your Prospects

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

search operator using seo footprints example

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:


The list goes on and on.

Make sure you check out our complete SEO footprints tutorial to get even more ways to find strategic guest blogging opportunities for link building.

Step #2 – Qualify The Blogs

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.

AHREFS site explorer

In the menu, take the number that you see in the center of the screen, under the DR sign.

AHREFS-2-site-explorer

Add these numbers to your list and repeat the process until you have the DR of every site.

Step #3 – Reaching Out

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:

  1. Topic #1
  2. Topic #2
  3. 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.

Step #4 – Creating Incredible Guest Post Content

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-

  • Add quotes
  • Add links to other relevant articles from the site
  • Add images and videos
  • Add anything you can to make it amazing

Take a look at this incredible guest post by James Johnson-

guest post example blog

He teaches everything he knows about becoming a freelance writer.

And he holds nothing back!

Once you finish writing it, send it their way.

Step #5 – Build Relationships

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.

BONUS TIP: Engage Their Audience

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-

  • Respond to all of the comments on your guest post personally
  • Monitor shares on social media then reply to say thanks
  • Setup Google Alerts for the URL to engage anywhere it gets shared

If you do those 3 things alongside your guest post, you will accelerate your results.

This Section In Short

Guest blogging can take some time, and due to the amount of content you have to create, it can get messy.

  1. Find your prospects with the help of the Google footprints I previously shared
  2. Then, qualify every blog you found to make sure you are pitching to the right place.
  3. Reach out to the right people using the template I shared as a basis.
  4. Send your guest post and get it published.
  5. 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.

6. Help Clean Up The Web

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-

ahrefs broken link check

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-

  • Find link building opportunities (especially for niche edits & link inserts)
  • Build a relationship with the website owner
  • Add value to them
  • And most importantly, get a high-quality link

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-

Step #1 – Define A Target Website

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.

Step #2 – Finding The Broken Links

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.

Check My Links Broken Link Example

Ahrefs will analyze the site thoroughly and will make a list of all the broken links it has.

Referring pages lifehacker

You see exactly how to find broken links with these tools here.

Step #3 – Contacting The Blog Manager

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!

This Section In Short

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.

7. Harness Internal Link Building

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.

YouTube video

What Is An Internal Link?

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.

Why Internal Links Are So Valuable

Internal links carry a lot of value and most people don’t realise just how much they help your SEO.

Here’s why…

  • Internal links help Google discover new hight quality content
  • Internal links help Google to better understand & rank your content
  • Internal links can be used to control Google’s spiders
  • Internal links can be used to direct traffic to important high converting pages

This the most underused link building strategy in SEO.

And I don’t know why-

Because it’s very easy to implement!

3x Internal Link Building Strategies

There are 3x internal link building strategies that I like to use when it comes to placing links…

  • My quick and easy method
  • My power process
  • Manual linking process

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.

The Manual Internal Link Building Process

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.

google search example

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!

This Section In Short

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.

8. Replicate Your Competitors Best Links

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.

YouTube video

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-

link building outreach team performance stats

Let’s take a quick look at the process:

Step #1 – Make A List Of Your Competitors

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.

Step #2 – Analyse Their Backlinks

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.

table of links

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.

AHREFS site explorer

In the left-side menu, click on the link that says Backlinks.

AHREFS 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.

ahrefs link type

Here you can organize the links by those that are “Dofollow”, “Nonfollow”, “UGC” and “Sponsored”.

This Section In Short

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.

  1. Start by making a list of your competitors in the top 5 search results.
  2. Then analyse the backlinks with the help of my awesome spreadsheets.
  3. 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.
  4. There, click on the Link type button, and export the whole list of URLs you get.
  5. 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.

9. Get Listed In Link Roundups

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:

roundup example

You can find these types of blog posts in nearly every niche.

All you need to do is-

  1. Find websites that regularly post roundups
  2. Pitch your content for the next roundup

It doesn’t get much easier than that!

Step #1 – How To Find Link Roundup Sites

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-

link-roundup-example

In a matter of seconds, I have a bunch of relevant search results to add to my list-

  1. https://www.semrush.com/blog/ecommerce-link-building/
  2. https://outreachmonks.com/link-roundups/
  3. https://www.quicksprout.com/how-to-build-links-and-traffic-from-link-roundups/

Repeat the search for each suggestion mentioned above.

And once you have a list ready…

Step #2 – Pitching Your Awesome Content

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-

roundup request email

So if you want to get featured…

…you need to do something a little bit different.

I suggest that you use a 2 pronged approach-

  1. Send the initial outreach email (that doesn’t ask for anything)
  2. Then pivot to the pitch

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-

  • Some hight quality content
  • A bit of elbow grease to find roundups

Not only will you get a link, but you’ll likely receive targeted traffic as well!

This Section In Short

There are loads of blogs out there who regularly publish link roundup posts which you can take advantage of.

  1. Identify blogs in your niche who publish link roundups
  2. Find contact information
  3. Pitch your content

Be sure that any content you pitch is top quality & adds value to their roundup.

