I began my journey in link building back in 2010. The process was straightforward: scale your outreach to acquire backlinks directly to target pages.
This approach often leads to an overemphasis on bulk outreach skills or email automation.
These are valuable skills, but the most effective link-building methods now focus on content marketing.
Modern link building engages content creators around a topic through expert content, showcasing knowledge and expertise.
This form of content marketing is distinct from traditional link building.
If you’re new to link building, you’ll eventually face a decision. The first path involves highly controllable methods. The second path requires becoming a content marketer.
The second path is initially tougher but ultimately helps you develop more content marketing skills.
It’s challenging because you must excel at understanding the audience’s preferences.
This guide will focus on the second path.
Continue reading to lay a foundation for building links from reputable and trusted websites.
What is link building today?
Link building is an SEO practice aimed at increasing the number of inferred or direct hyperlinks (links) to a webpage.
Originally focused on website list building and outreach, it now includes content marketing and strategy.
Modern link builders use traditional methods like building lists and fixing broken links but also analyze, create, and share content.
Link building has evolved. Now, it’s more about creating and sharing quality content instead of just focusing on links.
6 types of link building
We will categorize link-building tactics and strategies. These categories require different skills to execute and manage a campaign.
1. Earned links
These links appear naturally when content creators find your content valuable and link to it without your direct request.
To earn links, create content that creators find valuable for their audience.
If the content is optimized for linkability, they are more likely to share, discuss, and link to it.
Typical methods for distributing content to earn links include:
- Social ads remarketing
- Social ads
- Organic social media shares
- Google Ads
Unlike link-building outreach, earning a link does not require a request to place a link or share content.
2. Outreach-based links
Link building outreach involves proactively contacting content creators or websites through email, phone, or social media.
Outreach uses tactics from influencer marketing and digital PR to secure links.
An outreach campaign could employ one or multiple of these types:
- Linkable content: Creating content that others want or need to link to or share.
- Expert sources: Being seen as an expert in a particular field can attract links from news sites, blogs, and industry publications.
- Add-on value: Adding value to creators by sharing their content or exchanging links. This adds to their reach and community.
- Relationship building: Contacts that already know you are more likely to respond.
3. Discovery links
Content creators constantly search for data, quotes, or resources to enhance their content.
During this research process, they save and link to content they find valuable.
This method doesn’t require outreach but focuses on creating content that ranks for research keywords or appears in online research communities.
An example is targeting “statistic” keywords, like “SEO statistics 2023.”
Once the content ranks for those keywords, creators will naturally find it when searching.
4. Passive PR
You can get these links by answering requests for sources or experts. Journalists and content creators typically use specialized tools or communities for this purpose.
For beginners, this type of link-building is a straightforward way to gain high-quality links without cold pitching.
To use this method, you must either have an expert or become an expert yourself to answer questions or provide quotes.
- Tip: Read the book “Mastery” by Robert Green to learn how to master link building – or anything.
5. Submitted links
These are links submitted to directories, social posts, forums, or other sites that don’t require extensive vetting or editing.
While these links may not directly improve rankings, they can provide traffic and context to Google about the site’s topics.
6. Paid links
This technique involves paying to have a link placed on a website.
While you can acquire many links this way, many of these links are not beneficial for the site.
Moreover, this method often doesn’t help build the right skills and might harm your professional growth.
Google can identify and devalue many of these links if they violate spam policies.
However, sponsored links can strategically share content within a community. Google recommends using rel=”sponsored” to clarify the relationship.
- Tip: Beginners should only use link-building techniques that work with content creators. Enhance the content using subject matter expertise.
3 mistakes to avoid as a first-time link builder
I made a series of early mistakes common among first-time link builders. These mistakes led to wasted time, reduced campaign performance, and delayed professional growth.
Please avoid these:
Mistake: Focusing solely on paid links
Paid links are easy but can become addictive.
Don’t focus on paid links; instead, build skills for other impactful link-building techniques.
Mistake: Not selecting niches
Not focusing on a niche and building links from any place that will accept them. Building a reputation in a niche requires much less effort than in broad categories.
Mistake: Thinking the goal was backlinks
Instead, focus on building relationships with content creators for meaningful ideas or concepts.
Aiming for a certain number of links each week or month can distract from nurturing valuable relationships with important creators.
Learn how to analyze content, find gaps, and create content that helps their audience.
What are ‘quality backlinks’?
This is one of the most debated topics in SEO. Google and many SEOs have different definitions of what constitutes a quality link.
