How to Get High Quality Backlinks (25 Proven Techniques)

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How to Get High Quality Backlinks (25 Proven Techniques)

Despite numerous algorithm updates, link building still remains one of the strongest ranking signals used by search engines.

Yet our link building efforts mostly extend to commenting on blogs in the same niche (“nofollow” backlinks with no link juice) or contributing guest posts to simply brag about where we’ve got our content published (under strict scrutiny by Google).

But if you’d like to increase your site’s authority and rank higher than your competitors in search engine result pages (SERPs), you need to build authority backlinks on a consistent basis. In other words, you need to follow effective link building strategies that deliver results.

In this article, we’ll reveal 25 proven techniques to get high-quality backlinks that will help you stay ahead of the competition and rank higher in SERPs.

No time to read this guide right now? No worries! Just click the link below to receive a free PDF copy of this guide, so you can read it at a more convenient time.

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Here’s what this link building guide will cover. Feel free to jump to any section of your preference:

25 Proven Tips to Get High-Quality Backlinks

1. Publish Evergreen Content

Natural links (also called editorial links) are the kind of links Google wants you to build.

This quote from Matt Cutts, former head of Google Web Spam, is from 2009 and it’s still as relevant as it was back then:

Matt Cutts on Natural Link Building - 99signals

Want to know the best way to build links naturally? Publish evergreen content.

Evergreen content is content that stays relevant in the long run. Unlike news articles and posts on trending topics (posts on Fortnite, Pokemon Go, etc.), evergreen posts provide value to the readers a long time after the post was originally published.

Evergreen posts don’t just tend to rank higher on Google, but they also attract a high number of backlinks. In order words, evergreen content is link-worthy content. It’s the type of content that attracts editorial links.

Evergreen posts are also tough to outrank in SERPs.

Ahrefs published an in-depth post on “evergreen content” in which they explain how difficult it is to outrank Moz’s Beginner’s Guide to SEO for beginner SEO queries because of the insane amount of backlinks the guide has acquired over a period of time.

Moz Backlinks

So how do you create evergreen content? Follow these three steps:

  • Find keywords with a decent search volume – Use Semrush’s Keyword Magic tool (or any other keyword research tool of your choice) to find keywords with a decent search volume. Make sure the shortlisted keywords are not seasonal and have maintained a good search volume consistently in the last few months.
  • Create 10x content – Once you’ve identified the keywords you’d like to target in your post, you need to make sure your content is actually 10 times better than the highest ranking search result for the keywords. This type of content is referred to as 10x content in the SEO community. If your post is only slightly better (1x or 2x better) than the top-ranking post, the chances of it getting outranked are quite high. But when you publish content that is 10x better, like in the case of Moz’s Beginner’s Guide to SEO, it’s tough for your competition to beat you in the SERPs.
  • Refresh and relaunch – Just because the post is evergreen and ranking in the top 3 search results, there’s no guarantee it will maintain that status in the long run. Over time, the organic traffic may drop and it may lose its ability to generate links naturally. This is when you need to audit your content and update it with fresh insights to stay relevant. I keep updating and relaunching top-ranking posts on my blog whenever I notice a declining trend in organic traffic. And you should do the same to your evergreen posts in order to maintain their top-ranking status in SERPs.

Bottom line? In order to attract high-quality natural links, publish evergreen blog posts that stay relevant long after you’ve published them.

Recommended reading: Content Upgrade Strategy: How to Optimize Old Blog Posts to Get More Traffic

2. Steal Your Competitors’ Backlinks

In some cases, your evergreen content may not be able to generate authoritative links naturally, or even if it does, it may take a long time to do so.

Without backlinks, you may be able to rank on page 1 for your target keywords, but you’ll find it tough to reach the coveted top 3 spots on Google. As a result, in order to beat your competitors in SERPs, you need to steal their best backlinks.

You can do this with a combination of competitor analysis and blogger outreach. Here’s a quick outline of how you should proceed:

First, check out the top 3 search results for your target keyword terms. You can do this by performing a quick Google search, but since Google rankings fluctuate often, I’d suggest you use an SEO tool like Semrush or Ahrefs to see if these pages have been ranking on top consistently, at least for the last 4-6 months.

