Link Building For SEO: The Definitive Guide

What Is Link Building?

Link building is the practice of building one-way hyperlinks (also known as “backlinks”) to a website with the goal of improving search engine visibility. Common link building strategies include content marketing, building useful tools, email outreach, broken link building and public relations.

Authority of the Page

Is the page linking to you a PageRank powerhouse? If so, that link is going to have a BIG impact on your search engine rankings.

In fact, from years of testing, I’ve found that the authority of the page linking to you matters more than any other factor.

That’s because links from authoritative pages pass more authority (also known as PageRank) to your site.

(Note: Although Google doesn’t share PageRank information publicly, they still use it as the foundation of their algorithm.)

You can easily check a proxy indicator of PageRank (“PageRating”) using Semrush.

Just pop a URL into Semrush and check out its “Authority Score”:

Relevancy of the Site

When it comes to links, a site’s authority matters.

But that site’s relevance also matters.

For example, let’s say you run a website about The Paleo Diet.

And you get a link from an authoritative site… about unicycles. Will that link still count?

According to an interview from an ex-Googler, not really.

In general, you want to get links from authority sites…specifically, authority sites that are closely related to your site.

Is the Link Editorially Placed?

No matter where your link appears on a page, you should ask yourself:

“Was this link editorially placed?”.

In other words, did someone link to you because they thought your site is awesome? If so, that’s an editorial link.

Or did you create a profile on a random site and drop a link? That’s not an editorial link.

As you might expect, Google puts MUCH more weight on editorially-placed links.

“Creating links that weren’t editorially placed or vouched for by the site’s owner on a page, otherwise known as unnatural links, can be considered a violation of our guidelines.”

Link Co-Occurrences

Co-Occurrences are the words and phrases that appear around your link.

Google likely uses co-Occurrences as “baby anchor text”.

This makes sense if you think about it:

The text around your link also gives clues to what your page is about. So why wouldn’t Google use it?

Nofollow .vs. Dofollow

rel=”nofollow” is a tag added to a link that tells search engines: “Don’t count this link as an endorsement.”.

Obviously, when it comes to SEO, you want to get normal, “dofollow” links whenever possible.

Now that you can know how to size up a link’s quality, it’s time to start building them.

#1: Visual Assets

What It Is:

Visual assets are:

1. Images
2. Diagrams
3. Infographics
4. Charts and other visual-oriented pieces of content

Why It Works:

Visuals are super-duper easy to link to. For example, when you publish a chart on your site, you get a link anytime someone shares that chart on their site. This powerful “share my image and link to me when you do” relationship simply doesn’t work for text-based content.

Real-Life Example:

A few years ago I published this visual about Google CTR on my site.

To date, this visual has been linked to dozens of times (many of which came from authoritative sites in the marketing niche).

Sure, some of these links would have come in even if I had listed the same data in a table.

But a good chunk of these links (I’d estimate 75%) were created because I presented the info as a visual.

In fact, lots of my links came from people directly posting my visual on their site (and linking back to me as the source):

And the funny thing is, even though it’s been several years, people STILL link to my visual every month. That’s the power of creating visual assets.

#3: Original Research and Data

What It Is:

Content that reveals new data from industry studies, surveys or original research.

Why It Works:

Statistics and data are highly linkable. When someone cites your data, they link to you. These links add up QUICKLY.

Real-Life Example:

Some time ago, I published the largest Google ranking factors study ever.

Needless to say, this post contains a boatload of original data.

That’s why the post has accumulated a whopping 75.9K links so far.

Like I mentioned above, most of these links come from people citing a particular statistic from our study:

Google Penguin

What It Is:

An algorithmic penalty that specifically targets sites that use spammy link building techniques (like shady guest posting and blog comment spam).

How to Avoid It:

Only build white hat links. There’s data to show that you can dodge Penguin by minimizing exact match anchor text (I say anchor text is part of the story…but it’s more about trust). That said, the easiest way to avoid Penguin is to avoid shady links (regardless of anchor text).

Resource Page Link Building

First off: what are resource pages?

Resource pages are pages that link out to awesome content on a given topic.

Here’s an example:

Because these pages exist for the sole purpose of linking out, they make PERFECT link building targets.

