Link building tips & tricks for 2024 (+ expert comments)

Anni-Louise BossauerDec 5, 2023

Link building is one of the key elements of SEO. Thanks to it, we get more and more high quality links. So how to gain links effectively? Here is a list of tips and tricks from industry experts!

Quality, relevant backlinks play a crucial role in getting any website to rank – but bloggers, content marketers and business owners grow tired of cold outreach, outdated strategies and generic templates.

How can you approach cold email outreach while avoiding the spam folder, you ask? Here are a few tips to help ensure your next outreach campaign is an impactful one.

● Personalization – People can spot a generic outreach template from miles away. Using a generic template is also a great way to let someone know you didn’t take the time to learn anything about their content or business.

● Email Etiquette – Spoiler Alert: People don’t typically like to be contacted at their personal email address. When you’re gathering your list of contacts in you link building CRM, be sure to verify emails addresses and identify those used for business purposes if at all possible. Inversely, you should try to avoid using your own personal email for outreach as well.

● Be Creative + Follow up – Sprinkling in a little personality (without going over the top) can be a great way to differentiate yourself. Be mindful that person on the other end of your email likely receives dozens of messages just like yours, so keep things concise. Make it clear exactly who you are and don’t be afraid to follow up.

● Provide Value – Outreach is all about providing value. A personalized, thoughtful outreach email is by no means a guarantee. If your content isn’t overwhelmingly ground breaking, there’s a decent chance you’ll need to leverage other assets in order to build links or they might even ask for money. There’s a great deal to be said about strategies like broken link building. If you have an asset to fill its place, pointing out a broken link on your contact’s site can open a quick window of opportunity to provide value out of the gate.

Steven Orechow, Digital Strategist

My best tip here would be automating the process after making sure you have a powerful content about the audience you’re targeting. Since link building takes a lot of research and comms time, automation tools can speed up this process dramatically. But this does not mean automation solves all the problems in link building. Facebook, Slack and Reddit communities are great places to network and connect with like-minded people who are looking for the same thing with you: Growing their link profile with quality BLs.

Barış Şahin, Growth Manager, Rimuut

Link building tactics that have worked for me:

1. Guest posting: I believe this is still one of the best options to build links & look genuine to Google. If you are doing it at scale, then try not mentioning your author bio. It gets easy for Google to track the footprints. If you have 100 articles published with your bio & all articles are having 1 site in common which is linked from all of your articles, then it’s easy for Google to track that you are doing guest posting to build links.

2. Niche edits: Find articles ranking on Top 20 in SERPs & outreach to those sites to add a link to a relevant page from your site. Always get your links added along with a content blurb. It shows to Google that the article was not only edited to add a link but also some additions/improvements were also made to it.

3. Focus on listicles: like niche edits, you must ensure you get your product/brand listed on listicle articles ranking in the top 20 for your targeted keywords. For example: if you have HR software then terms like “best hr software”, “top hr tool”, “your competitor product name + alternative”, and all other related queries should be targeted. I mean plan & start a campaign to target all such keywords & ensure to get your product/brand mentioned in all such articles. This one strategy has given us 1000s of leads in the last 1 year.

4. Link Collaboration: join communities on Facebook, Slack, Telegram, and other networks where link builders, guest bloggers collaborate & help each other by adding each other links to the articles they are publishing on various sites. It’s not a 2-way link exchange, it’s more diversified. I will suggest building few links with this strategy, don’t rely on or put all your efforts into this link-building strategy alone. Because there may be a case where all articles from where you are getting links are having similar links to others as well, so there may be some footprints that Google may track.

Vineet Gupta, SEO Strategist, 5 Minutes SEO

Create round-up list in your blog and send emails to companies you want to add in your round-up list. Ask them to give backlink to your website for top3 position in your round-up list.

Skirmantas Venckus, CMO

For those using guest blogging as a link-building strategy, here go the rules of this game in 2021: Avoid exact-match anchor texts; don’t publish at websites that exist for publishing guest posts only; never pay for your guest article publication or link insertion; avoid websites that are unrelated to yours. What makes this link-building tactic work? Write guest articles for authoritative and relevant websites, and do your best (yes, it’s close to impossible sometimes) to place your link at the beginning or the middle of a page’s body content.

Lesley Vos, Content Strategist at Bid 4 Papers

I think building relationships with other bloggers and site owners in your industry is an underrated tactic.

If you have a hitlist of authors and websites that you’d love to get links from, start engaging with them.

Comment on their social posts or their Medium articles. Upvote their Quora answers, and subscribe to their newsletters.

