{"id":149751,"date":"2023-10-09T03:48:21","date_gmt":"2023-10-09T08:48:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/?page_id=149751"},"modified":"2025-07-08T07:30:56","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T12:30:56","slug":"link-building","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/link-building\/","title":{"rendered":"Link Building for SEO: The Beginner\u2019s Guide"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"intro-txt\">You\u2019re here because you need&nbsp;links.<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>You\u2019ve likely heard that links (or backlinks) are what helps your website to rank higher in Google. And you need to learn how to build&nbsp;them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well\u2026 we (Ahrefs) have been building tools for professional link builders for 10+ years now. So it would be fair to say that we know a thing or two about link building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this guide, we have collected our best bits of knowledge and tried to explain all the intricacies of link building in simple terms so that you could easily put our advice to action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But before we dive in, here are just a few quick <s>teasers<\/s> insights to get things going:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>If you have a brand-new website, it\u2019s best to kick things off by building a few dozen foundational links.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>It helps tremendously to have a prior relationship with a website owner before you ask for a link from&nbsp;them.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>People link to web pages that are interesting and useful. So if your page is not that, you\u2019ll have a very hard time building links to&nbsp;it.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Links from relevant pages on authoritative websites have the most influence on your rankings in Google (and possibly other major search engines).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"chapter-list\"><div class=\"h2\">Contents<\/div><div class=\"main-block\" id=\"chapterList\"><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n[MAIN_CONTENT]\n\n\n\n<div class=\"chapter-nav-link clearfix\" id=\"section1\"><a class=\"subhead-anchor\" data-tip=\"tooltip__copielink\" rel=\"#section1\"><svg width=\"19\" height=\"19\" viewBox=\"0 0 14 14\" style><g fill=\"none\" fill-rule=\"evenodd\"><path d=\"M0 0h14v14H0z\" \/><path d=\"M7.45 9.887l-1.62 1.621c-.92.92-2.418.92-3.338 0a2.364 2.364 0 0 1 0-3.339l1.62-1.62-1.273-1.272-1.62 1.62a4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.885 5.884l1.62-1.62L7.45 9.886zM5.527 5.135L7.17 3.492c.92-.92 2.418-.92 3.339 0 .92.92.92 2.418 0 3.339L8.866 8.473l1.272 1.273 1.644-1.643A4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.897 2.22L4.254 3.863l1.272 1.272zm-.66 3.998a.749.749 0 0 1 0-1.06l2.208-2.206a.749.749 0 1 1 1.06 1.06L5.928 9.133a.75.75 0 0 1-1.061 0z\" style \/><\/g><\/svg><\/a><div class=\"link-text chapter-header\" data-anchor=\"The basics of link building\" data-chapter=\"The basics of link building\" data-image=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/svg\/6.svg\" data-num=\"1\" data-section=\"link-building-basics\"><div class=\"imgHolder\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/svg\/6.svg\"><\/div><div class=\"content\"><span class=\"ch\">Part 1<\/span>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The basics of link building<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>You can think of links as votes. When other websites are linking to your page, it tells Google that your page is somehow important. Which is essentially Google\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/google-pagerank\/\">PageRank algorithm<\/a> in a nutshell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">So the more <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/high-quality-backlinks\/\">high-quality backlinks<\/a> a page has, the higher it tends to rank in Google. And if you want to outrank it with your own page, you\u2019ll likely need to get more links than it&nbsp;has.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1189\" class=\"wp-image-167429\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/backlinks-help-you-to-rank-higher-in-google.png\" alt=\"Backlinks help you to rank higher in Google\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/backlinks-help-you-to-rank-higher-in-google.png 1600w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/backlinks-help-you-to-rank-higher-in-google-572x425.png 572w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/backlinks-help-you-to-rank-higher-in-google-768x571.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/backlinks-help-you-to-rank-higher-in-google-1536x1141.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\">\n<figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Backlinks help pages rank higher in Google\u2019s search results.<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I obviously oversimplified things quite a bit. Ranking #1 in Google is a lot more nuanced than just getting more links, because links aren\u2019t the only ranking signal that Google uses. But it\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/now-know-googles-top-three-search-ranking-factors-245882\">a very strong signal<\/a> nevertheless, and it has a very direct influence on your search rankings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So what is link building, and how do you do&nbsp;it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Link building is the process of getting other websites to link to pages on your website. Its purpose is to boost the \u201cauthority\u201d of your pages in the eyes of Google so that these pages rank higher and bring more search traffic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let\u2019s get a bit deeper into&nbsp;that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div><hr class=\"g-devider2\"><\/div><div class=\"chapter-nav-link clearfix\" id=\"section1\"><a class=\"subhead-anchor\" data-tip=\"tooltip__copielink\" rel=\"#section1\"><svg width=\"19\" height=\"19\" viewBox=\"0 0 14 14\" style><g fill=\"none\" fill-rule=\"evenodd\"><path d=\"M0 0h14v14H0z\" \/><path d=\"M7.45 9.887l-1.62 1.621c-.92.92-2.418.92-3.338 0a2.364 2.364 0 0 1 0-3.339l1.62-1.62-1.273-1.272-1.62 1.62a4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.885 5.884l1.62-1.62L7.45 9.886zM5.527 5.135L7.17 3.492c.92-.92 2.418-.92 3.339 0 .92.92.92 2.418 0 3.339L8.866 8.473l1.272 1.273 1.644-1.643A4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.897 2.22L4.254 3.863l1.272 1.272zm-.66 3.998a.749.749 0 0 1 0-1.06l2.208-2.206a.749.749 0 1 1 1.06 1.06L5.928 9.133a.75.75 0 0 1-1.061 0z\" style \/><\/g><\/svg><\/a><div class=\"link-text chapter-header\" data-anchor=\"How to build links\" data-chapter=\"How to build links\" data-image=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/svg\/7.svg\" data-num=\"2\" data-section=\"how-to-build-links\"><div class=\"imgHolder\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/svg\/7.svg\"><\/div><div class=\"content\"><span class=\"ch\">Part 2<\/span>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How to build&nbsp;links<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Conceptually, most popular link building strategies fall into one of the following four buckets:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Adding links<\/strong> \u2013 That\u2019s when you go to some website and manually add your link&nbsp;there.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Asking for links<\/strong> \u2013 That\u2019s when you send emails to owners of relevant websites and ask them to link to&nbsp;you.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Buying links<\/strong> \u2013 Same as above, but you offer them money (or some other form of compensation).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Earning links<\/strong> \u2013 This refers to creating and promoting something so noteworthy that people would link to it naturally.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1600\" height=\"821\" class=\"wp-image-167430\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/four-ways-to-build-backlinks.png\" alt=\"Four ways to build backlinks\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/four-ways-to-build-backlinks.png 1600w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/four-ways-to-build-backlinks-680x349.png 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/four-ways-to-build-backlinks-768x394.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/four-ways-to-build-backlinks-1536x788.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\">\n<figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">How to get backlinks.<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>You can also hire an experienced link builder (or a link building agency) to do it all for you. And that\u2019s what a lot of digital marketers and business owners eventually end up doing because no matter which tactics you choose, building links is a lot of&nbsp;work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But even if you decide to outsource link building, it would be immensely useful to have some basic knowledge of how it\u2019s done. This way, you would be able to see if the person you hired is doing a good job or&nbsp;not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So let\u2019s take a closer look at each of the four buckets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a id=\"post-167427-_2l1ltmcdxs6w\"><\/a>1. Adding links<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>This is when you go to a website that doesn\u2019t belong to you and manually place your link&nbsp;there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The most common tactics that fit into this category are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Social profiles creation.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Business directory submissions.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Review site listings.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Posting to forums, communities, and Q&amp;A&nbsp;sites.