Link Building  is one of the most important things you can do to help your website rank higher on Google. But many businesses struggle to get it right. 

You may have tried different SEO strategies, but if you’re not focusing on the right kind of links, you might not see the results you’re hoping for.

This guide is here to help. Whether you’re running a business, handling marketing, or working on SEO, we’ll break down the basics of link building in a way that’s easy to follow. 

You’ll learn why link building matters and discover effective strategies for 2024 that will actually help you boost your website’s rankings.

What Is Link Building in SEO?

Link building is the process of earning backlinks from other reputable websites to your own. For new sites, these backlinks help search engines discover your pages. For older sites, they enhance your authority in Google’s eyes. 

Link building is like getting recommendations from others.

Suppose you’re offering a service, and I know you do great work, so I recommend you to others. That recommendation is like a backlink to your site. If more relevant websites also recommend you, it’s similar to getting multiple recommendations from trusted sources.

Google notices these high-quality links and considers them credible. The more trusted websites refer to you, the more probably Google will view your site as valuable.

Getting links from high-quality websites improves your chances of ranking better in search results. Backlinks are one of Google’s key ranking factors. In a study of 11.8 million search results, it was shown that the number of sites linking to you plays a big role in determining your rankings.

How Does Google Consider A Backlink’s Value?

This section breaks down what Google looks for when deciding the value of a backlink. Understanding these factors will help you build links that increase your site’s authority and rankings.

1) Authority

A link’s value depends on the authority of the website it’s from. For instance, a link from a well-known site like The Guardian holds more weight than one from a smaller blog.

Authority is key to a backlink’s value. You can check a site’s authority using these metrics:

• Domain Authority (DA) by Moz
• Domain Rating (DR) by Ahrefs
• Page Authority (PA) by Moz
• URL Rating (UR) by Ahrefs
• Authority Score (AS) by SEMrush

These scores help you gauge how much a backlink will impact your site’s credibility and rankings.

Source: Semrush

2) Relevancy

Google values links from sites related to your niche. For example, if you have a fitness blog, a link from another health or fitness site is better than one from a random site, like a cooking blog. Relevant links tell Google that the connection is natural and helpful, which boosts your rankings.

3) Link Placement

Where a link is placed on a webpage can impact its value. Links in the main content of a page, like in blog posts, are worth more than those in less visible areas, like footers or sidebars. Google sees these as more valuable because they are more likely to be clicked.

4) Anchor Text Optimization

Anchor text is the clickable part of a link, and it helps Google understand the context of the linked page. When the anchor text matches the topic of the page, it sends a strong signal about the page’s content. For example, linking to an SEO guide using “SEO best practices” as anchor text tells Google that the page is about SEO.

However, it’s important to maintain a natural variety in your anchor texts. Over-optimizing by using the same keyword-rich anchor text across many links can trigger red flags and lead to penalties. A balanced approach that includes a mix of branded, generic, and keyword-rich anchors ensures that your link profile appears organic and diverse.

5) Ratio of No-follow and Dofollow Links

A healthy backlink profile has a mix of both dofollow and nofollow links. Dofollow links pass authority (or “link juice”) to your site, while nofollow links don’t. Having only dofollow links can look unnatural, so it’s important to have a balanced mix to build a natural, trustworthy profile.

What Are the Different Ways To Build Links?

There are four ways to build links:

1) Adding Links

Adding links is when you manually place your website’s link on other sites. This method is common in strategies like:

• Creating social media profiles for your business
• Submitting your site to business directories
• Adding your site to review platforms like Yelp or Trustpilot
• Posting on forums, communities, or Q&A platforms

While this method is easy to implement, it doesn’t immediately generate high quality links or give you a big competitive advantage. However, it’s especially useful for new websites that are just starting to build their online presence.

Building “Foundational Links”

These are often called foundational links because they help create a base for your site links across the web. Although these links may not carry much SEO weight at first, they still play a role in establishing your credibility. Over time, some of these links could attract attention and even generate links from other reputable websites.

Start Small

Focus on a few high-quality websites, relevant to your niche, when you start adding links. Don’t waste time on every directory or social network you come across. A good approach is to study your competitors’ backlinks to see where they’ve built links and follow suit.

By doing this, you lay a solid foundation for building high-quality links as your site grows.

2) Ask for Links

One way to build valuable backlinks is to directly reach out to website owners and request a link to your site. This approach works best when you can offer something useful, like content that their audience will benefit from. You might also ask for a link when you’ve been mentioned somewhere and need proper credit.

Tools like Semrush’s link building for SEO features can help find quality link building prospects. They analyze your competitors and key phrases to give you a list of relevant websites to target for content marketing outreach. By focusing on these common link building strategies, you can efficiently manage your requests and track progress.

3) Buy Links

Buying links involves paying websites to link back to your content, but it’s a shortcut that carries risks. While it can speed up the process of acquiring links and boost your SEO, it also comes with potential penalties from Google if not done correctly. The search engine giant discourages spammy link building techniques, and getting links from unreliable sources can harm your rankings.