Whatever it is, make sure they recognize your name. Maybe find a way to add some value.

That way, when it comes time to ask for a link, they’ll recognize your name. You can expect much higher open rates, and success rates, by doing that! Quality over quantity.

Ryan Prior, Founder, Marketing Arsenal

One of my best link building tips is to set up Google alerts for your brand name so you can get alerted when someone mentions your company. Every Monday, I send an email to websites that mentioned us but didn’t include a link and I manage to get a few easy links every month using this method. They already covered you, so you have one foot through the door and asking for a link does not feel forced at all.

Petra Odak, CMO at Better Proposals

Podcast for Link Building: Appearing on podcasts as a guest is a great way to build links without actually asking for those. You can share your expert knowledge on the podcasts. It builds your authority plus the hosts adds your business details along with your company website link on the episode page. And if the podcast gets published on multiple platforms, you get multiple links from just 1 interview.

Vaishali Badgujar, Content Marketer, Time Doctor

Guest blogposting is the best. Try doing it for others before you ask for it. E.g., write for others blogs, the fruits will come with time.

Maciej Wilczynski, CEO, Valueships

Always look for “additional resources” sections when performing a link building outreach campaign. Loads of blogs end their posts with additional resources for readers, and these sections are perfect for link insertion. Use the Google search operator {[keyword] “additional resources”} to find good opportunities, and then outreach away with your blog or article.

Brooks Manley, Freelance SEO Consultant

Build partnerships/relationships more than links. It’ll benefit you more than just earning links.

Katreena Sarmiento, Director of SEO Operations

Help a Reporter Out (HARO) is a free and effective way to generate backlinks to your website. You can submit answers to reporters’ pitches or use it to crowdsource content for your own content.

Either way, you can build a network of like-minded connections that are looking to source content from subject matter experts in exchange for links.

My #1 tip for using HARO is to keep track of the contacts you’ve worked with over time and solicit them in the future to generate even more opportunities in the future.

Also make sure to check out the #journorequest Hashtag on Twitter. There are hundreds of request that come through this Hashtag daily!

Datis Mohsenipour, Director of Marketing, HeyOrca

Effective link building requires both precision in execution and reach. Link building strategies by themselves are quite straightforward, but the trick is in having a perfect understanding of your business’s niche and the audience that you’re targeting. Why does niche matter? For one, it gives you an idea of how you’re positioning yourself, and not only that, it also lets you become aware of other players in your industry, some of which you can partner with in order to connect with your target market. You can start by offering to guest blog for another site, and in so doing, get a chance to reach out to that site’s readers and introduce them to your brand. Of course, it helps a lot if you make your posts interesting by using infographics, videos, podcasts, listicles, and even pop quizzes. To boost your guest blogging efforts, you can also gather testimonials, perform forum link building, participate in expert roundup posts and interviews, and tap influencers.

Chris Porteous, Founder

Looking for the easiest way to land high-quality backlinks?

It’s super simple: Once signed up, HARO will send you 3 emails per day. These are packed with requests from journalists & bloggers who need expert tips for their articles

Pitch any relevant ones with your tips, tricks or quotes and if they use your response, they’ll link back to your site in their article.

With a little daily effort and patience, you’ll be able to build multiple high-quality links and outrank your competitors!

Eric Evan Haim, Co-founder

This might sound like a no-brainer, but if we talk about link building strategy, we talk about guest posting. The guest post remains one of the most powerful ways to build a high-value, natural backlink profile amid all the emerging paid and quick strategies out there. However, we need to bear in mind that guest posting isn’t about slapping your name onto a piece of sloppily content just to get quality backlinks.

The right way to use guest posting as a link building strategy is that, of course, you should not place all your links at once — don’t stuff your guest posts with keyword-rich anchor links. Instead, you need to pay attention to the quality of the guest post itself. The more quality content you can write, the higher chances you’ll get to earn brand authority in your industry, drive clicks back to your site, and boost organic traffic.

Andre Oentoro, CEO of Breadnbeyond

Know your target audience for the virtual event, create an agenda that appeals to them and circulate the agenda widely using every platform that you have presence on. Your attendees have to perceive value in the event that you are facilitating and this is done through a structured agenda.

As an example, last week I was contacted on LinkedIn and invited to an online event for Real Estate Investing. This was completely irrelevant to me and when I asked for an agenda the event co-ordinator said that they didn’t have an agenda.