Second, you need to publish content that’s just as in-depth and comprehensive, if not more, than that of your organic competitors. As explained previously, create content that is 10 times better than the top-ranking post for your target keyword terms. Add your own unique insights and perspective to make it as link-worthy as possible. Aim at making the post a go-to resource for your audience for that specific topic.

Third, identify your competitors’ backlinks i.e., the backlinks that point to the top-3 ranking pages for your target keywords. You can get this data with Semrush’s Backlink Analytics tool. Sign up for a 2-week free trial of Semrush Pro here to get full access to this tool.

Login to your Semrush dashboard, navigate to Backlink Analytics and enter the URL of one of your competitors:

SEMrush Backlink Analytics Tool - SEJ Backlinks

You’ll view the total number of referring domains and backlinks that point to your competitor URL. Click on the number of backlinks to view the URLs that are linking to your competitor’s page. You can narrow this list down by selecting only “dofollow” and “text” links, and then sorting the domains based on Authority Score (Semrush’s version of domain authority score):

SEJ Backlinks - SEMrush Report

Prepare a spreadsheet of all the URLs that can be potential backlinks for your post. Ignore the URLs where the Authority Score is too low. Repeat the same process for the remaining two competitor URLs.

Once your spreadsheet of link prospects is ready, the final step is to perform an email outreach campaign by sending personalized emails to each publication/blogger who has linked to your competitors. You can find their email addresses by using a tool like FindThatLead or NinjaOutreach.

In your email, make sure you highlight the things that make your content unique and provide reasons as to why you believe your post deserves a link back.

For this specific task, you can use any of these blogger outreach tools.

Not all sites you’ve reached out to will respond positively to your email. But don’t be disheartened. As long as your content is link-worthy and you’ve provided compelling reasons in your email to link back to your content, you should soon be rewarded for your efforts with some high-quality backlinks.

This is an advanced link building tactic. To learn more about email outreach, check out this in-depth email outreach guide by Digital Olympus.

Need help with competitive analysis? Try any of these 7 best competitor research tools to analyze your competition.

3. Build Backlinks with Infographics

Infographics are not just popular on social media sites such as Pinterest and Reddit. They can also improve your SEO significantly and increase web traffic.

Case in point: Websites that publish infographics see their traffic grow an average of 12% more than sites that don’t.

Yet most people ignore infographics because they wrongly assume that it requires a lot of time and effort to design one or consider it to be an expensive task to outsource.

Here’s the truth: Infographics are remarkably effective in generating high-quality backlinks for free.

You don’t need to be a professional designer either. With free online design tools like Canva, Venngage, and Piktochart, you can create fancy infographics in a matter of minutes.

Another way to create beautiful infographics is to outsource it by hiring professional designers on sites such as Fiverr, Upwork, or if you have a bigger budget, Design Pickle.

Once your infographic is up and ready, it’s time to promote it. Follow these steps:

1. Submit your infographic to infographic submission sites

Here’s a list of sites that allow you to submit your infographics (both free and paid). I’ve also mentioned the domain authority of each of these sites to signify the value of each backlink that you’ll get, so you can prioritize your efforts accordingly:

For more infographic submission sites, check out 40 Infographic Submission Sites to Promote Your Infographic (and Get Backlinks).

2. Reach out to bloggers in your niche and offer them the infographic for free as a guest post

The next step is to identify bloggers and influencers in your niche. You can do this by using a tool like BuzzSumo or any of the blogger outreach tools featured here. Once you’ve identified the bloggers, send them an email informing them about your new infographic and how it can add value to the content they have created on the same topic. If need be, offer to write a unique summary for the infographic.

Everyone loves well-designed, informative infographics and half of the sites you reach out to will gladly accept to include your infographic in one of their articles.

3. Use Siege Media’s Embed Code Generator to generate an embed code for your infographic

Siege Media’s Embed Code Generator allows you to generate embed codes for your infographic. Once the code is generated, all you need to do is copy and paste the code below your infographic.

Siege Media Embed Code Generator

By generating an embed code for your infographic, you make it easier for others to share and embed your infographic onto their own site. Here’s the best part: every time someone includes your infographic in their content, you get an attribution. Yet another easy way to fetch a contextual backlink.

Bonus Resource: For a more detailed description of link building with infographics, check out this article or download this free eBook.

4. Use Reverse Image Search to Build Backlinks

If you have a decent amount of visual content on your blog (infographics, screenshots, charts, etc.), there is a high possibility that someone on the Internet is using your images without giving proper link attribution.

