17 Untapped Backlink Sources

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How’d you like to see my secret stash of untapped authority backlinks that I personally use to rank sites?

Well consider yourself very lucky…

…because today I’m going to pull back the curtain and share some of my absolute BEST sources with you.

Warning: you are NOT going to find any stuff about article directories (blah) or blog comments (yawn) here.

I’m bringing the noise.

1. Submit to Audio Sharing Sites

SEO peeps NEVER use audio sharing sites…which is CRAZY because they’re ridiculously easy to get backlinks from.

And make no mistake: these audio sharing sites are PR powerhouses and can move your site in the SERPs.

All you need to do is create a piece of audio (preferably music) and upload it to these sites, which give you a nice dofollow link in exchange:

Reverbnation.com (PR6)

BandCamp.com (PR7)

Sutros.com (PR5)

YourListen.com (PR5)

Here’s an example (live dofollow link):

Even if you have as much music talent as MC Hammer you can still take advantage of this technique.

Just hit ‘record’ on your laptop mic and belt out Radiohead covers or beatbox like you do in your car.

These files aren’t usually screened by people so you don’t have to worry about winning a Grammy.

Just record something, upload it and grab your authority links.

2. Buy Expired Domains at GoDaddy Auctions, SnapNames or NameJet.

This technique is so powerful and seldom-used I was a little bit reluctant to put it on this list.

If you’re buying a new domain every time you launch a site you’re leaving A LOT of link juice in the table and making your life A LOT harder than it has to be.

Before I launch a site, I ALWAYS head over to GoDaddy auctions to see if I can grab an aged domain.

Even if I can’t find a domain in my niche, I buy an aged domain with quality links pointing to it. Then I 301 redirect it to my new site.

Let me tell you, that 301 alone often lands my site on the 2nd or 3rd page…before I’ve build a single link! And it doesn’t matter what the old site is about.

As long as it has authority and trust you’ll fly by your competitors that are building 100% of their links by hand.

Suckers.

3. Donate to Charity

If the warm fuzzy feeling you get from donating isn’t enough, maybe a backlink will cajole your altruistic side.

There are A TON of dead broke PR6+ site owners that will gladly hand over a link in exchange for a few bucks. And these sites tend to have ridiculous link profiles.

Take a look at this PR7 site that I got a link from last week:

How much would you pay for a link on a site like this?

$100? $500?

How about $12. This site requires a measly 10 Euro donation for a link on their contributors page (which is a PR5).

I love you man, but I’m can’t out the sites that I donate to (I don’t want them to get spammed).

You can find some on your own by using these nifty search strings:

“donate to us”

“contributors page”

“sponsors page”

allintitle: “contributors”

allintitle: “sponsors”

4. Build a Blog Network

A high quality blog network is one of the best SEO investments you can make: you’re in the driver’s seat and can funnel massive amounts of link juice wherever the heck you want. You’re literally creating backlinks from sites at will.

Contrary to popular belief, building a blog network isn’t that hard.

You just need to get good at buying expired domains. Oh, and you’ll need some cash .

Obviously, you should do everything you can power to reduce your network’s footprint, including:

• Private whois informtion
• Different hosting plans (NOT different IPs…completely different hosting from different companies)
• Different themes and designs
• Different permalink structures
• Different content management systems (Drupal, WordPress, Joomla etc.)

This way you won’t have to worry about waking up one morning and seeing your entire blog network deindexed.

5. Give Testimonials

Companies big and small LOVE to show off their customer testimonials. If you’re using a product or service that you love (or at least like), consider sending them a testimonial.

When you do, make sure to tell them that they can put it on their homepage or a testimonial page. To show that you’re a real person they’ll often put a link to your site for you…without you even having to ask.

Make no mistake, you can get some baller links from testimonials (this one here is on a PR6 page):

When I see an authority site with testimonial links I sometimes buy their product or service just to give a testimonial and get a link.

6. Fiverr Blog Backlinks

It’s very fashionable to hate on Fiverr because 99% of their SEO gigs are absolute garbage.

But the 1% that most people ignore are solid gold bullion.

The key is knowing how to find the 1%.

When I want to get backlinks at Fiverr I’m hunting for ONE specific type of gig: a webmaster who is selling a contextual link on his site.

That’s it.

No link wheels. No link pyramid. No link hexagons. No crap.

And if you look hard enough there are a CRAZY site owners on there that have NO CLUE how much a link on their site is worth.

Here’s the link profile from a site I got a blog post link from the other day (PR4):

Not bad, eh?

For this level of quality you’ll usually have to provide the content yourself (no biggie).