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Building links via those tactics is very easy to do. And for that exact reason, such links tend to have little to no value in the eyes of Google.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Other than that, these kinds of links barely give you any competitive edge. If you can go to a website and manually place your link there, so can your competitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And yet, this group of link building tactics should not be ignored completely. In fact, some professional link builders prefer to start with these kinds of links when they\u2019re working with a brand-new website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They refer to it as building \u201cfoundational links.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Think about it. Most online businesses have branded accounts at the major social networks, as well as listings at major business directories and review sites (Yelp, Trustpilot, ProductHunt, Glassdoor, etc.). And all of these pages contain a link to their website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1170\" height=\"676\" class=\"wp-image-167431\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/link-from-our-twitter-profile.jpg\" alt=\"Link from our Twitter profile\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/link-from-our-twitter-profile.jpg 1170w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/link-from-our-twitter-profile-680x393.jpg 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/link-from-our-twitter-profile-768x444.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1170px) 100vw, 1170px\"><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Google clearly pays attention to these profile pages. If you look at the \u201cKnowledge\u201d panel for Ahrefs (see the screenshot below), you\u2019ll notice the links to our social profiles featured there. And we weren\u2019t the ones who added them. Google identified our social profiles on its own and linked them to the Ahrefs brand as part of its <a href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/knowledgepanel\/answer\/9787176\">Knowledge Graph<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1262\" class=\"wp-image-167432\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/links-in-the-knowledge-graph.png\" alt=\"Links in the &quot;Knowledge&quot; graph\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/links-in-the-knowledge-graph.png 2048w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/links-in-the-knowledge-graph-680x419.png 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/links-in-the-knowledge-graph-768x473.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/links-in-the-knowledge-graph-1536x947.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\"><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Yes, these kinds of links are either <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/nofollow-links\/\">nofollow<\/a> or very, very weak. Which means that they hardly move the needle when it comes to ranking in Google.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But given that the \u201cnofollow\u201d attribute is now <a href=\"https:\/\/developers.google.com\/search\/blog\/2019\/09\/evolving-nofollow-new-ways-to-identify\">treated as a hint<\/a>, there\u2019s a chance that over time your profile pages will accrue some quality links of their own and might start bringing a bit of search engine optimization (SEO) value to your website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example, Ahrefs\u2019 profile page on Twitter boasts 11,000 backlinks, coming from over a thousand different websites. So I\u2019m pretty sure it does have some \u201cweight\u201d in the eyes of Google.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"920\" height=\"386\" class=\"wp-image-167433\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/backlink-profile-of-our-twitter-profile-via-ahref.png\" alt=\"Backlink profile of our Twitter profile, via Ahrefs' Site Explorer\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/backlink-profile-of-our-twitter-profile-via-ahref.png 920w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/backlink-profile-of-our-twitter-profile-via-ahref-680x285.png 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/backlink-profile-of-our-twitter-profile-via-ahref-768x322.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 920px) 100vw, 920px\"><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>That being said, don\u2019t go crazy listing your website in every imaginable social network and business directory there is. We\u2019re talking about merely a few dozen of them where it is natural for your business to be listed. Anything beyond that would be a royal waste of your&nbsp;time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And the best way to find some quality websites to add your link to is to study the links of your competitors. Which we\u2019ll discuss in more detail later in this&nbsp;guide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a id=\"post-167427-_5npu07wq7air\"><\/a>2. Asking for&nbsp;links<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>This is when you reach out to other website owners and ask them for a link, which SEOs often refer to as \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/outreach\/\">link outreach<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But you can\u2019t possibly reach out to the folks at datasciencecentral.com and ask them to link to your page with cookie recipes, right? You need to pick websites that are somehow related to your page, since they are more likely to actually consider your request.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The process of collating a list of relevant websites to reach out to is called \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/link-prospecting\/\">link prospecting<\/a>.\u201d And the more effort you invest into finding suitable outreach targets, the higher your success rate would&nbsp;be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But why would owners of other websites (even the relevant ones) care to link to your page anyways?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, ideally, you want them to be so impressed with your resource that they would naturally want to share it with the visitors of their website (i.e., link to&nbsp;it).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But not every page of your website is a one-of-a-kind masterpiece worthy of a thousand links. So SEO professionals have devised a set of tactics to persuade the owners of other websites to add links to their&nbsp;pages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here\u2019s a brief list of these tactics, along with the general reasoning behind them:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/guest-blogging\/\"><strong>Guest posting<\/strong><\/a> \u2013 Write an awesome article for their website, from which you can link to yourself.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/skyscraper-technique\/\"><strong>Skyscraper technique<\/strong><\/a> \u2013 Find an outdated (or somehow inferior) page that lots of websites are linking to. Create a much better one on your own website. Then show it to all the \u201clinkers.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/resource-page-link-building\/\"><strong>Resource page link building<\/strong><\/a> \u2013 Find pages that list resources similar to yours and request to be added&nbsp;there.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/broken-link-building\/\"><strong>Broken link building<\/strong><\/a> \u2013 Find a dead page that has lots of links. Create an alternative on your own website and ping all the linkers about it. That\u2019s broken link building in a nutshell.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/build-links-with-images\/\"><strong>Image link building<\/strong><\/a> \u2013 Find sites that have used your images without proper attribution and ask them for a&nbsp;link.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/haro-link-building\/\"><strong>HARO<\/strong><\/a><strong> and journalist requests<\/strong> \u2013 Contribute an \u201cexpert quote\u201d for their article.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/unlinked-mentions\/\"><strong>Unlinked mentions<\/strong><\/a> \u2013 Ask to turn the mention of your brand into a&nbsp;link.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/moz.com\/blog\/easiest-pr-focused-link-building-tip\"><strong>PR<\/strong><\/a> \u2013 Give them a killer story to&nbsp;cover.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Here\u2019s a caveat, though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The reasoning behind each one of these tactics might seem quite fair and logical, but you\u2019ll be surprised how low the success rate is. I mean, if you manage to get five links out of a hundred outreach emails, you can be proud of yourself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But there\u2019s one simple thing you can do to skew the odds in your favor. That is to build relationships with people in your industry way before you need something from&nbsp;them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Think about it. If today you got a cold email from a random person asking for a link, would you even bother replying? I doubt so. But what if that email comes from someone whom you\u2019ve previously talked to on Twitter or maybe even met at some in-person event? You\u2019ll be a lot more likely to pay attention, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thus, if you start connecting with folks from your industry in advance (and maybe even do small favors for them), you\u2019ll have no issues reaching out with a link request at some point in future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here\u2019s a good example from my own experience. Gael Breton from Authority Hacker first reached out to me back in 2014. That was before I even joined Ahrefs:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1170\" height=\"386\" class=\"wp-image-167434\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/2014-email-from-gael-breton.png\" alt=\"2014 email from Gael Breton \" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/2014-email-from-gael-breton.png 1170w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/2014-email-from-gael-breton-680x224.png 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/2014-email-from-gael-breton-768x253.