Luckily, there is an easy way to resolve this issue and get a backlink in return. Just follow these steps:

Step 1: Open a new Google Sheet and list down the URLs of all the important visual assets on your site.

Image URLs - Google Sheet

Step 2: Use Google Image Search to find websites that are using your images without attribution. Enter the Image URL in the Google search box and then click on ‘Search by Image’ to find all the websites which are using your image in the “Pages that include matching images” section of the search.

Reverse Image Search - Link Building Technique

Find out which of these sites are not giving you credit for the image.

Step 3: Send an email to the site owner requesting a link attribution for using your image on their site. You can use the email template below:

Hi [Name],

I’m [Your Name] from [Your Blog].

I noticed that you’ve used one of my images in your post: [insert link to the article].

However, you haven’t included a link back to my website.

I’d really appreciate if you could add a link to my website below the image.

Here’s the link where the image is taken from: [insert your post URL]

Thanks,
[Your Name]

In most cases, you’ll get a quick positive response from the site owners. And just like that, you’ve earned yourself a contextual backlink.

5. Create Interactive Content

Interactive content such as quizzes, polls, and calculators generate a lot of buzz on the Internet these days. No other publication exemplifies this trend more than Buzzfeed. On average, the team at Buzzfeed creates 7.8 quizzes a day and 96% of users who start Buzzfeed quizzes finish them.

Buzzfeed Quiz

Quizzes are not just popular with users, but they also tend to generate a ton of authority backlinks. For example, Buzzfeed’s most popular quiz “What City Should You Actually Live In?” till date has generated over 1,500 backlinks, including links from publications such as Washington Post, TechCrunch, Forbes, Fast Company, and many more.

Ahrefs Backlink Data for Buzzfeed

There are several tools on the web that can help you create your own quizzes and calculators. I’d recommend Outgrow since I’ve used them to create interactive content on my blog, but you can also try Uberflip and ion interactive.

Here are 3 pieces of interactive content I created using Outgrow:

Recommended reading: 20 Examples of Truly Engaging Interactive Content

6. Start Your Own Podcast

You can build your link profile by being invited as a special guest on any of the popular podcasts in your niche. That definitely works. But an even better link building strategy is to launch your very own podcast.

Think about it! By having your own podcast, you’ll have more creative control on your content, you don’t need to waste time sending outreach emails to podcasters in your niche and waiting for their response, and more important, podcasting is fun and provides you with an opportunity to build your own personal brand and showcase your expertise.

With free apps like Anchor, it’s now easier than ever to launch your own podcast. In fact, you can start recording an episode using just your smartphone. That said, I do recommend you invest in a good microphone if you’re serious about podcasting.

Anchor Podcasts

I started my own podcast, Marketing Mantra, back in August 2018 and here are some of the authority backlinks I’ve been able to build thus far:

99signals Referring Domains - Ahrefs Data

Invariably, once your podcast gets popular, other influencers in your niche will reach out to you to be a part of your podcast. Not to mention the invites you’ll receive from other podcasters to feature in their podcasts.

Recommended reading: 38 Best Marketing Podcasts You Should Listen To

7. Get Active on Product Hunt

Product Hunt

Image Courtesy: Product Hunt

Product Hunt is a place to discover the latest technology creations, websites, mobile apps, and tools that everyone is geeking about. I love spending time on Product Hunt not just to discover cool new products, but also because it’s a great place to have thoughtful discussions with product-loving enthusiasts.

To get a backlink from Product Hunt, you need to create an account on Product Hunt, link to your website, and then be active on the site. You can do this by writing reviews for products you’ve used, leaving your comments on newly launched products, and of course, by upvoting and downvoting products on a regular basis.

Product Hunt has a domain authority of 86 (and it keeps increasing), so it’s worth having an active account.

Click here to create your Product Hunt account

8. Submit Your Site to Startup Directories

BetaList Startup Directory

If you’ve just launched your startup, there are tons of startup directories you could submit your site to. Perhaps the most popular startup directory is BetaList, a directory which is focused specifically on early-stage internet startups. The submission is free, but if you’d like to expedite the process and ensure that your startup is listed, then you’ll need to pay a small fee. You can check out their submission criteria here to see how they review the startups.

Even if your startup is not eligible for submission at BetaList, there are lots of other startup directories with high DA which will accept your submission. Here’s a list of 100 startup directories compiled by Ninja Outreach.