And while this may seem like traditional guest posting, it’s a VERY different ballgame because:

• You don’t have to follow any fascist “guest posting guidelines”
• You can write content optimized around your keyword
• You can drop links wherever and however you like
• You usually get your content and link posted within a day or so

Luckily, finding these gigs is a cinch.

Just type these into Fiverr’s search field:

“I will post your content”

“guest post on my”

“I will post your article”

7. Directory Domination

I chuckle every time people claim that directories are dead.

In May 2012 Google deindexed a few hundred free directories. If directory links didn’t work then why would they deindex them?

Hint: they wouldn’t.

This matches my personal experience: links from the right directories can still do wonders for your site.

And because web directories are seen as “old-fashioned” in the SEO world, you can usually get high PR links from aged domains for next to nothing.

Here are some directories to consider getting a link from:

Free:

R-TT Directory

So Much

Ranking Directory

Directory World

Net Insert

All The Websites

MavicaNET

Paid:

Family Friendly Sites

Ask Bee

DirBull.com

Yahoo! Directory (expensive but worth it)

8. HARO

HARO (short for Help a Reporter Out) is one of best ways to get killer backlinks from authority news sites.

Here’s how HARO works:

1. Sign Up To HARO as a source here.

2. You’ll get three emails per day from reporters looking for sources, like this one:

3. Respond with your credentials and some helpful tips.

Easy right? You give a reporter a tailored response and they’ll hook you up with a link.

Don’t sleep on HARO: major international media outlets like MSNBC.com and The Huffington Post use HARO to find sources for their articles.

9. .Edu Resource Links

Everyone knows that .edu links are the bomb.

But getting legit .edu links is damn near impossible for average Joe SEO…

…or is it?

If you have a legit looking site that’s not monetized to death you can usually get a 1-2 .edu links just by asking around.

Here’s how.

Most universities have resource pages where they link to websites that they think are cool. Here’s an example:

So if you had a website about guitars or music you could get a link from this site (in this case Cookman.edu) by emailing them and showing them your helpful resource.

Use these search strings to find them:

site:.edu “your niche”

site:.edu “your niche” + “resources”

site.edu: “your niche” + “links”

site.edu: “your niche” + “other sites”

Only 5-10% of them will actually post your link, but even a handful of these can make a HUGE difference in the SERPs.

10. Submit Your Site to Website Feedback Sites

There are a TON of sites that are designed to help you get feedback on your site’s layout or conversion potential. Important for our purposes, all of them allow a dofollow link back to your site.

Here’s an example from a site called ConceptFeedback.com:

As you can see, there’s a nice dofollow link on the page.

To get a link from these sites all you need to do is submit your site with a little description of how you want to improve it.

Here are some Website Feedback Sites to get links from:

ConceptFeedback.com (PR5)

ABTests.com (PR5)

BounceApp.com (PR5)

SuggestionBox.com (PR4)

11. Find Expired Domains Using This Top Secret Method

If there’s one skill SEOers need to start learning it’s the art of grabbing expired domains.

Buying a domain from 10-years ago is like going back in time, hiring someone to make and promote a site…and then paying him $100 for his decade of toil.

In addition to the auction sites I’ve listed above, there’s another way to find these little gems. Fair warning: this technique does take A LOT more time and effort than simply bidding on an auction.

What you’re doing is finding pages that a) have a long list of links to other sites and b) haven’t been updated in a while.

If you can find a link to a site that’s not registered anymore you can pick it up at GoDaddy or wherever for $10 or so. And the best part: no auctions!

And while it may not show any PR  when you buy it, the PR WILL come back as soon as you host it and toss some content on it (assuming the links are still pointing to it).

The key here is finding those pages that have lots of links on them. There’s no simple way of finding them, you just need to be creative.

Let me give you an example just to get you started:

Notice that I set the date from December 1st 2006-December 2009.

This limits the results to pages that haven’t been updated in a while.

Once you find a page that seems to be old and has a ton of outbound links, run a free program called Xenu Link Sleuth, which will bring up a list of the dead links on the page (404s).

Grab the list of dead links and pop them into a bulk domain name checker to see if any are available. If so, grab them and put some content on there.

This is a lot of work at first, but it takes much less time once you get the hang of it.

It’s also a MUCH cheaper way to build a blog network than splurging on domain names at GoDaddy Auctions.

You can also just 301 the aged domain to your money site.

12. Submit Your Site to Blog Aggregators

How would you like a link from this site (PR8):

Yowza those are some crazy links.

That’s Technorati.com, one of the top blog aggregators on the planet (blog aggregators are just sites that assemble blog content from around the web).

You can get a dofollow link on most blog aggregators for free:

Just submit your site, add come code to a post to confirm you’re the owner and wait for someone from the aggregator to stop by and take a look at your site.

