Earning quality links to your site is a primary factor in your site’s rankings in search engines and it is also one of the greatest challenges in online marketing. Just as building a better mousetrap will not necessarily get you customers, building a remarkable and useful piece of content may not earn you links unless you are proactive in promoting it. This list contains resources and articles that provide great tactics and tips for building links to your site and my top takeaways from each article (page metrics pulled from Open Site Explorer).
Link Building Strategies – The Complete List Point Blank SEO
-You can earn a lot of links from live blogging at industry events.
-People tend to share and link to useful tools.
-Create a webinar page on your site and post webinars to it.
Backlink Analysis – The Easiest Ways To Build Links Matthew Woodward
-Competitor backlink analysis finds your competitor’s most important links.
-You can use your competitor’s backlinks against them to outrank them.
-Best backlink analysis tools are Ahrefs, SEMRush and SEO Spyglass.
-Create a list of gurus or experts.
-Stay away from link trading networks.
-Only pursue link exchanges that you would pursue if search engines didn’t exist.
The Most Creative Link Building Post Ever Point Blank SEO
-Create an extensive resource that would be worth paying for.
-Offer a free quick SEO audit to help the site grow traffic.
131 (Legitimate) Link Building Strategies Search Engine Watch
-Produce different types of content like a video, podcast, or infographic.
-Consider pitching a series of guest posts.
20 Resources To Add To Your Link Tool Arsenal Right Now Search Engine Land
-Citation Labs will find contact emails from a list of URLs.
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Link Building Means Earning “Hard Links” Not “Easy Links” Search Engine Land
-Avoid getting links that anyone can get.
-Pursue links that people might click on to visit your site. 292 474 126 t=892
32 White Hat Ways to Build Inbound Links Hubspot
-Volunteer to be part of a case study for vendors.
-Write a book review as the author may link to it.
-Make friends with webmasters offline. 576 132 55 t=763
SEO Guide to Creating Viral Linkbait and Infographics Distilled
-Build a persona of why potential link prospects might look like.
-Link bait should be incredibly compelling content that link prospects feel compelled to share.
-Short succinct emails win. 0 528 180 t=708
11 Creative Ways to Build Links Quicksprout
-Interview industry experts since they will often link back to their interview.
-Create a quiz with an embeddable badge that shows the quiz taker’s score. 460 128 30 t=618
The Noob Guide to Link Building SEOMoz
-Sites with unnatural link profiles leaves a footprint that Google can identify.
-You need to create content that people will be compelled to link to. Make news or make friends. 2 392 108 t=502
How to Really Build Backlinks and Dominate Google Viperchill
-There are tons of sites that feature beautiful site designs.
-Be cautious with link exchanges. 323 87 86 t=496
21 Link Builders Share Advanced Link Building Queries Search Engine Land
-“keyword phrase” sponsor charity
-“public library” “useful links” keyword phrase site:.gov
-keyword phrase “write for us” 366 28 101 t=495
The Second Most Creative Link Building Post Ever Point Blank SEO
-Make people feel important like LinkedIn’s top 1% of profiles.
-Interview authors on a podcast when they have a book coming out.
-Create an embed box within an embed box for your infographics to create a force multiplier. 303 156 33 t=492
The Advanced Guide to Link Building Quicksprout
-Create industry specific scholarships to get links on .edu scholarship pages.
-Find .edu local resource pages that list local businesses and request to be added.
-Search Google for older pages since they are more likely to have broken links.
-Use Brokenlinkcheck.com to check an entire site for broken links. 221 198 52 t=471
Egobait: How to Get Links & Exposure in a Variety of Verticals Search Engine Watch
-Create a page with 10 sites, set up a simple polling system like polldaddy.com, then have the site owners ask their readers to vote for them. 358 63 12 t=433
22 Link Building Tips from @xightph Kaiser the Sage
-Build relationships with publishers by leaving comments.
-Invite authority bloggers to write for your site (they often reference their own articles).
-Use the Outdated Content Finder tool and help webmasters update their old content. 304 98 20 t=422
How To Be More Persuasive – Psychology 101 for Link Builders Triple SEO
-Point out common interests with the person you are reaching out to.
-We have have a strong tendency to be consistent with our past actions.
-The more exposure you have to someone, the more inclined you are to like them. 315 88 17 t=420
Content Based Outreach for Link Building Outspoken Media
-Websites don’t give links, people give links.
-Develop personas of the audience you want to earn links from. 309 41 66 t=416
10 Ways to Increase the Odds of Getting Editorial Links Search Engine Watch
-If you are mentioned but they don’t link, you can suggest that they mention where readers can find the original source.