9. Build Profile Links

Profile link building is a process where users sign up on sites where they can create a public profile and provide a link to their website.

Several websites which thrive on having an active community allow you to create a public profile where you can feature links to your website and social channels. A few examples are websites such as Kickstarter, Moz, Semrush, and Triberr.

Kickstarter

To get more tips and insights into this link building strategy, refer to this in-depth guide by Monitor Backlinks.

10. Find Backlinks from “Best of” Blog Posts

This particular method of getting backlinks is borrowed from Brian Dean at Backlinko and it’s insanely effective.

Here’s what you need to do:

Step 1: Use these following search strings on Google

  • “Best (TOPIC) Blog Year”
  • “(TOPIC) blogs to read”
  • “My Favorite (TOPIC) blogs”

Any of these above searches will show you a list of “best of” blogs in your selected topic.

How to Get High Quality Backlinks: Roundup Articles

Step 2: Create a new Google Doc and add links to any quality blog that you’d like to get a backlink from. Also note down the email addresses of the bloggers you’d be reaching out to. In most cases, you can find them in the contact section. If not, use Ninja Outreach Chrome Extension to find their contact details.

Step 3: Reach out to these blogs via email and present them with a link to your article and ask them if they can include it in one of their weekly/monthly roundup posts.

You can use the below email template to reach out to the bloggers:

Hi [Name],

I’m a digital marketer and regular reader of your blog posts.

I also run the blog at [Your Blog] and today, we published a pretty massive guide on [Subject of Your Blog Post]. I think it might be a good fit for your roundup posts and thought I’d reach out.

Here’s the link to the guide: [Your Post URL]

No worries if it’s not a good fit – I’ll be a regular reader regardless!

Thanks,
[Your Name]

Many of these blogs will also allow you to post a comment along with a link to your website.

One of the easiest and quickest ways to get a backlink is to post thoughtful comments on any of the articles on these blogs that you deem worthy to get a link from. Make sure your comment is THOUGHTFUL. Instead of posting “Great article,” think of creative ways to appreciate the kind of information the author has provided in the article. You may even ask a question.

But you may be thinking that there are blogs which simply don’t allow you to provide a link to your website. They may be using the Facebook comment system or Disqus to manage and moderate their comments.

In such cases, the best way to get backlinks would be to use the email outreach method. Though it involves some work, the backlink you’ll eventually generate for your site would be worth the time and effort.

11. Submit Your Site to Blog Aggregators

Blog Aggregators are sites which list blogs from different industries. Examples include AllTopBlogarama, and BlogEngage.

AllTop Aggregator - How to Get High Quality Backlinks

Though they don’t have the same amount of link juice they once had, you can still get a decent amount of referral traffic from these blogs.

You can get high-quality dofollow backlinks from most blog aggregators for free in three easy steps:

  • Submit your site (in most cases, the RSS feed of your blog)
  • Add a special HTML code to your site to confirm your ownership of the site
  • Wait for the blog aggregator to review your site

When it’s approved, you will get your own page on the blog aggregator listing all your articles.

Here’s a complete list of blog directories/aggregators you can submit your site to.

12. Syndicate Your Content on Medium and LinkedIn

Syndicate Your Content on Medium and LinkedIn

Yes, the links on Medium and LinkedIn are “nofollow”, but that doesn’t mean they are completely useless. Nofollow links can drive awareness, traffic, and can even lead to dofollow backlinks eventually. If you have a new website, the awareness and traffic boost can be really important.

This article by Nicole Kohler on Moz makes a fantastic case for using and attaching importance to nofollow backlinks. In her article titled “The Hidden Power of Nofollow Links”, Nicole explains the importance of nofollow backlinks as follows:

“At its very core, a link is designed to create awareness of something on a different page. Nofollow links still build awareness, as long as they are seen. They don’t have to be followed. They probably don’t even have to be clicked! They just have to be visible.”

With this in mind, start syndicating your content on Medium and LinkedIn (via LinkedIn Publishing) and expand the reach of your content to a whole new audience. If you can create native content on these platforms, that’s even more wonderful. But the very least you could do is replicate some of your top posts on to these two platforms and gain a wider reach and awareness for your content.

13. Link Roundups

There are lots of high quality blogs that do link roundups. Link roundups are weekly or monthly blog posts that link out to great content in their respective niche.