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1170px) 100vw, 1170px\"><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I enjoyed Gael\u2019s work, and we\u2019ve kept in touch ever since. Which is one of the reasons why his website has 122 incoming links from ahrefs.com as of&nbsp;today:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1342\" height=\"770\" class=\"wp-image-167435\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/how-many-times-were-linking-to-gaels-website-fro.png\" alt=\"How many times we're linking to Gael's website from our site, via Ahrefs' Site Explorer\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/how-many-times-were-linking-to-gaels-website-fro.png 1342w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/how-many-times-were-linking-to-gaels-website-fro-680x390.png 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/how-many-times-were-linking-to-gaels-website-fro-768x441.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1342px) 100vw, 1342px\"><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>But don\u2019t get me wrong. Gael didn\u2019t ask me for links every once in a while to get these. We simply follow each other\u2019s work. And when they publish something noteworthy on Authority Hacker, I would know about it and share it with our team. And then we might link to it at some point from our&nbsp;blog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s how relationships help you to acquire links naturally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a id=\"post-167427-_6tburxmoggxh\"><\/a>3. Buying links<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>This is the easiest way to build links. A lot of website owners would be happy to link to you if you pay them for&nbsp;it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But exchanging money (or anything else, really) for links is quite risky. <a href=\"https:\/\/developers.google.com\/search\/docs\/essentials\/spam-policies#link-spam\">Google considers it a manipulation of its algorithm<\/a>. And it might punish you for it by kicking your website out of the search results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another risk of buying links comes from simply wasting your money on <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/bad-links\/\">bad links<\/a> that won\u2019t even work in the first&nbsp;place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That being said, we don\u2019t want to teach you any tactics that might put your business (or your wallet) at risk. So there would be no tips on \u201chow to buy links the right way\u201d in this&nbsp;guide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And yet, you should be well aware that many people in the SEO industry do buy links to achieve their ranking goals. Once you start researching your competitors\u2019 backlinks and reaching out to the same websites, you\u2019ll soon find out if they paid for any of their&nbsp;links.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a id=\"post-167427-_7bxfvu67nuzu\"><\/a>4. Earning links<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>You \u201cearn\u201d links when other people link to the pages on your website without you having to ask them to do so. This won\u2019t happen unless you have something truly noteworthy that other website owners will genuinely want to mention on their websites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So here are a few things that can make the pages of your website worthy of a&nbsp;link:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Your company\u2019s proprietary data<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Results of experiments (which require significant efforts)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Unique ideas and strong opinions (i.e., thought leadership)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Industry surveys<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Breaking news<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>For example, back in 2017, we used our proprietary data to carry out a unique research study, which answered one of SEO\u2019s most frequently asked questions: \u201c<a href=\"\/blog\/how-long-does-it-take-to-rank-in-google-and-how-old-are-top-ranking-pages\/\" data-ahr=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/how-long-does-it-take-to-rank\/\">How long does it take to rank in Google?<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As of today, this blog post has almost 3,000 backlinks from about 1,700 different websites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1104\" height=\"372\" class=\"wp-image-167436\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/backlink-profile-for-my-blog-post-on-how-long-it-r.png\" alt=\"Backlink profile for my blog post on how long it takes to rank in Google, via Ahrefs' Site Explorer\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/backlink-profile-for-my-blog-post-on-how-long-it-r.png 1104w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/backlink-profile-for-my-blog-post-on-how-long-it-r-680x229.png 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/backlink-profile-for-my-blog-post-on-how-long-it-r-768x259.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/backlink-profile-for-my-blog-post-on-how-long-it-r-650x220.png 650w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1104px) 100vw, 1104px\"><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>And even six years later, this research is still picking up new links. Here are a few linked mentions from earlier this&nbsp;year:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1068\" height=\"656\" class=\"wp-image-167437\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/examples-of-recent-links-to-my-post.png\" alt=\"Examples of recent links to my post\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/examples-of-recent-links-to-my-post.png 1068w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/examples-of-recent-links-to-my-post-680x418.png 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/examples-of-recent-links-to-my-post-768x472.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1068px) 100vw, 1068px\"><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>But you don\u2019t necessarily have to create any content at all. Your business in itself can be link-worthy. Or the products and services that you&nbsp;offer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A fair share of links to the ahrefs.com website come from people mentioning our products and company rather than the content we publish. Here are a few linked mentions we got just yesterday:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"988\" height=\"698\" class=\"wp-image-167438\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/examples-of-recent-links-to-our-homepage.png\" alt=\"Examples of recent links to our homepage\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/examples-of-recent-links-to-our-homepage.png 988w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/examples-of-recent-links-to-our-homepage-602x425.png 602w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/examples-of-recent-links-to-our-homepage-768x543.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 988px) 100vw, 988px\"><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>But people can\u2019t link to things that they don\u2019t know exist. So no matter how awesome your page (or your product) is, you\u2019ll need to promote it. And the more people see your resource, the higher the chance that some of them will end up linking to&nbsp;it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We\u2019ll talk more about this later in this&nbsp;guide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div><hr class=\"g-devider2\"><\/div><div class=\"chapter-nav-link clearfix\" id=\"section1\"><a class=\"subhead-anchor\" data-tip=\"tooltip__copielink\" rel=\"#section1\"><svg width=\"19\" height=\"19\" viewBox=\"0 0 14 14\" style><g fill=\"none\" fill-rule=\"evenodd\"><path d=\"M0 0h14v14H0z\" \/><path d=\"M7.45 9.887l-1.62 1.621c-.92.92-2.418.92-3.338 0a2.364 2.364 0 0 1 0-3.339l1.62-1.62-1.273-1.272-1.62 1.62a4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.885 5.884l1.62-1.62L7.45 9.886zM5.527 5.135L7.17 3.492c.92-.92 2.418-.92 3.339 0 .92.92.92 2.418 0 3.339L8.866 8.473l1.272 1.273 1.644-1.643A4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.897 2.22L4.254 3.863l1.272 1.272zm-.66 3.998a.749.749 0 0 1 0-1.06l2.208-2.206a.749.749 0 1 1 1.06 1.06L5.928 9.133a.75.75 0 0 1-1.061 0z\" style \/><\/g><\/svg><\/a><div class=\"link-text chapter-header\" data-anchor=\"Which links move the needle?\" data-chapter=\"Which links move the needle?\" data-image=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/svg\/8.svg\" data-num=\"3\" data-section=\"good-vs-bad-links\"><div class=\"imgHolder\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/svg\/8.svg\"><\/div><div class=\"content\"><span class=\"ch\">Part 3<\/span>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Which links move the needle?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Different kinds of links have different impacts on your page\u2019s ranking in Google. And no one knows for sure how exactly Google measures the value of each individual link.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But there are five general concepts of evaluating links that the SEO community believes to be&nbsp;true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1414\" class=\"wp-image-167439\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/five-attributes-of-a-good-backlink.png\" alt=\"Five attributes of a good backlink\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/five-attributes-of-a-good-backlink.png 1600w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/five-attributes-of-a-good-backlink-481x425.png 481w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/five-attributes-of-a-good-backlink-768x679.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/five-attributes-of-a-good-backlink-1536x1357.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\">\n<figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">What makes a good&nbsp;link.