Why Businesses Buy Links

The main attraction of buying links is that it can speed up the process of acquiring links, helping your website rise faster in search rankings. For example, if you’re short on time or resources, paying for links from high-authority websites seems like a tempting solution. However, simply buying links isn’t enough. You need to evaluate how many backlinks you require and ensure they come from reputable sources.

Why It’s Risky

If you purchase links from a unreliable source like Fiverr, you might get your website penalized by Google . Such manipulative link building might make your website go down in the search result or getting banned. Always be sure that the page from where the link is coming has some relevance and good authority.

A Smarter Approach

Instead of focusing on paid links from unauthoritative sites, aim to build quality links that add real value to your website. Of course, professional help can streamline this process, but you must choose a provider with authority and expertise in the field.

Outreach Monks is a trusted partner with over 10 years of experience in link building. We’ve helped clients in various niches, offering proven results.

Nolabels’ Remarkable Growth in Organic Traffic:

Domain Rating Increase:

Check out our case study page to see how we’ve helped businesses achieve their SEO goals with strategic and ethical link building.

4) Earn Links

Earning links means creating high-quality content that naturally attracts links from other websites. Instead of directly asking or paying for links, you produce something valuable and shareable. When your content offers genuine value, other websites, blogs, or media outlets will want to link to it because it helps their audience as well.

How to Earn Links

1. Create Outstanding Content: When you publish something unique, useful, or entertaining—whether it’s a blog post, guide, video, or infographic—people are more likely to share it and link back to your site.
2. Be Newsworthy: If you can offer expert opinions, insights, or breaking news in your industry, websites will often cite your content, which earns you natural links.
3. Offer Data or Research: People love to link to solid data. Publishing your own research, surveys, or case studies can naturally attract links from other sites that reference your work.

Aira, a marketing agency, earned links from top sites like Ahrefs by creating a detailed industry report. This report surveyed SEO professionals, offering valuable insights. The content was so useful and relevant that 212 unique domains naturally linked to it. This strategy is called “ego bait”—the idea is to create content that makes others want to share it because it highlights their work or field.

What Are The Link Building Strategies You Should Go For In 2024?

This section introduces key techniques for building links that will help strengthen your website’s authority and improve its search rankings.

1) Create Linkable Assets

Linkable assets are valuable content pieces that others naturally want to link to. These can be guides, studies, infographics, or tools that offer significant value. Creating high-quality, engaging content can help attract organic backlinks from reputable sources.

Focus on understanding your audience’s needs and create content that addresses their pain points, answers their questions, or solves their problems.

Here’s a great example of a simple “linkable asset” that attracted a lot of links (Source: Ahrefs)

When this infographic was published, the number of referring domains increased quickly.

This page now gets an estimated 1,500 visits per month from organic search, as it ranks for some valuable keywords.

We’re not saying this infographic alone caused the entire increase in traffic, but it likely played a significant role.

2) Check Competitor’s Backlinks

Checking your competitor’s backlinks can show you where they are getting their links from. By using tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Moz, you can find similar sites that may want to link to your content.

Steps to Check Competitor Backlinks

• Use a Tool: Enter your competitor’s domain into Ahrefs or SEMrush.
• View the Backlink Profile: The tool will show all the sites linking to your competitor.
• Analyze the Links: Look for high-quality, relevant sites that you can reach out to.
• Reach Out: Contact these sites with your own content that offers value.

Let’s take an example of Loganix’s Backlink Profile. Below, you can see a list of websites linking to them. These are potential targets for outreach, where you can pitch your own content or offer valuable insights.

Note: Check the tabs to filter your competitor’s backlink profile for optimal results:

• Active: Shows all active links.
• Follow: Displays only do-follow links.
• Links per Ref Domain: Limits to a single link from each referring domain.
• Placement: Highlights in-content links.
• Platform: Filters links from blog posts.
• Language: Filters links from English-language websites.

3) Blogger Outreach

Blogger Outreach is about connecting with bloggers in your niche to get backlinks. Offer valuable content like guest posts or reviews in exchange for a link.

Quick Steps:

• Find relevant blogs with good domain authority.
• Send personalized outreach emails explaining how your content adds value.
• Follow up if there’s no response.

Email Outreach Using SEMrush (Source: Semrush)

Follow the Below steps:

1) Open SEMrush Tool: Create a new project by entering your domain and project name.

2) Add Keywords: Choose keywords related to the page you’re building links for.

3) Add Competitors: Select competitors and click “Start Link Building.”

4) View Prospects: SEMrush will show a list of sites you can contact. Remove any irrelevant ones.

5) Reach Out: Move chosen prospects to “In Progress” and send personalized outreach emails through SEMrush.

6) Track Progress: See whether your emails were opened or replied to, and mark the backlink as done once received.

4) Guest Posting

Guest posting is an effective way to get high-quality backlinks. You write articles for other websites in your niche, and in return, include a link to your own site. It’s a great way to build authority and reach new audiences.