10. Get Listed On Resource Pages

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

Goinswriter resources page

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?

The concept is pretty simple-
  1. Find resource pages in your niche
  2. Reach out to them asking for a link

Voila!

Step #1 – How To Find Resource Pages

Jump over to Google and search these terms-

If I wanted to build links to a meditation blog, it would look like this-

resource link building

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.

Step #2 – Pitching Your Content

The next step is to reach out to the website and pitch them your content to add to the resource page.

 This is easier said than done. 

But just like we did earlier, it’s better to take a 2 pronged approach to get the link placed-

  1. Send the first outreach email
  2. Then pivot to the link placement

It really is as easy as that!

The more people you ask, the more links you will get.

Simples!

This Section In Short

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.

11. Create Data Driven Content

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-

data post example

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)-

Best WordPress Hosting Pingdom

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-

referring domains

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:

  • Do an in-depth research on your industry
  • Create tests of tools/services in your niche
  • Find unique data and use it on your content
  • Survey your email list subscribers, industry peers, or customers
  • Create attractive and unique graphics from your own or someone else’s data

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.

This Section In Short

You can make this as simple or as complicated as you want.

  1. Find a common question in your niche
  2. 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.

12. Listen To The Web

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!

Step #1 – Look For Your Company Online

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.

google search results

Be creative with your keywords; people may misspell your company’s name more often than you think.

Step #2 – Find Your Mentions

Make a list of all the sites you find where you have gotten a mention.

Check for-

  • mentions without a link
  • with broken links
  • or with incorrect links that lead to a 404

Step #3 – Outreach

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-

outreach response rate

Or you’ll be leaving a bunch of links on the table!

Step #4 – Setting Up Automatic Alerts

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.

This Section In Short

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.

  1. To get started, look for mentions your company or site has gotten via Google.
  2. Whenever you find a mention without a link, contact the site owner asking for a link with my template.
  3. 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!

13. Recycle Old Domain Names

One of my favourite link building hacks is to recycle expired domains.

Why?

Because some aged domains

  • Have great backlink profiles
  • Have high levels of authority
  • Are highly relevant to your niche
  • Have valuable backlinks from places like Wikipedia, BBC, New York Times etc

Regardless of which side of the stupid white hat/black hat argument you subscribe to-

You should be wielding their power for your business.

 And if you’re are super smart about it… 

You can buy them for the same price as new domains! (more about that later)

What To Do With Expired Domains

You have a few choices when you buy an expired domain-

  • Build a new site on the expired domain with instant authority
  • Use the expired domains to link to your site
  • Redirect the expired domain to pass on link juice to your site

We used one to build out a new site in November which has already taken 15 number 1 positions and featured snippets-

progress

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.

How To Find Expired Domains

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.

domain in the ecommerce sector

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.

14. Hijack News Events

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:

newsjacking

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:

Step #1 – Find Popular Topics

Research what people talk about with the help of Google Trends.

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.

Step #2 – Brainstorm content ideas

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-

  1. 5 Things Sales Managers Can Learn From Tim Cook
  2. How Tim Cook’s Leadership Style Will Accelerate Your Success
  3. The 3 Leadership Mistakes Tim Cook Made That You Must Avoid At All Costs

Step #3 – Define And Create The Content

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.

Step #4 – Publish And Promote

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.

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Newsworthy content always attract attention (and link opportunities).

It’s really easy to do and there are new opportunities every single week!

  1. To find newsjacking opportunities, get to know what people are searching for with Google Trends.
  2. You can go deeper with the help of the categories section.
  3. With the results, brainstorm potential ideas that tie your expertise with the news.
  4. 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.

15. Massage Influencers Ego’s

Dale Carnegie said once

You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”

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.

traffic performance

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:

Step #1 – Pick Your Headline

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.

Step #2 – Define the Question

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.

Step #3 – The Experts

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-

expert roundup example

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.

Step #4 – Outreach

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.

  1. Start by defining your headline.
  2. It must convey the value right away so people want to click on it.
  3. You can use the structure I recommend which is: Number + (industry) blogs/experts + promise/keyword
  4. Then, define the question (or questions) you want to ask to the influencers.
  5. Make sure to make it super concise and actionable.
  6. Then, define the experts you want to contact.
  7. Finally, contact the experts with the question you previously defined.
  8. 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.

16. Outsource Your Link Building

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.

What To Look For In A Link Building Service

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:

  • Quality control – Only use link building services that are very particular with the quality of links they build
  • Proof of results – The best link building services will share case studies and client results that you can review
  • Genuine outreach – Avoid services that share their site lists or build links on sites that have “write for us” pages
  • Transparent techniques – You should have a good idea of the techniques and strategies the service uses to build links
  • Customer service – Hire a link building service that has good customer service and support

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.

Our Favourite Link Building Service

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.

linksthatrank link buiding service

But what we really love about LinksThatRank is that they are laser-focused on quality control.