<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a id=\"post-167427-_qmdefp9th298\"><\/a>1. Authority<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>It seems intuitive that a link from The New York Times and a link from your friend\u2019s small travel blog couldn\u2019t possibly be treated by Google as equals. NYT is a world-famous authority, and your friend\u2019s blog is hardly known even among their friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Over many years of building links, SEOs have gathered a lot of empirical evidence that links from more well-known and authoritative websites have a bigger influence on your page\u2019s rankings in Google.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But how do you measure the \u201cauthority\u201d of the website?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/aira.net\/state-of-link-building\/link-building-measurement-and-reporting\/\">an industry survey done by Aira<\/a>, the most popular website authority metrics are Ahrefs\u2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/domain-rating\/\">Domain Rating (DR)<\/a> and Moz\u2019s Domain Authority (DA). With internally developed metrics (which often have DR or DA blended in them) holding the third&nbsp;spot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1038\" height=\"798\" class=\"wp-image-167440\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/our-domain-rating-dr-metric-is-the-most-popular.png\" alt=\"Our Domain Rating (DR) metric is the most popular among SEOs, according to Aira's State of Link Building Report 2022\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/our-domain-rating-dr-metric-is-the-most-popular.png 1038w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/our-domain-rating-dr-metric-is-the-most-popular-553x425.png 553w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/our-domain-rating-dr-metric-is-the-most-popular-768x590.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1038px) 100vw, 1038px\">\n<figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The State of Link Building Report 2022.<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>We actually have a free <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/website-authority-checker\">Website Authority Checker<\/a> tool, which you can use to check the Domain Rating metric of any website:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1288\" height=\"514\" class=\"wp-image-167441\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/checking-dr-in-our-free-website-authority-checker.png\" alt=\"Checking DR in our free Website Authority Checker\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/checking-dr-in-our-free-website-authority-checker.png 1288w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/checking-dr-in-our-free-website-authority-checker-680x271.png 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/checking-dr-in-our-free-website-authority-checker-768x306.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1288px) 100vw, 1288px\"><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>But other than the authority of an entire website, there\u2019s also the authority of the actual page that is linking to you. Which is known to be calculated by Google with the help of the famous <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/google-pagerank\/\">PageRank algorithm<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In simple terms, the PageRank algorithm is based on the premise that pages with more backlinks (and better ones) of their own cast a stronger \u201cvote.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1558\" class=\"wp-image-167442\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/how-pagerank-works.png\" alt=\"How PageRank works\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/how-pagerank-works.png 1600w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/how-pagerank-works-436x425.png 436w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/how-pagerank-works-768x748.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/how-pagerank-works-1536x1496.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\">\n<figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Pages that have backlinks cast a stronger \u201cvote\u201d than those that&nbsp;don\u2019t.<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Here at Ahrefs, we have our own metric to measure the authority of the page. It\u2019s called <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/ahrefs-seo-metrics\/#section9\">URL Rating (UR)<\/a>, and it is calculated in a fairly similar fashion to the original PageRank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The UR of this very page that you\u2019re reading is 30, and it has backlinks from over a thousand different websites (ref. domains):<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"960\" height=\"376\" class=\"wp-image-167443\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/the-url-rating-ur-of-this-very-page.png\" alt=\"The URL Rating (UR) of this very page\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/the-url-rating-ur-of-this-very-page.png 960w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/the-url-rating-ur-of-this-very-page-680x266.png 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/the-url-rating-ur-of-this-very-page-768x301.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\"><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>And there\u2019s one more thing you need to know about authority. If a backlink has <a href=\"https:\/\/developers.google.com\/search\/docs\/crawling-indexing\/qualify-outbound-links\">a rel=\u201dnofollow\u201d attribute<\/a> attached to it, it most likely doesn\u2019t cast a \u201cvote\u201d toward a website that it links&nbsp;to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a id=\"post-167427-_trb1m487f61p\"><\/a>2. Relevance<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>If you run a blog about health and fitness, links from other websites (and pages) on the same topic will have more weight in the eyes of Google compared to links from websites about cars or finances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here\u2019s an excerpt from Google\u2019s \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/intl\/en_uk\/search\/howsearchworks\/how-search-works\/ranking-results\/\">How Search Works<\/a>\u201d guide that corroborates this theory (bolding is&nbsp;mine):<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>If <strong>other prominent websites on the subject<\/strong> link to the page, that\u2019s a good sign that the information is of high quality.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>But this doesn\u2019t mean that you should avoid getting links from websites that aren\u2019t on the same topic as yours. I can\u2019t imagine any seasoned SEO saying: \u201cNo, please don\u2019t link to my recipe website from dreamhost.com, a hosting website with DR&nbsp;93.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The thing is, whatever topic your website is about, there would be dozens of topics that are perfectly relevant while not the&nbsp;same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example, nutrition is very important for health and fitness. So it would be perfectly natural for fitness websites to link to articles about food. And if you want to work out regularly, you need to find time in your schedule for it, so linking to articles about time management wouldn\u2019t be unnatural too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In other words, relevance is a fairly malleable concept. Unless, of course, you try shoehorning links into places where they clearly don\u2019t belong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a id=\"post-167427-_q5pb6idjva3l\"><\/a>3. Anchor text<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>If you\u2019re not already familiar with the term, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/anchor-text\/\">anchor text<\/a>\u201d is a clickable snippet of text that links to another page. In many cases, it succinctly describes what the linked page is&nbsp;about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So it\u2019s no surprise that Google uses the words in the anchor text to better understand what the referenced page is about and what keywords it deserves to rank for. In fact, <a href=\"http:\/\/infolab.stanford.edu\/~backrub\/google.html\">Google\u2019s original PageRank patent<\/a> talks about this quite explicitly (bolding is&nbsp;mine):<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Google employs a number of techniques to improve search quality including page rank, <strong>anchor text,<\/strong> and proximity information.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>So how do you leverage anchor text when building links?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, it\u2019s better that you don\u2019t. The more you try to control how different pages link to you and shoehorn all the \u201cright words\u201d into the anchor text of your backlinks, the higher the chance that Google will suspect manipulation and penalize you for that. So it\u2019s better to just let the author of the linking page decide how they want to reference your&nbsp;page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a id=\"post-167427-_11yl3bhg65xy\"><\/a>4. Placement<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Back in 2010, Bill Slawski <a href=\"https:\/\/www.seobythesea.com\/2010\/05\/googles-reasonable-surfer-how-the-value-of-a-link-may-differ-based-upon-link-and-document-features-and-user-data\/\">brought to attention<\/a> a <a href=\"https:\/\/patents.google.com\/patent\/US8117209B1\/en\">Google patent<\/a> that described a \u201cReasonable Surfer Model.\u201d This model explains how the likelihood of a link being clicked may affect how much authority it transfers. And this likelihood is mostly determined by where the link is located on the&nbsp;page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let\u2019s say there\u2019s a webpage that consists of three blocks: content, sidebar, and footer. As a general rule, links in the content get more clicks because the content block gets the most attention from visitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1422\" class=\"wp-image-167444\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/placement-matters-with-backlinks.png\" alt=\"Placement matters with backlinks\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/placement-matters-with-backlinks.png 1600w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/placement-matters-with-backlinks-478x425.png 478w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/placement-matters-with-backlinks-768x683.