When they approve it you’ll have your own page on the aggregator with a dofollow link to your site. Easy peasy.

In addition to Technorati (a must) here are some other blog aggregators to submit to:

Alltop.com (PR7)

Blogarama.com (PR6)

Liquida.com (PR5)

13. Find Guest Posting Gigs on Twitter

If there really is a hell, I’m convinced that Satan makes tortured souls guest blog for all of eternity.

It can take hours just to find a handful of niche-specific sites that don’t have a strict laundry list of guest blogger guidelines.

But there’s an easier way. You can tap into the underutilized power of Twitter search to find sites that are posting guest posts on the reg.

Here’s what I mean:

You KNOW that the sites that have tweeted their guest posts in the last week must be posting on a regular basis (no annoying dead ends!).

Here are some search strings to use in Twitter search:

“your nice” + guest post

“your niche” + guest author

“your niche” + write for us

“your niche” + guest article

14. Scoop It

Scoop It is one of my absolute favorite ways of building backlinks with a few minutes of work.

Scoop It  is basically a site where people aggregate their favorite content around the web into a magazine format.

Here’s an example of a Scoop it page:

Lots of people’s personal Scoop It pages are PR3 or higher.

To get people to post your stuff all you need to do is use Scoop It’s built in suggestion feature.

Just search for a high PR Scoop It page and hit “suggest”. You’ll see something like this:

Just send the person a quick message and let them know about your content.

In my experience about 50% accept within a day –meaning dozens of authority links in about 15 minutes of “work”.

15. Broken Link Building

This one seems a little strange — and takes a bit of legwork –  but it’s definitely worth the time and effort because of the killer inbound links you can get from this strategy.

What we’re doing is finding resource pages in our niche. So if we were in the fitness niche you’d search in Google using these search strings:

“fitness”  + “resource page”

“fitness” + “resources”

“fitness” + “recommended sites”

“fitness” + “links”

And find pages like this:

Or like this page (any page with a lot of outbound links is a good target):

Now you COULD email them and just ask for a link. But I’ve found that the begging approach doesn’t work very well.

A MUCH better method is to find broken links on these pages using the aforementioned Xenu Link Sleuth and “help” the webmaster by giving them a heads up about their dead links. Here is an example email:

Hi (site owner name),

I was just browsing around your resources page, and among the lists of great resources, were some broken links.

Here’s a few of them:

URL1

URL2

URL3

Oh, and I have a website, mysite.com, that also regularly posts quality content related to whatever. If you think so too, feel free to post a link to it on your resources page.

Either way I hope this helps and keep up the good work!

Thanks,

(Your Name)

16. Infographics

Almost everyone in SEO knows about infographics, but I’m absolutely flabbergasted at how few take advantage of this incredibly easy backlink strategy.

That’s because many people assume that infographics are expensive and hard to make.

And they assume the infographic has to go viral for this technique to work

Fortunately for us, both of these assumptions are DEAD WRONG.

Heck, you can get a halfway decent infographic made from someone on Odesk or Elance for less than $175. In my experience, the IDEA is 10x more important than the design itself.

Be creative, make something unique and then hire someone on the cheap to make it DIY-style via Piktochart.

Once you have it ready, it’s time to get the word out.

1. Your first step is to submit it to infographic sharing sites, like these:

Visual.ly (PR7)

DailyInfoGraphic.com (PR5)

AmazingInfoGraphics.com (PR4)

OmgInfoGraphics.com (PR3)

2. Once you’ve done that, it’s time to reach out to bloggers in your niche and offer them the infographic as a guest post. To sweeten the deal, tell them that you’ll write a unique description for their site.

I’ve literally gotten 100+ high PR links from related sites from a single quality infographic and this 1-2 punch.

17. Software Submissions

Submitting to software directories is an old school SEO tactic that works like gangbusters. Why?

Because most software submission sites have INSANE backlink profiles, like this (PR8):

The site’s link profile you’re looking at is CNET.com. There are several other authority software sites you can submit to, including:

FileDudes.com (PR5)

DownLoadJunction.com (PR5)

SoftAward.com (PR4)

SoftTonic.com (PR6)

And the best part? You don’t need to create an open source operating system to get your software (and link) on these software directories.

Most of these directory accept video game submissions. So head over to Padbuilder.com or Sploder (both free) and make an easy PAD in about 5-minutes. Then save it as an .exe or PAD file and start getting some of the best free backlinks in SEO.

Now It’s Your Turn

It’s fair to say that I didn’t hold back in this post…and neither should you.

I want you to post ONE cool backlink source that few people in SEO are using.

Pretend like this is 6th grade show and tell and you REALLY want to impress Suzie that sits in the back.

In other words, bring it!