-Provide a regularly updated list of useful information. Example: BeatofHawaii.com maintains a list of free parking spots in Hawaii. 360 35 14 t=409
7 Uncommon and Powerful Link Building Techniques Search Engine Journal
-Hire an influential blogger to write for your site.
-Publish an eBook on the Amazon or Barnes and Noble marketplace.
-Offer a free service to influencers. 292 81 30 t=403
15 Best Link Building Tools Search Engine Journal
-You can use Amazon Mechanical Turk to inexpensively hire people to work on link building tasks. 322 46 28 t=396
The Marketer’s Ultimate Guide to Link Bait HubSpot
-Blog articles with infographics (even third party) attracted 178% more inbound links and 72% more views than other posts on Hubspot.
-Publish original data.
-Be the first to produce comprehensive content on a trending topic, e.g. The Marketer’s Guide to Pinterest. 299 71 23 t=393
A Linkbuilder’s Gmail Productivity Setup (with Outreach Emails from 4 Industry Linkbuilders) SEOMoz
-Use Gmail keyboard shortcuts to save time.
-Customize your guest post ideas for each site you contact.
-Use the Canned Responses feature in Gmail. 9 277 65 t=351
51 Essential Link Building Tips Econsultancy
-A lot of people have blogs and have an ongoing need for content which you can fulfill with guest articles.
-Live blog and take photos at conferences you attend.
-Conduct a survey that will be newsworthy. 319 12 15 t=346
33 Links & How To Get Them Justin Briggs
-Go beyond a sponsorship and get involved in a worthy cause.
-Give a news publisher a scoop so they can be the first to report news about your company.
-If you are covered by a major blog, you can use Stumbleupon ads to boost the article to the homepage. 221 85 36 t=342
Link Building with the Experts – 2013 Edition SugarRae
-The search engineers don’t want to penalize legitimate activities. 16 290 33 t=339
Link Building Through Outreach and Content Refreshing Search Engine Journal
-A good rule of thumb is the harder a link is to attain, the more valuable it will be.
-Bloggers are used to poor pitches.
-Most webmasters of large sites can’t keep up with all their outbound links. 272 41 19 t=332
101 Ways to Link Build in 2012 Search Engine Journal
-Create a useful online tool.
-People love to share list posts. 78 192 32 t=302
Link Building Tools We Use at Distilled SEOMoz
-Zemanta recommends your content to relevant bloggers.
-MyBlogGuest is a good forum for finding guest blogging opportunities.
-Chrome Web Scraper is a good free Chrome extension for pulling data from websites for download into Excel. 20 233 44 t=297
Creative Link Building for Ecommerce Sites SEOMoz
-Offer a special discount on a page on your site and let bloggers know about it. 4 232 56 t=292
Bullet Proof Link Building Strategies For 2013 — The Experts Weigh In Vysibility
-Help webmasters with things like spelling or site errors.
-Provide high quality and unique images. It is easy to get links when people use your images.
-Broken link building is one the last scalable link building techniques.
-Make apps that deliver value.
-Hop on the phone so you are seen as a real person. 171 79 12 t=262
The 6 Month Link Building Plan for an Established Website SEOMoz
-Social media and link building are becoming more intertwined.
-Large companies often have lots of great content that can be repurposed. 16 194 52 t=262
11 SEO Experts Share Actionable Link Building Tips Backlinks.com.au
-Create evergreen content that is useful, actionable, and solves common problems.
-Look at your competitor’s Google Plus profile contributor section to find sites they have written guest posts for. 168 78 13 t=259
10 Ways to Use Images for Link Building Kaiser The Sage
-Consider hiring professional photographers and offering premium photos to bloggers for free.
-Create an image meme with a tool like QuickMeme. 113 75 50 t=238
Please Exit The Link Building Ross Hudgens
-Think about link building strategies that scale rather than focus on just manual link prospecting. 190 12 35 t=237
Culture Building: 8 Local Link Building Tactics Beyond Business Listings Whitespark
-Take professional photos of your city and submit them to sites that feature photos of your city (these sites can be found by searching for “your-city + photos” in Google). 123 93 16 t=232
Utilizing Second Tier Link Building for Massive ROI Ross Hudgens
-Consider building links to authoritative pages that link to you like Mashable. 103 85 43 t=231
The Complete Guide to Link Building With Local Events SEOMoz
-Submit your events to the event section of local news websites. 17 104 76 t=197
10 Types of Unnatural Link Building Tactics + 10 Quality Alternatives Search Engine Journal
-Focus on directories that are not easy to get into.