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/placement-matters-with-backlinks-1536x1365.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\">\n<figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Prominently placed links may transfer more \u201cauthority.\u201d<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>One other thing that can affect the CTR of a link is how high on the page it appears. Readers are more likely to click the links at the very beginning of the article rather than the ones at its very&nbsp;end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a id=\"post-167427-_rzet5ejmjmm1\"><\/a>5. Destination<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>When building links to your website, there are three general destinations where you can point&nbsp;them:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Your homepage.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Your <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/linkable-assets\/\">linkable assets<\/a>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The actual pages that you need to rank well in Google (usually called \u201cmoney pages\u201d).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>And quite often, the pages that you need to rank well are also the hardest ones to get links&nbsp;to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s because website owners generally prefer to link to informational pages where their audience can get value for free rather than commercial pages where their audience is likely to be pitched some product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thus, one of the most common questions in SEO is, \u201cHow to get links to boring pages?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And the strategy that experienced SEOs usually suggest is to get lots of high quality links to your \u201clinkable assets,\u201d and then transfer some of that \u201clink authority\u201d to your \u201cmoney pages\u201d that you want to rank well in Google.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1082\" class=\"wp-image-167445\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/how-to-transfer-authority-to-money-pages-using-a.png\" alt=\"How to transfer authority to &quot;money pages&quot; using a linkable asset\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/how-to-transfer-authority-to-money-pages-using-a.png 1600w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/how-to-transfer-authority-to-money-pages-using-a-628x425.png 628w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/how-to-transfer-authority-to-money-pages-using-a-768x519.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/how-to-transfer-authority-to-money-pages-using-a-1536x1039.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\">\n<figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Use internal links to transfer authority to the \u201cboring\u201d pages&nbsp;that you need to rank well in Google.<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div><hr class=\"g-devider2\"><\/div><div class=\"chapter-nav-link clearfix\" id=\"section1\"><a class=\"subhead-anchor\" data-tip=\"tooltip__copielink\" rel=\"#section1\"><svg width=\"19\" height=\"19\" viewBox=\"0 0 14 14\" style><g fill=\"none\" fill-rule=\"evenodd\"><path d=\"M0 0h14v14H0z\" \/><path d=\"M7.45 9.887l-1.62 1.621c-.92.92-2.418.92-3.338 0a2.364 2.364 0 0 1 0-3.339l1.62-1.62-1.273-1.272-1.62 1.62a4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.885 5.884l1.62-1.62L7.45 9.886zM5.527 5.135L7.17 3.492c.92-.92 2.418-.92 3.339 0 .92.92.92 2.418 0 3.339L8.866 8.473l1.272 1.273 1.644-1.643A4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.897 2.22L4.254 3.863l1.272 1.272zm-.66 3.998a.749.749 0 0 1 0-1.06l2.208-2.206a.749.749 0 1 1 1.06 1.06L5.928 9.133a.75.75 0 0 1-1.061 0z\" style \/><\/g><\/svg><\/a><div class=\"link-text chapter-header\" data-anchor=\"Best link building strategies\" data-chapter=\"Best link building strategies\" data-image=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/svg\/9.svg\" data-num=\"4\" data-section=\"link-building-strategies\"><div class=\"imgHolder\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/svg\/9.svg\"><\/div><div class=\"content\"><span class=\"ch\">Part 4<\/span>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Best link building strategies<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>There are many different link building tactics and strategies out there. Some of them can be very effective, while others no longer work these days and will most likely just waste your&nbsp;time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here\u2019s what works really well today, according to our observations:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a id=\"post-167427-_11l03rkofb0c\"><\/a>1. Replicating your competitor\u2019s backlinks<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>If someone is linking to your competitor, there\u2019s a good chance that they might be open to linking to you&nbsp;too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A good way to kick off this strategy is to study who links to the actual homepages of your competitor\u2019s websites. These people are mentioning the business as a whole and not some specific webpage, which you might not have on your own website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example, here are a couple of pages (with decent search traffic) that link to our homepage:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1408\" height=\"628\" class=\"wp-image-167446\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/examples-of-pages-linking-to-our-homepage.png\" alt=\"Examples of pages linking to our homepage\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/examples-of-pages-linking-to-our-homepage.png 1408w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/examples-of-pages-linking-to-our-homepage-680x303.png 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/examples-of-pages-linking-to-our-homepage-768x343.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1408px) 100vw, 1408px\">\n<figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A screenshot from <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/site-explorer\">Site Explorer<\/a>.<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>As you can see, in both cases, Ahrefs is mentioned right next to some other marketing tools, which only proves the point that asking to be mentioned alongside your competitors is a fair request.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once you\u2019re done with the homepage links, the next step is to study which pages on your competitor\u2019s websites have the most links. We have a report in <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/site-explorer\">Site Explorer<\/a> just for that, which is called \u201cBest by&nbsp;links.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1218\" height=\"1088\" class=\"wp-image-167447\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/the-most-linked-pages-on-our-site-via-ahrefs-site.png\" alt=\"The most linked pages on our site, via Ahrefs' Site Explorer\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/the-most-linked-pages-on-our-site-via-ahrefs-site.png 1218w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/the-most-linked-pages-on-our-site-via-ahrefs-site-476x425.png 476w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/the-most-linked-pages-on-our-site-via-ahrefs-site-768x686.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1218px) 100vw, 1218px\"><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>By looking at the <strong>Best by links<\/strong> report for ahrefs.com (above), it\u2019s easy to spot what kinds of pages have brought us the most&nbsp;links:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Our homepage<\/strong> \u2013 Because lots of people mention Ahrefs as a software or as a company.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Our free tools<\/strong> \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/keyword-generator\">Keyword Generator<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/website-authority-checker\">Website Authority Checker<\/a> are two of the many free tools we developed. And each of these tools is attracting a ton of backlinks organically.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Our blog<\/strong> \u2013 Thanks to a consistent output of useful content, lots of people are now recommending our blog and linking to&nbsp;it.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Our research studies<\/strong> \u2013 People love insightful data. So the research studies that we publish tend to get lots of&nbsp;links.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Try browsing the <strong>Best by links<\/strong> report for your own competitors and see what kinds of pages bring them links. Once you identify what worked for them, you can create similar (or better) resources on your own website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After you\u2019re done with the above tactics, I suggest that you <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/alerts\">set up a backlink alert<\/a> and get notified whenever your competitors get new links. This way, you\u2019ll be able to immediately reach out to whoever linked to them and try to get yourself added on the same&nbsp;page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1240\" height=\"934\" class=\"wp-image-167448\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/setting-up-a-backlink-alert-in-ahrefs-alerts.png\" alt=\"Setting up a backlink alert in Ahrefs Alerts\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/setting-up-a-backlink-alert-in-ahrefs-alerts.png 1240w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/setting-up-a-backlink-alert-in-ahrefs-alerts-564x425.png 564w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/setting-up-a-backlink-alert-in-ahrefs-alerts-768x578.