But quality is simpler than that. Here’s an overview:
- Google defines quality based on the reputation of the content and the individuals or companies behind it.
- Some use SEO metrics like Domain Rating (DR) from Ahrefs to gauge a site’s quality.
- A manual review of the content to ascertain if the creator comprehends the topics.
- PR or influencer marketing metrics like Brand Authority from Moz or social metrics in BuzzSumo.
Google provides some insight into how they view site and content quality.
The Search Quality Rater guidelines detail how to evaluate a site’s quality.
Overall page quality rating considerations in the guidelines include:
- Quality of the main content.
- Reputation of the website and content creators.
- Experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trust (E-E-A-T).
The company provides quality raters with a scale ranging from lowest to highest quality.
The guidelines also include a “needs met rating scale” that reviewers use to evaluate how well the content meets the user’s needs.
According to Ben Gomes, former Google VP of search engineering:
“You can view the rater guidelines as where we want the search algorithm to go… They don’t tell you how the algorithm is ranking results, but they fundamentally show what the algorithm should do.”
This suggests we can use these guidelines to understand a site’s reputation.
However, many digital marketers and SEOs use popular metrics from major tools like Ahrefs, Moz, Majestic, or Semrush.
Ahrefs’ link building guide suggests several general concepts for evaluating links, including authority, relevance, anchor text, nofollow vs. follow, placement, and destination.
Using third-party metrics can be helpful in speeding up site reviews during list building or auditing a competitor’s links.
Google’s review process takes time, but using quality metrics will expedite site reviews for list building and outreach.
However, using PR and social media metrics can help identify content creators who produce engaging content.
Analyzing a site’s content performance will naturally yield a list of quality sites.
- Tip: Identify and showcase your company’s expertise on sites discussing your target subject instead of spending too much time building lists and evaluating each site. Find people talking about it and create a conversation.
Link building strategy basics
“Link building strategy” navigates the online content creation marketplace to secure links as a result of content marketing.
A link-building strategy aims to improve a website’s reputation in search engines and among readers, leading to better rankings.
A strategy typically includes three parts:
- Analysis: Identifying the tactic and messaging.
- Guiding policy: General approach or technique customized for the specific campaign.
- Steps: List of actionable steps to execute the strategy.
Start by choosing one of the following methods to get links quickly and understand content creators’ responses in that field:
- Expert guest posting: Use your expertise to post on other websites about important industry topics.
- Passive PR: Respond to requests from content creators and journalists seeking expert sources for articles.
- Resource links: List your site, study, or product/service on sites already listing them.
Creating a list of sites, analyzing them, and customizing your pitch for outreach will challenge you to solve problems by showcasing your company or expertise.
A starter link building process
While other processes should be tested, this one will set a new link-building program on the right path to scale in content marketing.
Step 1: Strategy and planning
Before diving in, outline a clear link-building strategy. Define your goals, target audience, and strategies.
- Linkable content or an expert?
- Can you create new content?
- How new is the site or company?
- Does your experience and expertise fill a gap or enhance an existing subject or conversation?
Step 2: List building
Identify potential link-building opportunities using:
- Advanced search operators in Google (e.g., “health + write for us” to find guest posting opportunities in the health niche).
- Link databases like Majestic, Moz, Ahrefs, and Semrush.
Specialized list-building tools or features can also help. For example, Pitchbox offers default campaigns using Semrush, Ahrefs, and Moz APIs to create lists based on a type of campaign, while Buzzstream is a low-cost option.
- Tip: Use the advanced search operator feature in Pitchbox to create larger lists of sites.
Step 3: Backlink outreach
Use the site lists to create an outreach strategy and contact the sites.
Group the sites by technique and select an appropriate email template. For example, a guest posting strategy can utilize a standard guest posting template.
Customize the template for each prospective site.
Step 4: Measurement and optimize
Evaluate the initial performance by counting quality links obtained from influential content creators.
When assessing link-building efforts, focus on refining the messaging and understanding why some content creators did not respond.
Adjust the messaging to better meet the needs of content creators in the specific niche.
Backlinks are not the end goal
Today, the focus isn’t just on acquiring links but on sharing a message based on experience and expertise.
More link builders are now prioritizing genuine value through content marketing and relationships rather than mere rankings.
The mantra for both newcomers and veterans remains: quality over quantity.
Avoid the allure of quick wins like paid links. Concentrate on content niches, compelling content, and community relationships.
As tactics evolve, link building now emphasizes adding value, fostering relationships, and ensuring sustainable success.