Jamie Irwin, Director, Straight Up Search

The best advice I can give for link building is to ask! There is no better way to gain a link than to quite literally email someone you mentioned in a blog post and ask them if they can link to it. If your blog post is of good enough quality, few people will have a problem with linking to it.

Dominic Kent, Director of Content Marketing at Mio

Publish your own data

It seems like whenever it comes to content creation for link building, most people suggest building infographics, but few suggest sharing unique data.

However, sharing your own data is an easy and effective way of building links, especially if you already have it and don’t need to do a ton of research to find it. If you think about it, we often share statistics and hard numbers to prove or back up a point, and, when we do, we always link to the source.

What better way to get links than to become the source?

Share some of the stats you already have with your audience. Do original research and publish the data online. Find gaps in your industry’s knowledge and create content to fill those gaps.

If you make your data relevant, shareable, and easy to understand, you’ll be getting backlinks in no time.

Will Cannon, CEO, Signaturely

Monitor unlinked mentions

The easiest, cheapest, and potentially most productive way you can start to build links is to find places where your links should be.

The better content you produce, the higher the chances that someone finds it, shares it and forgets to link back to you. All these are great opportunities to get backlinks.

The easiest way to get started is by just setting up a Google alert so you know when someone mentions you. If your brand or company is small enough, you can also lookup on Google who and when has mentioned it, so you can see if they’ve been linking back to you.

However, you probably don’t need to ask for a link on every single mention. Instead, figure out how important the link would be.

If the page has already mentioned and linked you, or if it has a low authority or relevance, it may not even be worth sending an email to ask for a link.

James Davis, Head of Marketing, Messagely

Use a visitor’s mindset

Link building isn’t just about linking as much as possible, it’s about those links making sense to your visitors.

It’s very important to link only where it makes sense to add a link because there’s no point in building links that no one clicks through.

Once you’ve decided the link definitely fits there, open the landing page and try to examine it as a visitor. How easy is it to read? How quickly do you realize what’s happening on the page? How engaging is the content?

Remember: your visitors will decide whether to stay or bounce back in a fraction of a second. If your content doesn’t look professional enough, if it looks generic or boring, your visitors will immediately leave.

Always make a special effort to see your content through the eyes of the visitor with no insider information, and no problem with clicking the “go back” button.

Max Benz, Founder, BankingGeek

Focus on building a robust online presence

The line between not caring about backlinks and obsessively calling and requesting them can be harder to see than you may think. It can be easy to obsessively monitor your mentions and ask for links at first, only to stop caring after a few months of not seeing any immediate progress.

The best way to approach link building is to think about what would work better for your online presence.

Build links that can help you improve on your online presence by evaluating who the reader persona is, and how likely they are to be interested in your website. If your website isn’t attractive to the reader persona, then it makes little sense to get them to click through.

Start building links where your user persona is, like niche-related online communities on social media, Reddit, and LinkedIn. Become an active participant of those communities and earn your place among them.

If you do, you’ll make sure the right people find your website.

Lisa Dietrich, Founder, RemoteCanteen

One creative link building tip is to aim for a collaboration beyond a link. Ultimately your goal may be to obtain a link on a high DA/DR website; however, try to use the connection with that site to see if there are any other creative ways to collaborate. How can you work together to comarket one another?

Eliza Nimmich, Content Marketer

Building high-quality backlinks to your website is actually very easy, if only you know how to do it.

Here are some of the best ways to build high-quality backlinks:

1. Guest post on authoritative websites in your industry

2. Answer interview and expert roundup questions

3. Ask for backlinks from your current media mentions

4. Create link-worthy resources like industry reports, ebooks, etc.

5. Answer Quora questions

Apart from these, simply starting and running a good blog with useful articles can also get you a lot of backlinks organically. Basically, create content that people would like to refer to their audience and you’ll get backlinks naturally.

Janki Sharma, Associate Editor

One tip I’d like to share, even though maybe I shouldn’t as it’ll quickly become overused and perhaps lose effectiveness, is to create custom images and embed them inside your guest posts.

The reason for that is, when you use that image you need to give proper credit, and that link will go to your site.

The value here is that within the image caption you can use your SEO meta title as your anchor text.

Which means, if you’ve done your on-page optimization properly, you’re getting anchor text value full with valuable keywords.

This is like a cheat sheet for faster rankings, and it’s all white hat and non-penalizable. Because all you’re doing is sourcing the image back to the original.

And what’s more, oftentimes, webmasters will let you have your normal in-content links+ that image link which comes out as a nice bonus.

This doesn’t always happen, but quite often it does.

Nikola Roza, Owner of Nikola Roza,