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1240px) 100vw, 1240px\"><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>All in all, your competitors are a goldmine of great link opportunities. And as you dig deep into their backlinks, you\u2019ll soon see some link building patterns, which you can leverage on your own website. We wrote <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/find-competitors-backlinks\/\">a pretty detailed article on that topic<\/a>, actually. Make sure to check it&nbsp;out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a id=\"post-167427-_pa50sy20s06l\"><\/a>2. Targeted link outreach<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>So let\u2019s say you\u2019ve done your keyword research and a very specific page that you need to rank well in Google for a certain keyword. And you need to build links to that very specific page.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, the best place to start is to pull up the top-ranking pages for your desired keyword and research where they got their links&nbsp;from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just put your keyword into Ahrefs\u2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/keywords-explorer\">Keywords Explorer<\/a> and scroll down to the \u201cSERP Overview\u201d widget. You\u2019ll see the top-ranking pages along with how many backlinks (and linking domains) they&nbsp;have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So let\u2019s say you want to rank for \u201cbest productivity apps.\u201d Here\u2019s how the SERP for this keyword looks:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1434\" height=\"738\" class=\"wp-image-167449\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/backlinks-to-the-top-ranking-pages-for-best-produ.png\" alt=\"Backlinks to the top-ranking pages for &quot;best productivity apps&quot;\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/backlinks-to-the-top-ranking-pages-for-best-produ.png 1434w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/backlinks-to-the-top-ranking-pages-for-best-produ-680x350.png 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/backlinks-to-the-top-ranking-pages-for-best-produ-768x395.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1434px) 100vw, 1434px\"><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Once you click on any of the backlink numbers, you\u2019ll be redirected to a list of backlinks of a given page in Ahrefs\u2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/site-explorer\">Site Explorer<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1516\" height=\"950\" class=\"wp-image-167450\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/backlinks-to-one-of-the-top-ranking-pages-for-bes.png\" alt=\"Backlinks to one of the top-ranking pages for &quot;best productivity apps&quot;\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/backlinks-to-one-of-the-top-ranking-pages-for-bes.png 1516w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/backlinks-to-one-of-the-top-ranking-pages-for-bes-678x425.png 678w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/backlinks-to-one-of-the-top-ranking-pages-for-bes-768x481.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1516px) 100vw, 1516px\"><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Here\u2019s what you need to do&nbsp;next:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Apply some filters to focus on \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/timsoulo\/status\/1696733192081043618\">meaningful backlinks<\/a>\u201d only<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Manually go through the list of remaining pages, open them one by one, and see if the context of it allows for a link to your page to be&nbsp;added<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Reach out to the owners of these websites and try to make a case for adding a link to your resource on their&nbsp;page<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>The next place you turn to for finding potential linkers is among people who mentioned your topic on their websites. For example, if you need to build links to a productivity app, you want to get in touch with all websites that have mentioned the word \u201cproductivity\u201d somewhere on their&nbsp;pages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can try to search for them in Google, but it only gives you a limited number of search engine results. Just a couple of hundred on average.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1662\" height=\"666\" class=\"wp-image-167451\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/limited-search-results-in-google.png\" alt=\"Limited search results in Google\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/limited-search-results-in-google.png 1662w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/limited-search-results-in-google-680x272.png 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/limited-search-results-in-google-768x308.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/limited-search-results-in-google-1536x616.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1662px) 100vw, 1662px\"><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>A much faster way to find thousands of pages that mention your topic is Ahrefs\u2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/content-explorer\">Content Explorer<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example, if you search for the keyword \u201cproductivity app,\u201d you\u2019ll get over 120,000 pages that mention this keyword.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1578\" height=\"1016\" class=\"wp-image-167452\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/120k-pages-that-mention-productivity-app-via-ah.jpg\" alt=\"120K+ pages that mention &quot;productivity app,&quot; via Ahrefs' Content Explorer\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/120k-pages-that-mention-productivity-app-via-ah.jpg 1578w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/120k-pages-that-mention-productivity-app-via-ah-660x425.jpg 660w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/120k-pages-that-mention-productivity-app-via-ah-260x166.jpg 260w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/120k-pages-that-mention-productivity-app-via-ah-768x494.jpg 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/120k-pages-that-mention-productivity-app-via-ah-1536x989.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1578px) 100vw, 1578px\"><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>From there, you might want to apply the following filters to narrow down the list of results to the most meaningful ones:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Language: English (or whatever language you\u2019re interested in)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Website traffic: from 1,000<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Domain Rating: from&nbsp;30<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Filter explicit results<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Filters: one page per domain, exclude homepages, exclude subdomains<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>This way, you\u2019ll end up with slightly over 4,000 pages. Which is a way more manageable number of link prospects to work&nbsp;with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1356\" height=\"864\" class=\"wp-image-167453\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/filtering-for-the-most-meaningful-results-in-conte.png\" alt=\"Filtering for the most meaningful results in Content Explorer\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/filtering-for-the-most-meaningful-results-in-conte.png 1356w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/filtering-for-the-most-meaningful-results-in-conte-667x425.png 667w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/filtering-for-the-most-meaningful-results-in-conte-260x166.png 260w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/filtering-for-the-most-meaningful-results-in-conte-768x489.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1356px) 100vw, 1356px\"><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>And your plan of action here would be very similar to the previous one. Review these pages one by one and reach out to the respective site owners if you think there\u2019s a chance that they might agree to link to your page from theirs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In all fairness, your success rate with both these groups of link prospects will likely be quite low. I know it because <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/email-outreach\/\">I did this kind of link building outreach<\/a> not that long ago. And from my conversations with professional link builders, that\u2019s pretty much the&nbsp;norm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Most people won\u2019t bother replying to your emails.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Many will reply just to politely decline your request.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Some will ask for money or a <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/reciprocal-links\/\">link exchange<\/a>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>And only a few will actually link to&nbsp;you.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s why I mentioned earlier that you should start building relationships with all these website owners before you actually ask them for a&nbsp;favor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A good way to do this is to reach out to them while you\u2019re still in progress of creating your page. You can ask for their opinion, a quote, or even suggest to feature some of their relevant work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And it is always of great help if something that you\u2019re working on is of actual interest to&nbsp;them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example, back when I was running my personal blog, I reached out to 500+ fellow bloggers asking them to share some of their Google Analytics data for my small research study. That request piqued their interest, and many of them helped me out with&nbsp;it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After my research was done and published, I made sure to give a heads-up over email to all these 500+ bloggers whom I originally reached out to. And that is how this article became the most linked-to page on my&nbsp;blog:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1314\" height=\"886\" class=\"wp-image-167454\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/the-most-linked-post-on-my-personal-blog.png\" alt=\"The most linked post on my personal blog\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/the-most-linked-post-on-my-personal-blog.png 1314w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/the-most-linked-post-on-my-personal-blog-630x425.png 630w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/the-most-linked-post-on-my-personal-blog-768x518.