At my agency blog, we used to publish a weekly roundup of social media news and call the segment ‘This Week in Social Media’. These articles used to include headlines of all the top social media news stories in a given week with a link to the source below each headline to corroborate the news story.

Link Roundups - Backlinks

You will find blogs that do similar roundups in your niche as well.

Here’s how it works:

1. Your first task is to find link roundups in your niche. Use the following search strings:

  • “your keyword” + “link roundup”
  • “your keyword” + roundup
  • “best of” + “your keyword”
  • “your keyword” + “this week”

2. Once you find a blog that you’d like to target for backlinks, pitch your content to the person who runs the blog. You can use the below script:

Hey [Name],

I’m [Your Name] from [Your Blog URL].

I know you like to make compilation articles about everything [TOPIC] – so I just wanted to send a few of my recent ones your way. I’d really appreciate it if you could include these articles in your monthly roundup.

[Link to Article 1]

[Link to Article 2]

Thanks,
[Your Name]

Just sit back and wait for the person to respond. If your content is the right fit for the blog’s roundup, then you’ll get a quality backlink for your site.

14. Create a Crunchbase Account

Crunchbase Backlink

Crunchbase is a community of millions of users who like to stay on top of the latest industry trends, investments, and news about global companies – from startups to the Fortune 1000 companies.

While Crunchbase is a great place to connect with users with whom you share similar interests, it’s also a great resource to fetch a high-quality backlink for your website.

Just by creating a Crunchbase account and linking to your website, you’ll get a backlink from a website with a domain authority score of 91. If you’re a small business owner or entrepreneur, create a profile for your company as well.

It’s a simple way to generate a backlink from a high DA site and all it takes is two minutes of your time.

Click here to create your Crunchbase profile

15. Use Brian Dean’s Moving Man Method

This is yet another technique which I learned from one of Brian Dean’s articles and I’ve found it extremely useful.

Here’s how the Moving Man Method works:

Step 1: Find sites in your niche which have either shut down or changed their names and URLs.

Step 2: Find sites linking to the old URL.

Step 3: Reach out to these sites and let them know about their outdated link.

To explain this technique in a better way, let’s take the example of Moz, a popular SEO tool run by SEO Guru, Rand Fishkin. A while back though, Moz was operating as an SEO agency named SEOMoz. As a result, they had to change the URL from seomoz.org to Moz.com.

Sure, if you visit seomoz.org, it redirects to moz.com. So the links used by sites linking to seomoz.org aren’t broken, but they are outdated. This is because the link points to the old URL and the anchor text has the old brand name.

As you may realize, this is a huge opportunity for people running SEO/Marketing blogs to reach out to sites that are still using the seomoz.org link in their content. And there are plenty of sites doing just that.

In order to make this technique work for you, you need to keep an eye out for sites that are either rebranding or changing names. Use PRWeb to see whether there are any brands in your niche that have recently rebranded. Use this search string – “your keyword” + rebrands”. Do a similar check on Google News as well.

Once you’ve found a site which has rebranded or changed its URL, it’s time to reach out to sites which are still using the old URL in their content. Just copy the URL and paste into your backlink checking tool of choice (I recommend Semrush). You’ll find dozens of sites which are still linking to the old resource.

The last step in the Moving Man Method is to reach out to these sites and give them a heads up about the outdated link they are using in their content. And then give a subtle suggestion to add your link to their site.

To learn more about the Moving Man Method, click here.

16. Create and Optimize Your About.me Page

About.me allows you to create your free, one-page website in just a few minutes. An easy way to fetch a dofollow backlink for your site is to create an About.me profile, enter a link to your blog in the ‘Spotlight Button’ section, and also include additional links in your bio. Something like this:

About.me Backlinks

With an About.me profile, you can get an authoritative backlink (About.me’s DA is 92) in under five minutes.

Click here to create your About.me profile

17. Build Authoritative Links with HARO (Help A Reporter Out)

HARO - Link Building Technique

Help a Reporter Out (HARO) is a sourcing service which connects journalists and bloggers with relevant expert sources to meet journalists’ demanding deadlines and enables brands to tell their stories. Subscribing to HARO provides you with an opportunity to fetch high quality backlinks from authority news sites.