Unlike other services they-

  • Have a 23-point quality control checklist to ensure only links that help you rank
  • Select target anchor text to make sure you don’t trigger an anchor text penalty
  • Offer 1,000 words of premium written content with each placement by default
  • Every site they build links on is guaranteed to have real organic traffic from Google
  • Add internal and external links to placement pages to appear more natural
  • Operate a strict blacklist of sites with “write for us” pages and known guest post farms and PBN networks
  • Have built their own link building tool to identify toxic backlinks

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.

How Many Backlinks Do I Need?

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.

Step #1 – Determine Which Pages You Need To Build Backlinks To

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:

  1. Look at pages where you currently rank in spots 2 to 30 for your target keyword
  2. Find the top pages that make you the most money (not traffic)
  3. Create a shortlist of those pages and take note of them

You can do all of this for free using Google Search Console.

google search console search results dashboard

Need some more help?

Watch the video below for more information.

YouTube video

Step #2 – Calculate The “Link Gap”

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:

  1. Type your target keywords into your chosen tool (I prefer Ahrefs)
  2. Look at the links above DR20 pointing to the first three ranking URLs
  3. Write down the number of links for each ranking URL

The video below outlines this entire process in more detail.

YouTube video

Now you are ready for the last step…

Step #3 – Build The Links You Need

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.

How To Get Your Links Indexed?

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.

backlink indexing test results

For those who don’t want to read…

There were only 3 services that worked:

  1. Indexing Expert – 99.5% indexing success rate
  2. Omega Indexer – 88.5% indexing success rate (but costs 75% less than Indexing Expert)
  3. SpeedLinks VIP – 72.5% indexing success rate

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.

Wrapping It Up

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:

 Pick 3x link building strategies and download our checklist to guide you. 

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-

link building outreach team performance stats

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.

linksthatrank link building strategies

And before you go:

Please tell me-

Which 3x link building strategies are you going to be focusing on this year?

16 link building strategy

Frequently Asked Questions

Link building is the most important Google ranking factor. Each link to your website is essentially a vote for its credibility. The more votes you have, the better! But not all “votes” are equal for example, a link from the New York Times is worth more than a link from me.
There are lots of different link-building strategies that you can use to try and build a number of links pointing to your website. I have listed 15 different link-building strategies for you to try in the full tutorial above.
An effective linking strategy refers to the plan SEOs create and implement to help them organise, monitor and optimise their links. With the right linking strategy, people see a boost in traffic, sales and an improvement in their rankings.
Before you can run a link-building strategy, you need a plan. Decide which pages you want to increase search visibility for, and then use a tool like Ahrefs to figure out how many links you'll need to build. Then choose which link building strategies you are going to use or hire one of these link building services.
Just follow any of the 15 link-building strategies I have listed in my full tutorial. I would recommend you read through them all and then pick the 2 strategies that you feel most comfortable with to get started.
Yes we have a link building checklist available that will step you through the process of creating high quality links. It's easy to follow in any niche. You can download a copy of the checklist to use anytime you want.

What Are Your Thoughts?

716 Responses

  1. Thanks for these incredible strategies for link building. In fact, I use a tool called Postifluence to guest post on the top-ranking sites. This tool also helps me to build dofollow links 24/7 and brings a huge traffic from those sites. Adding this will be beneficial to your blog.

    1. Hi Jamie. I’m not familiar with this tool but I will definitely look into it. Thank you for the suggestion!

  2. Those are some powerful ways to instantly help people better rank their sites with some additional backlinks on higher PR sites.Thank you for this.I will try this method and I will keep you notified if I see some results.

  3. Hi Matthew Woodward…I have gone through your article…15x Incredible Link Building Strategies For 2022.It’s great.What truly interest me in your article are: – Sponsor Real World Event – Show Your Presence On Social Media – Get Listed In Links Roundups – Create Data Driven Content – Harness Internal Link BuildingThough I haven’t try “Sponsor Real World Event” when it come to building links with that.I was able to make some corrections on my social media after reading…, “Show Your Presence On Social Media”.Appreciate your effort in placing a link for “Harness Internal Link Building”.Thanks a lot

    1. There used to be a local Folk Festival that solicited donations of cash and in kind from businesses and organizations. They had a website with a page that featured the names and links to the websites of contributing businesses. Every year they added a new “Our Sponsors page.” A one time donation of $150 got you a link from a high authority site that would stay up for years. A hell of a deal

  4. Such an excellent and interesting blog, Do post like this more with more information, This was very useful, Thank you.

  5. Thank you for such great information about link-building strategies. It really helps me to increase my knowledge about link-building techniques. Thank You for such a great article.

  6. Hi, This is an amazing article and you explained it very well. I love this blog Thank you for sharing such an informative blog.

  7. Hi Matthew, Great Post! Link building is essential to growing a business, and all the strategies you shared are really amazing. I really liked how you created an in-depth guide for link building. It will be very useful for new users and will help them understand and implement best practices. The example of testimonials really provided me some insight and I will definitely be incorporating guest blogging into my strategy. Thanks a lot for sharing all the essential information.

  8. I have been following you for a long time, everything is going well after following your articles. keep it up. Thanks

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