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1314px) 100vw, 1314px\"><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>But, most importantly, all the hard work I poured into this research has gained me respect from many of these bloggers. And whenever I later reached out to them with some other request, I was no longer a \u201cnobody\u201d and they were more open to talk to&nbsp;me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In other words, your email outreach will be massively more effective if what you\u2019re working on actually deserves people\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a id=\"post-167427-_535hmfxwdbch\"><\/a>3. Creating linkable assets<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>In SEO, we use the terms \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/linkable-assets\/\">linkable asset<\/a>\u201d or \u201clink bait\u201d to refer to content that is strategically crafted to attract links. Such linkable assets can take on many different forms:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Industry surveys<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Studies and research<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Online tools and calculators<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Awards and rankings<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>How-to guides and tutorials<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Definitions and coined terms<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Infographics, GIFographics, and \u201cMap-o-graphics\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Earlier, I already mentioned two examples of linkable assets: a blogger survey I did for my personal blog and a research study we did here at Ahrefs. So let me show you a cool example from someone else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The folks at Aira, a digital marketing agency, run an annual <a href=\"https:\/\/aira.net\/state-of-link-building\/\">\u201cThe State of Link Building Report\u201d<\/a> by surveying hundreds of leading industry professionals. This report has brought them backlinks from over 600 different websites:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"940\" height=\"376\" class=\"wp-image-167455\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/number-of-linking-websites-to-airas-state-of-link.png\" alt=\"Number of linking websites to Aira's State of Link Building Report\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/number-of-linking-websites-to-airas-state-of-link.png 940w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/number-of-linking-websites-to-airas-state-of-link-680x272.png 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/number-of-linking-websites-to-airas-state-of-link-768x307.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 940px) 100vw, 940px\"><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>And one of these backlinks is coming from the very homepage of ahrefs.com (which has a URL Rating of&nbsp;54):<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1012\" height=\"1002\" class=\"wp-image-167456\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/example-of-a-link-from-our-website-to-airas-repor.png\" alt=\"Example of a link from our website to Aira's report\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/example-of-a-link-from-our-website-to-airas-repor.png 1012w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/example-of-a-link-from-our-website-to-airas-repor-429x425.png 429w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/example-of-a-link-from-our-website-to-airas-repor-768x760.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1012px) 100vw, 1012px\"><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Their report contains some data that is very favorable for our company, so we couldn\u2019t resist featuring it on our very homepage. Many marketers refer to this kind of link bait as part \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.searchenginejournal.com\/link-building-guide\/ego-bait-content\/\">ego bait.<\/a>\u201d But in Aira\u2019s case, I don\u2019t think it was deliberate, because they can\u2019t know in advance what the results of their industry survey would&nbsp;be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So how do you put this link building strategy into action?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, first of all, you need to come up with an actual idea of a link-worthy page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can start from a simple brainstorm based on the abovementioned list of linkable asset&nbsp;types:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Can you survey your industry about something?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Can you calculate some meaningful statistics from the data that your business has access to?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Is there any interesting experiment, which you could carry&nbsp;out?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Does your industry need some kind of free online tool?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Etc.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The folks from Authority Hacker have recently published a pretty detailed video on YouTube, explaining how they use surveys to create linkable content for their websites. Check it out; it\u2019s very actionable:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">https:\/\/youtu.be\/CLVxdA6L8vQ?si=hZhjx8ul4q0Vub_r<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>And if you fail to brainstorm any exciting ideas, you can always go back to studying the websites of your competitors and figuring out what types of linkable assets worked for&nbsp;them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just don\u2019t forget that even the best linkable assets have to be promoted in order to attract links. Because people can\u2019t link to things they don\u2019t know&nbsp;exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So let\u2019s talk about content promotion real&nbsp;quick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a id=\"post-167427-_7ri6kb22ez0j\"><\/a>4. Content promotion<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>We actually have a separate article listing <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/content-promotion\/\">21 content promotion tactics<\/a>. But for now, I want to focus your attention on just the following three:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Advertising<\/strong> \u2013 A very easy way to promote your resource to thousands of relevant people but might require a significant budget.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Influencer outreach<\/strong> \u2013 You can look up all the active thought leaders in your space and reach out to them whenever you publish something worthy of their attention. If you\u2019re lucky, they might share it with their followers.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Building a following<\/strong> \u2013 You should definitely <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sender.net\/blog\/email-list-management-software\/\">start building an email list<\/a> (if you haven\u2019t already), as well as be active on platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn. And if you consistently publish quality content, more people will start following you and many of them might end up linking to your content.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>And don\u2019t forget to promote your older content by mentioning it in your newly published content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As Ryan Holiday said in his book \u201cPerennial Seller\u201d: \u201cCreating more work is one of the most effective marketing techniques of&nbsp;all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a id=\"post-167427-_bab9olvs00pt\"><\/a>5. Guest posting<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>This link building tactic is actually frowned upon by some SEO professionals. Mainly because some people tend to overdo it to the point of being spammy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And yet guest blogging is one of the most popular ways how SEOs build links these&nbsp;days:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1180\" height=\"1030\" class=\"wp-image-167457\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/most-popular-ways-seos-build-links.png\" alt=\"Most popular ways SEOs build links\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/most-popular-ways-seos-build-links.png 1180w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/most-popular-ways-seos-build-links-487x425.png 487w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/most-popular-ways-seos-build-links-768x670.