-Avoiding no-follow links can result in an unnatural link profile. 103 79 15 t=197
62 steps to the definitive link building campaign Wordtracker
-Create a free useful tool.
-Create downloadable guides or white papers. 4 159 12 t=175
Link Building for the Little Guys SEOMoz
-Create a weekly roundup that highlights interesting blog articles then reach out to the authors. 1 132 35 t=168
How to Get Backlinks With Guestographics Backlinko
-Great content + outreach + added value = links.
-Offer to write a mini guest post to compliment the infographic so you provide value to the site owner.
-The link in the mini guest post is more future-proof because it is contextual. 93 54 17 t=164
Creative Broken Link Building Tips with Jon Cooper SEOBook
-Find links to content that has been removed. Use archive.org to find out what the content looked like and rebuild it. Then contact sites that are linking to the removed content and ask for them to link to the updated content that you created. 67 58 36 t=161
8 Tips To Increase Your Link Building Efficiency Search Engine Land
-Boomerang provides reminders if you haven’t heard back from a contact after a certain amount of time so that you can follow up with them. 59 85 8 t=152
How to Automate Link Building Kaiser the Sage
-Ranking highly for informational searches can help you earn links naturally.
-Invite people with a large following to contribute to your blog. 90 36 14 t=140
10 Extraordinary Examples of Effective Link Bait SEOMoz
-People love lists. Make it visually appealing and use social share buttons. 7 72 59 t=138
Link Building 101 – The Almost Complete Link Guide (Updated for Post-Penguin) SEOMoz
-Most ranking factors are external sources like links, citations, and social.
-The safest links are within the content section of a page (not sidebars or footer). 8 79 42 t=129
9 High Quality Link Building Methods in 2011 Affilorama
-Sign up for Help a Reporter Out so you can find opportunities to help a journalist with a story. 84 30 11 t=125
Effective & Long-term Link Building for Niche Sites with Jon Cooper The Smart Passive Income Blog
-Focus on niche directories. Most general directories are not worth it.
-Never say “link” in your outreach emails. 97 12 14 t=123
99 Ways to Build Links by Giving Stuff Away (and Improve Your Brand Too) Moz
-Organize a flash mob and invite the press.
-Develop a plugin and give it away.
-Build a free online tool.
-Buy someone dinner or a beer. 1 48 45 t=94
Using Copyscape for Easy Links Wins Seer Interactive
-Copyscape premium helps you identify sites that have republished your content and you can ask them to please add a link to give you credit. 45 34 14 t=93
Link-building Tips and Tools for Bloggers in a Post-Panda and Penguin World Problogger
-Provide valuable comments on a blog before pitching a guest post. 45 24 19 t=88
7 Strategies for Getting .edu Links Portent
-Colleges often link out to relevant scholarships that are offered by companies.
-College career centers sometimes link to companies that have recently hired students.
-Many colleges have job boards where you can post a job and earn a link. 31 37 17 t=85
Improving Link Building Response Rates With Persuasive Psychology Buzzstream
-Mention the number of social shares your last guest post received when pitching a guest post.
-Highlight things you have in common with the author. 43 30 11 t=84
10 High Quality Link Building Tactics Buzzstream
-Sign up your office for volunteer events with local charities.
-Create a survey of thought leaders or business owners. 40 30 11 t=81
Bucketing Link Prospects for Link Outreach John Doherty
-High value link targets are pitched every day so you have to make a compelling case and/or build a relationship.
-Set up a Google Alert for the name of a high value link target.
-Don’t ever spin content for guest posts. 50 22 7 t=79
You Can get Links from Cold Outreach TripleSEO
-Create an information gap that creates a desire for the person to find the answer.
-Don’t include the link in the first email you send to a contact. 47 21 11 t=79
How to Scale Your Link Building Ross Hudgens
-Develop evergreen linkable assets that continue to earn links passively over time.
-Your linkable asset should appeal to a large target audience.
-The more you practice a specific tactic, the more effective you can become. 43 18 11 t=72
9 Must Have Tools for Hardcore Link Builders SEMRush
-Use Amazon Mechanical Turk to find contact information for a long list of prospects.
-Use Boomerang to schedule outreach emails at an optimal time (like after lunch). 56 12 3 t=71
11 Experts on Link Development Speak Out SugarRae
-If you have pages that have a lot of inbound links, use anchor text internal links to send link juice to important pages.
-It is easier to move from #6 to #2 than rank for a new keyword phrase.
-Ignore the toolbar Page Rank meter.
-Vary everything you can with manual link building to make pattern detection as difficult as possible. 0 1 69 t=70
The Professional Guide to Link Building SEOMoz
-Build relationships with other blogs in your niche.