Here’s how it works:

  1. Sign up for HARO as a source here.
  2. You’ll receive three emails per day on weekdays from reporters looking for sources. Look out for source requests relevant to you and your niche
  3. Respond with some helpful content and your credentials

With HARO, you can build backlinks from authority news sites such as WSJ, Mashable, Inc, FastCompany, Reuters, etc.

Recommended reading: How to Build Backlinks Using HARO [Case Study by Ahrefs]

18. Scoop.it Backlinks

Scoop.it Backlinks

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

It’s also an excellent place to get high-quality “nofollow” backlinks and boost your referral traffic. So how do you go about fetching backlinks on Scoop.it? It’s quite simple really.

An active Scoop.it user usually has curated magazines which have hundreds of followers. This means that your content can get in front of hundreds of people. Follow these two simple steps to get people to share your content on their Scoop.it magazine:

Step 1: Give a search on the topic of your content. Ex: Social Media Marketing. Find users who have magazines with lots of followers and views.

Step 2: Pitch your content to these people by using Scoop.it’s ‘suggest’ feature. You can share the same content with 5 people in a day and chances are that about 50% of them will share it with their network.

19. Provide Testimonials

Consider giving a testimonial for a product that you really love using. All companies love showing off customer testimonials on their home page or have a dedicated page for them.

Once you’ve written the testimonial, make sure you let them know that they can include your testimonials on their home page or testimonials page.

Here’s my testimonial for Serpstat published on their testimonials page:

Serpstat Testimonial

Here’s another example of a testimonial I wrote for AppSumo:

99signals AppSumo Testimonial

AppSumo has used the above testimonial on several of their promos.

20. Link Reclamation

Link reclamation is simple and works like magic.

Here’s how it works:

  • First, you find mentions of your brand that don’t link back to your site
  • Then you send an email to the person with a friendly reminder to add the link

Here’s an email I received from Canva a few weeks ago which serves as a fine example of link reclamation tactic:

Link Reclamation: Link Building Tips

It’s that simple and it works in most cases (like it did here in the example above 🙂 ).

Here’s how you can go about reclaiming your link:

1. Find unlinked mentions using Buzzsumo

A tool like Buzzsumo can help you find unlinked mentions of your brand. Setup a content alert for your brand or domain on Buzzsumo, so that whenever someone mentions your brand, you get an email alert.

2. Check whether the site has linked back to your site

If they have linked back to your site, awesome! If not, then move on to step 3.

3. Reach out and get your link

Send them an email with a friendly reminder. You can use the script below (same that was used by Canva):

Hey NAME,

I just wanted to reach out and say “thanks” for mentioning (your brand) in your article: [link to the article]

We really, really appreciate it.

I’m reaching out today to ask if you could add a link back to our site. That way, people can easily find us while reading your article.

Either way, thanks for the shout out and keep up the great work!

Thanks,

(Your Name)

Link reclamation is an easy, yet effective way to get quality backlinks for your site.

21. Broken Link Building

A broken link is one that points to a page on a site that has since been moved or deleted. In other words, these are pages that return a 404 error.

Broken link building involves some bit of work, but it’s a safe way to generate fresh, high quality backlinks for your site.

Here’s what you need to do:

  1. Use tools such as Check My Links or Broken Link Checker to find broken links from a site you want to fetch a backlink from.
  2. Once you’ve found the broken links, reach out to the site owner and let him know about them.
  3. Share relevant links from your site that the site owner could use to replace the broken links with.

Voila! You’ve earned yourself a high quality backlink.

22. Submit Your Site to CSS Galleries

Proud of your site’s design? Then you can showcase them on CSS galleries and gain easy backlinks in return.

CSS Galleries

Here’s a list of CSS galleries where you can feature your website for free or for a nominal fee:

23. Republish Your Content on Steemit

Steemit is a blockchain-based blogging and social media website which rewards its users with the cryptocurrency STEEM for publishing and curating content.

Steemit

The website currently has over a million registered users. You can republish some of your articles here, reach a wider audience for your content, and even gain backlinks in return.

Click here to create your Steemit account 

24. Email Outreach to People Featured on Your Blog

This strategy may not get you a backlink each time, but it will definitely get you more social shares and help you build relationships with influencers in your niche.

Whenever you mention a specific tool or blog in your article, send the owner an email to let them know they were featured in your article.

I’ve done this several times and it works. Not only will your post receive a social boost, but it will also help nurture relationships with industry influencers and may even fetch you an authority backlink in the long run.