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1180px) 100vw, 1180px\"><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Even here at the Ahrefs Blog, we do allow guest contributions once in a while. And our guest authors might link to some of their own resources, as long as they\u2019re relevant to the topic of their post. Which means you can build links with guest articles in a perfectly legit&nbsp;way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But how do you get your content published on the top blogs in your industry? Well, you just need to pitch them a really compelling article idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And here\u2019s a simple tip on how to come up with content ideas that are hard to say no to. Just find a few competitors of the blog you want to write for and use the <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/content-gap\">Content Gap tool<\/a> to find which topics bring them lots of traffic but weren\u2019t covered on the blog that you\u2019re pitching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example, a quick <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/content-gap-analysis\/\">content gap analysis<\/a> of our own blog against the blogs of our competitors reveals a bunch of great topics that they get search traffic from, while we don\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1116\" height=\"1236\" class=\"wp-image-167458\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/finding-content-gaps-in-ahrefs.png\" alt=\"Finding content gaps in Ahrefs\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/finding-content-gaps-in-ahrefs.png 1116w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/finding-content-gaps-in-ahrefs-384x425.png 384w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/finding-content-gaps-in-ahrefs-768x851.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1116px) 100vw, 1116px\"><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>If someone made a compelling pitch that they could write a decent post on any of these topics, it would be very hard for us to turn it&nbsp;down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A somewhat lesser-known guest posting tactic is to find an underperforming article on the blog you want to write for and offer them to rewrite it from scratch. If you can persuade them that you can greatly improve that article and it will end up ranking higher in Google and bringing them more search traffic, I\u2019m sure they\u2019ll have a hard time resisting your&nbsp;pitch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>How do you find these underperforming pages? Just open the <strong>Top pages<\/strong> report in <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/site-explorer\">Site Explorer<\/a> and use the \u201cTraffic\u201d filter:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1124\" height=\"1006\" class=\"wp-image-167459\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/finding-underperforming-pages-using-the-top-pages.png\" alt=\"Finding underperforming pages using the Top pages report in Site Explorer\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/finding-underperforming-pages-using-the-top-pages.png 1124w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/finding-underperforming-pages-using-the-top-pages-475x425.png 475w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/finding-underperforming-pages-using-the-top-pages-768x687.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1124px) 100vw, 1124px\"><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div><hr class=\"g-devider2\"><\/div><div class=\"chapter-nav-link clearfix\" id=\"section1\"><a class=\"subhead-anchor\" data-tip=\"tooltip__copielink\" rel=\"#section1\"><svg width=\"19\" height=\"19\" viewBox=\"0 0 14 14\" style><g fill=\"none\" fill-rule=\"evenodd\"><path d=\"M0 0h14v14H0z\" \/><path d=\"M7.45 9.887l-1.62 1.621c-.92.92-2.418.92-3.338 0a2.364 2.364 0 0 1 0-3.339l1.62-1.62-1.273-1.272-1.62 1.62a4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.885 5.884l1.62-1.62L7.45 9.886zM5.527 5.135L7.17 3.492c.92-.92 2.418-.92 3.339 0 .92.92.92 2.418 0 3.339L8.866 8.473l1.272 1.273 1.644-1.643A4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.897 2.22L4.254 3.863l1.272 1.272zm-.66 3.998a.749.749 0 0 1 0-1.06l2.208-2.206a.749.749 0 1 1 1.06 1.06L5.928 9.133a.75.75 0 0 1-1.061 0z\" style \/><\/g><\/svg><\/a><div class=\"link-text chapter-header\" data-anchor=\"Link building tools\" data-chapter=\"Link building tools\" data-image=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/svg\/10.svg\" data-num=\"5\" data-section=\"link-building-tools\"><div class=\"imgHolder\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/svg\/10.svg\"><\/div><div class=\"content\"><span class=\"ch\">Part 5<\/span>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Link building tools<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>While it is technically possible to build links with just a bit of brain power and a Gmail account, there are a number of link building tools that will help make the process of acquiring links much faster and easier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here are some free&nbsp;ones:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Ahrefs\u2019 <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/backlink-checker\"><strong>Free Backlink Checker<\/strong><\/a> \u2013 Shows top 100 links pointing at any website or&nbsp;URL.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/alerts\"><strong>Google Alerts<\/strong><\/a> \u2013 Notifies you whenever a specific word or phrase was mentioned on a newly published page. Which is a great way to source relevant link prospects.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>And here are some premium ones:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Ahrefs\u2019 <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/site-explorer\"><strong>Site Explorer<\/strong><\/a> \u2013 Shows you all links of any website or URL with an option to sort and filter them by many important SEO metrics.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Ahrefs\u2019 <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/content-explorer\"><strong>Content Explorer<\/strong><\/a> \u2013 A unique link prospecting tool, which helps you find thousands of relevant websites for link requests and guest posting. Also helps to discover linkable assets on any topic from all around the&nbsp;web.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/alerts\"><strong>Ahrefs Alerts<\/strong><\/a> \u2013 Similar to Google Alerts but has more flexibility with SEO-related filters.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/pitchbox.com\/\"><strong>Pitchbox<\/strong><\/a><strong>\/<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.buzzstream.com\/\"><strong>BuzzStream<\/strong><\/a><strong>\/<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/\"><strong>GMass<\/strong><\/a> \u2013 Email outreach tools. There are many other tools that let you send personalized emails at scale, but these ones seem to be the most popular among&nbsp;SEOs.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/hunter.io\/\"><strong>Hunter.io<\/strong><\/a><strong>\/<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.voilanorbert.com\/\"><strong>Voila Norbert<\/strong><\/a> \u2013 The so-called \u201cemail lookup services,\u201d which help you find contact details of websites at&nbsp;scale.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a id=\"post-167427-_hr62po6ygwog\"><\/a>Let\u2019s wrap this&nbsp;up<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Whenever I explain link building to a complete newbie, I always use the same metaphor. It\u2019s very hard to make friends if you\u2019re not an interesting (and generous) person. The same applies to your website: If there\u2019s nothing interesting or useful about it, then why would anyone care to link to&nbsp;it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s why many SEOs claim that they never proactively build links. They just focus on doing notable \u201clink-worthy\u201d stuff on their websites and promoting that work to relevant audiences. And the links come naturally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s it from me. Hope you feel very educated about link building after reading this guide. And if you enjoyed the read and got this far, please give me a shoutout on Twitter <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/timsoulo\">@timsoulo<\/a>. That would mean a lot to&nbsp;me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You\u2019ve likely heard that links (or backlinks) are what helps your website to rank higher in Google. And you need to learn how to build&nbsp;them. Well\u2026 we (Ahrefs) have been building tools for professional link builders for 10+ years now.<span class=\"ellipsis\">\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\">Read more \u203a<\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":132729,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-guide.php","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"coauthors":[338],"class_list":["post-149751","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-link-building","odd"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Link Building for SEO: The Beginner\u2019s Guide<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Everything you need to know about link building for SEO. What it is, how it works, what makes a good link, how to build it, and more.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/link-building\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Link Building for SEO: The Beginner\u2019s Guide\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Everything you need to know about link building.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/link-building\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"SEO Blog by Ahrefs\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Ahrefs\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-07-08T12:30:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/lb_social_EN.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"990\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Everything you need to know about link building.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ahrefs\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ahrefs.com\\\/blog\\\/link-building\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ahrefs.com\\\/blog\\\/link-building\\\/\",\"name\":\"Link Building for SEO: The Beginner\u2019s Guide\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ahrefs.com\\\/blog\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ahrefs.com\\\/blog\\\/link-building\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ahrefs.com\\\/blog\\\/link-building\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/ahrefs.com\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2021\\\/04\\\/lb_social_EN.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-10-09T08:48:21+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-07-08T12:30:56+00:00\",\"description\":\"Everything you need to know about link building for SEO. 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