To make guest posting work:

1. Identify reputable blogs or websites in your niche.
2. Reach out with a personalized pitch offering valuable content ideas.
3. Write high-quality, engaging content that fits their audience.

5) Broken Link Building

Broken link building involves finding dead links on other websites and offering your content as a replacement. It’s a win-win situation: the website owner fixes the broken link, and you get a backlink.

To get started, use tools like Ahrefs or Semrush to identify broken links on sites relevant to your niche. Once you find these, create or have an existing piece of content that matches the broken link’s topic.

6) Unlinked Brand Mentions

Unlinked brand mentions happen when your brand or website is mentioned on another site without a backlink. These are great opportunities to earn easy links. By reaching out to the website owner and politely requesting they add a link to your site, you can turn these mentions into valuable backlinks.

To find unlinked mentions, use tools like Google Alerts or Ahrefs Content Explorer. Set up alerts for your brand name, and whenever your name appears online without a link, reach out to the site owner with a friendly request for a backlink. This is a quick and effective way to grow your backlink profile.

Set up Google Alerts

Setup Alerts using Ahrefs Content Explorer

7) Digital PR

Digital PR is about using PR tactics to create content that earns backlinks from trusted sites like news outlets and industry blogs. You can use news stories, surveys, or reports to get media attention and generate organic backlinks.

How Can You Check Your Link Building Success?

Tracking your link-building success is essential to know if your strategy is working. Below are simple ways to monitor your progress.

1. Referring Domains

Track how many different websites (referring domains) are linking to your site. More links from relevant and trusted sites mean you’re on the right track.Tools like Ahrefs or Moz can show how many different sites are linking to you.

2. Domain Authority (DA & DR)

Domain Authority (DA) and Domain Rating (DR) measure your site’s credibility and are key metrics to track. A higher DA or DR suggests stronger authority, which can lead to better rankings. Keep an eye on your DA and DR scores to gauge the success of your link-building strategy.

3. Google Rankings (SERPs)

Another clear sign of success is improved rankings on Google. As you build more valuable links, your pages should move up in search results. You can track this using tools like Google Search Console or SEMrush.

4. Organic Traffic

More organic traffic means your link-building efforts are bringing new visitors to your site. Tools like Google Analytics can help you see how many people are landing on your site through organic search.

5. Referral Traffic

Referral traffic comes from users who click on links to your site from other websites. Tracking this through Google Analytics helps you see which links are driving quality traffic.

What Tools Can Help You in Link Building?

Each tool we mentioned in this list offers unique features that can enhance your link-building strategy, whether you’re monitoring your existing backlinks or actively searching for new opportunities.

1) Google Search Console

Google Search Console is a free tool you can use to track your site’s search performance. It shows which sites link to yours, internal links, and any problems with your site.

Check the “Links” section often to track new external links and spot any harmful ones. If needed, use the disavow tool to remove bad links.

2) Semrush

Semrush helps you find new link building opportunities and tracks your backlinks. The “Backlink Audit” tool cleans up your links, and the “Link Building Tool” helps you manage outreach.

Using Semrush for Link Building: The “Backlink Analytics” tool shows your competitors’ backlinks and potential sites for you to get links from. Semrush makes it easier to automate your outreach and track results.

3) Ahrefs

Ahrefs gives you access to your competitor’s backlinks through the “Site Explorer” tool, helping you find link-building opportunities. You can also use “Content Explorer” to find popular content in your niche for link-building.

Use Ahrefs’ alert feature to monitor new backlinks your competitors gain. This lets you act fast and take advantage of new link opportunities.

4) Link Explorer (Moz)

Moz’s Link Explorer helps you analyze your site’s link profile and track your progress in building backlinks. Metrics like Domain Authority (DA) and Page Authority (PA) are useful for judging the quality of the links pointing to your site. You can also check out your competitors’ links for potential opportunities.

Focus on getting links from high DA sites. These links are often more valuable and can help boost your site’s authority.

5) Screaming Frog

Screaming Frog is a website crawler that helps you spot broken links, duplicate content, and other SEO issues. It’s especially useful for finding broken links, which you can replace with fresh, updated content. The tool is handy for both on-page SEO and link-building.

How to Use Screaming Frog for Link Building: Crawl your website to find broken links. Then, reach out to the sites linking to these pages, offering them updated content to link to instead. This simple method can help you build valuable backlinks.

Conclusion

Link building is about creating strong connections, both online and within your industry. It’s more than just adding links to your site; it’s about focusing on quality, trust, and long-term results. By using the right tools and strategies, you can steadily improve your site’s performance without overwhelming yourself. Stay flexible, adapt to changes, and remember that building links is a gradual process that pays off over time.

Frequently Asked Link Building Questions

Marketing Analytics: 8 Best Ways to Track Your Online Marketing Activity

2 years ago by erika 11 min read No comments

Do you know how profitable your marketing campaigns are? Have… […]

Read More… from Marketing Analytics: 8 Best Ways to Track Your Online Marketing Activity