To do the outreach, I recommend you use an outreach tool like Mailshake. The tool also contains several customizable email templates to assist you in your outreach efforts.

25. Repurpose Your Articles on Quora Spaces

Quora is a platform where users can ask questions and connect with people who contribute unique insights and quality answers. Quora also allows users to create their own blog and start publishing blog posts. More recently, Quora transitioned blogs to Spaces.

Quora Blog Post

Just like you’d do on Medium or LinkedIn, you can repurpose some of your older content on Quora and gain high quality backlinks in return. Click here to activate Spaces on Quora and republish your old posts to reach a whole new audience for your content.

Recommended reading: How to Use Quora Marketing to Supercharge Your Content Strategy

Conclusion

Now that you’ve learned these powerful link building strategies, it’s time to get started and test these techniques out.

I’d also urge you to use a reliable SEO tool to help you in your link building efforts. I recommend ​Semrush​, one of the most popular SEO and competitor analysis tools on the market. With Semrush’s Backlink Analytics feature, you can analyze the backlink profiles of your competitors, identify new link building opportunities, and even identify toxic backlinks and disavow them.

Click the link below to sign up for a free 14-day trial of Semrush Pro:

EXCLUSIVE OFFER
Semrush

Experience the full power of Semrush Pro with a 14-day free trial.

Remember: The links you build should be natural, so they don’t hurt your online rankings. To make sure you don’t make a lot of common SEO mistakes, check out this step-by-step process on how to build backlinks the right way.

Which link building strategy gets you the best backlinks? Let me know in the comments section.

If you found this article useful, please share it on Twitter using the link below:

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in July 2016 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.

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Sandeep Mallya
Sandeep Mallya is the Founder & CEO of Startup Cafe Digital, an award-winning digital marketing agency in Bangalore, India. He is an active member of the startup community, having worked with several early-stage startups and accelerators. 99signals is Sandeep's online marketing blog. The blog currently features 200+ in-depth articles, how-to guides, and hacks on a wide range of online marketing topics such as SEO, social media marketing, content marketing, blogging, and more.

142 COMMENTS

  1. […] Link building for your site should go beyond commenting & guest posting. In this article, you'll find 10 highly effective, yet rarely used, ways to get backlinks.  […]

    • Hello sir, I am big fan of 99signals, I am following your website since a long time. Thank you so much for providing such a knowledgeable information.

  2. Every people try to take high-quality backlinks for their business enhancement and growth. Not only performing guest posting and blog commenting give you the high-quality backlinks.
    Thanks for sharing the unique and informative article with us.

  3. […] Generating backlinks for your website still remains one of the key factors in improving your site’s rankings on search engines. Yet we often rely on posting comments and guest posting to fetch backlinks, ignoring other link building strategies. In this article, you’ll learn 10 highly effective, yet rarely used, ways to get backlinks. FREE PDF: Download a …  […]

  4. Nothing really new here. When I read the title “Highly Effective & Rarely Used”, I was expecting some mind blowing stuff I’ve never seen before, but anyone who reads seo blogs has heard of all of these; mostly all can be found on Backlinko actually.

    • Hey Austin – Thanks for your feedback. I’ve updated the article since you last read it. Perhaps you can find something new and interesting this time! 🙂 Backlinko is one of the best SEO blogs out there, which is why there are several shoutouts to Brian Dean in this article. Having said that, a few tips outlined here are not featured on Backlinko.

  5. […] Generating backlinks for your website still remains one of the key factors in improving your site’s rankings on search engines. Yet we often rely on posting comments and guest posting to fetch backlinks, ignoring other link building strategies. In this article, you’ll learn 13 powerful, yet rarely used, techniques to get high quality backlinks. 13 Powerful …  […]

  6. Amazing! Thank you for sharing.
    It is essential for every business surviving online to create backlinks.
    Check out list of tools for the purpose of marketing, advertising, SEO, CRO, Saas, web development, etc. all available at BetaPage for growing business.

    • I have this particular challenge gathering high quality backlinks. I ran into a site that offers free backlinks, but discovered Google frowns at such. My lifestyle blog is focused on Power Quotes and Tips on How to make money online in Nigeria.

      Can you make specific recommendations to grow in my niche?

  7. Competitor analysis is also the unique way to find back links of high quality and makes your business website stand out from competitor. The on-page seo is one time food, while the backlink creation is the need to improve business brand visibility forever.