-Linking to spammy sites can lower your site’s trust to search engines.
-Google wants links to be an editorial endorsement by the site owner. 4 17 47 t=68
What Makes an Effective Link Builder SEOMoz
-Read Reddit and Hacker News regularly.
-Link builders with hustle can beat out those with more talent and resources. 2 19 35 t=56
Infographic Link Building Using BuzzStream Paddy Moogan
-Search for competitor’s infographics in Google Image search.
-Search for backlinks to your competitor’s infographic URL in Open Site Explorer. 31 6 9 t=46
Link Building The Essentials Distilled
-Links are still the biggest factor of SEO. They are a key difference between websites that can be measured by Google.
-Google crawl frequency correlates with the Pagerank of the page. 0 34 10 t=44
Broken Link Building: How Napoleon Suarez Gets 8-12% Conversions Citation Labs
-Many people don’t realize how effective broken link building is. 23 11 7 t=41
30 Advanced Link Building Techniques Single Grain
-Produce high quality photos and license them under Creative Commons so bloggers can use them.
-Offer to update outdated information on sites in return for a link. 11 10 17 t=38
Scaling Link Building (video) SEOMoz
-You can offer perks that are inexpensive but provide great value to employees.
-Outsourcing content can be effective but it is difficult to outsource outreach. 0 0 25 t=25
5 Ways to Increase your Link Building Efficiency State of Search
-Use the Check My Links extension for Chrome to quickly find broken links on a page.
-Don’t ask for a link, ask for feedback and then show them that you took their advice. 0 11 10 t=21
30 Link Building/Link Baiting Techniques That Work in 2011 SEOptimise
-Offer freebies to attract links.
-Leave comments to suggest a resource that should be included in the article. 0 2 19 t=21
The 3 Link Building Tools I Always Use (And How I use Them) State of Search
-Google advanced search queries are great for finding link opportunities.
-Export Twitter accounts from FollowerWonk into Excel and filter for accounts with a website. 0 14 5 t=19
11 Ways to Create Linkbait with Zero Budget Skyrocket SEO
-Curate a collection of tips from experts in your industry.
-Create ego bait that strokes the ego of people in your industry.
-Create a world class beginner’s guide for your niche. 1 10 4 t=15
7 Pieces of Sound Advice for Link Building Noobs SEOGadget
-Personalize your email outreach.
-A high quantity of linking domains and a low Page Rank may indicate a poor quality link profile. 0 3 4 t=7
Link Building using old competitor sites & easy content development for SEO (Video) Wil Reynolds
-Look at sites that have given up and recreate their resources to get their links. 2 1 3 t=6
51 Whitehat Backlink Building Methods Northcutt SEO
-Ask someone with a resource list to provide feedback about your resource.
-Hire a micro-celebrity to write for your blog.
-Exchange links with your business partners. 2 1 3 t=6
37 Experts Share Their Most Actionable Link Building Tip Digital Philippines
-Create small embeddable visual assets like interesting charts (example: OK Cupid Response Rate by Race).
-Sell a silly product (example: The Zuckerberg Selfie Stick)
-Create a comic about your industry and release it under a Creative Commons license (example: Digital Rockstars comic).
31 Link Building Tactics Discovered From Competitive Analysis Moz
-Consider sponsoring a podcast.
You’re Not Ready for Link Building Without Linkable Assets The Upper Ranks
-Create useful and valuable content on your site to make it easier to get links.
Rapid Fire Link Building Strategies Seer Interactive
-Export sites that have commented on your blog into a spreadsheet since they are good link prospects. http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/seer-contact-exporter/
-Search Follower Wonk for writers of online publications like Huffington Post that cover your niche.
8 Link Building Tips SEOMoz
-Ask people who tweet your infographic if they can link to it.
-Search for blogging Amazon Wish List and send them a gift.
-Create a profile page on your company site for people who get interviewed by news sites.
Outreach for Linkbuilding SEOMoz
-Being enthusiastic is more important than being unique for outreach.
-Forums are where people who are passionate about a niche hang out.
-Don’t just track links, track relationships.
Scalable Link Building Using Social Media SEOMoz
-Send email requests as a person, not as a company.
-Use a short email subject that stands out.
-Use a natural salutation (this is often seen in the email preview).
-Create a contest where people enter by writing a blog post and linking to you.
High-Value Tactics, Future-Proof Link Building SEOMoz
-Pursue links where you don’t have control over the anchor text.
-Use press releases to draw attention to your linkable asset.
-Include a link in the content of guest posts that points to your linkable asset.