With that, here’s the step-by-step process:

2

Size Up The Page

Here’s where you (quickly) answer the question:

“Is a link from this page worth the effort?”.

(Hint: Use the tips from Chapter 2 to make this step a breeze.)

For example, this resource page has a decent Authority Score of 42. Not bad.

It’s also on an authoritative domain.

And my link will end up somewhere on the body of the page. Looks like a winner!

4

Send This Tested Script

Here’s the script I recommend:

Subject: Question about [Their Website]

—

Hi [Name],

I was Googling around for content about [Topic] this morning, when I came across your excellent resource page: [URL].

I just wanted to say that your page helped me a ton. I would have never found the [Resource They Link To] without it.

It’s funny: I recently published a guide on [Topic] last month. It’s [Brief Description].

Here it is in case you’d like to check it out: [URL].

Also, my guide might make a nice addition to your page.

Either way, thanks for putting together your list of resources. And have a great day!

Talk Soon,
[Your Name]

Pro Tip: Like all outreach scripts, make sure to personalize this script as much as possible. You can use a script as long as it doesn’t LOOK like a script.

The Skyscraper Technique

This video will walk you through the step-by-step process:

Once you watch the video, it’s time for the next chapter:

Awesome link building case studies!

Case Study #1

How Julie Used The Skyscraper Technique to Boost Organic Traffic By 194.1%

Julie Adams’ blog, Our Beautiful Planet, was struggling.

Sure, Julie was publishing great content. But in her words: “No matter how awesome my content was, no links came.”

That’s when Julie decided to try The Skyscraper Technique.

So instead of publishing another piece of great content…she created something AMAZING. Here it is:

And instead of publishing this content and hoping for the best, Julie used email outreach to build backlinks.

And this landed her a handful of links from authority sites in the science space:

These white hat backlinks boosted her organic traffic by a legit 194.1%:

Why does The Skyscraper Technique work so well?

According to Julie:

Well said.

Case Study #3

How Matt Built Links to His Ecommerce Site

Let’s face it:

Link building for ecommerce sites isn’t easy.

But it’s possible. Just look at Matt Lawry.

Like most ecommerce site owners, Matt had trouble building links to his ecommerce website (an Australian site focused on gifts).

After all, who wants to link to a site made up of 100% product pages? That’s when Matt realized that he could use content to generate links to his ecommerce site.

Specifically, Matt published an amazing piece of Skyscraper content on his site: “Australian Gin: The Ultimate Guide”.

Of course, Matt didn’t sit back and wait for the links to roll in. He promoted his content via email outreach:

Because Matt reached out to the right people (and sent them personalized emails), many people OFFERED to link to his guide.

And all of these links boosted Matt’s search rankings for a keyword that directly results in sales for his ecommerce site: Australian Gin.

Get Easy Links With Link Reclamation

Whenever someone mentions your brand in an article, they link to you…right?

Wrong.

I mean, they should link to you. But it doesn’t always happen.

Here’s what I mean:

But with a gentle nudge, most site owners are happy to turn your unlinked mention into a link.

How do you find these unlinked mentions? BuzzSumo works great.

Send Emails In the Afternoon

Here’s one thing I’ve learned from sending THOUSANDS of outreach emails:

Send your outreach emails in the afternoon (in the recipient’s local time).

Why?

When you send your message in the morning, it gets lumped together with the 93 other emails that person has to deal with.

But when you send in the afternoon, there’s much less competition in the inbox.

I recommend Gmail’s built-in scheduling feature to help time your outreach emails:

Send Out Feeler Emails Before Going For the Close

Should you ask for a link in your first outreach email to someone?

Short answer: maybe.

You may get better results with a two-step process (Backlinko reader Mike found that feeler emails CRUSHED asking for a link straightaway):

The other benefit of this approach is that it saves you TIME. Instead of personalizing outreach messages that no one will ever read, send brief “feeler” emails.

Then personalize the heck out of your next series of messages.

Use “Link Intersect” To Uncover Likely Linkers

If someone links to your competitor, they’re likely to link to you…right?

Right.

And if someone links to TWO of your competitors, they’re even more likely to link to you.

How can you find sites that links to more than one of your competitors?

Semrush Backlink Gap tool

Just list out 2-3 of your biggest competitors along with your website.

And this nifty tool will show you who links to all of ‘em.