  8. Dear Sir,

    Thanks for this awesome writing. I have a question. Please make me grateful giving proper advice to overcome this. I usually work on my blog at least 10 hours per day but why I can’t get proper traffic? I’ve performed a lot of ways of SEO like Blog commenting, Web 2.0 link building, Directory submission, Guestbook posting etc. But yet I’ve seen a positive result. Of course, I’ve used “White hat SEO” method while performing SEO. Although, I’m ignoring by Google. Why? Will I need to make long my working period than before?
    I am eagerly waiting for your kind reply.

    Thanks
    Sadhan Pal

  9. Hi Sandeep,

    Great post indeed!
    Actually I am running 3 small niche website and these techniques will be helpful for me because most of my competitor don’t know about white hat SEO techniques. So I am very happy to read about these techniques.

    Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us.

    Regards:
    Muhammad Irfan

  10. Hey, Nicely elaborated but most of the techniques people are aware of and using. Let us know some interesting stuff that works better than existing ones.

  11. Hey Sandeep,

    That’s a fantastic post. You have covered all the actionable post and ellaborated them very nicely. I like your writing style. There is one more trick I would like to share: Just check your competitor’s backlinks and outreach to those who are provinding them the links and introduce your post to them. There are more chances to get a backlink from them in their existing posts or in future posts.

    Thanks for sharing such useful tips.

    Regards,
    Shubhanshi

  12. […] Getting backlinks for your website still remains one of the key factors in improving your site’s rankings on search engines. Yet we often rely on posting comments and guest posting to fetch backlinks, ignoring other link building strategies. In this article, you’ll learn 13 powerful, yet rarely used, techniques to get high quality backlinks. 13 Powerful Techniques …  […]

  13. Link reclamation and moving man strategy is insanely powerful and rarely used. I have had some success with moving man strategy but sometimes it is hard to find a site in your niche that has died. In such case, it is good to approach cheap pbn domain provider to get a domain based on your keyword. Although, this is a costly affair it helps in knowing some seed sites you can use to get backlinks

  14. Looking for the same guide for building backlinks for coupon based website, thanks for this excellent article, surely i’ll try this 🙂

  15. Hey Sandeep, wonderful curated tips and can’t agree more ! Generating quality backlinks are often tough task because of detailed research of targeting blogs/website. I haven’t tried few tricks from list and will try soon 🙂

  16. Thank you for the tips, the roundup tip looks interesting. My mission for June is to try to increase my backlinks! Might try these: roundup, broken link checker, website review. I have tried the directory option… but since I tried a few, I’m constantly spammed with emails and phone calls! Wonder if the directories are worth it!

  17. Very Nice article about backlinks. It will help me to get more traffic for my website through these super backlinks creation techniques.

  18. Hello
    Thanks for sharing this informative post. Its a very knowledgeable article on backlinks. I have made many backlinks from the tips given by you.

  19. […] tool can also help you uncover link building opportunities and discover how your top competitors are using target keywords within their […]

  20. Such a great site for bloggers like me. who can not decide which site have proven tips to get a higher ranking? thank you for sharing great articles and also your site looks great.

  21. A very good list, thanks a ton. Just tried a few of these, they seem great. An excellent start for an SEO noob…Thanks

  22. […] of getting backlinks, devalued some others, and made the entire process more complicated. But, backlinks are still one of the most important factors that determine where your website get ranked in the search engine results – even in […]

  23. Hey Sandeep in this article i reading some new things for me your way of describing is easy and understable. i will follow all the technique.
    thnakyou

  24. Hi Sir,

    I appreciate it was a good blog from your end. Very informative and thanks for sharing this man. I will implement the sixth step and it actually helps as well.

  25. […] tool can also help you uncover link building opportunities and discover how your top competitors are using target keywords within their […]

  26. Hi Sandeep,

    You have shared with us very useful info because in this 14 Techniques I know only a few of them. And these days getting a quality backlink is not an easy task but after going through this article now its little bit easy to get backlinks from these techniques.

    Thank you so much for sharing this valuable content with us.

  27. Hello Sandeep,

    This is a great article and I would also like to share some additional knowledge to the readers.

    What makes the best backlinks? And what elements make up the most powerful backlinks?

    The first is relevancy which means link pointing to your site must be from a website related to what you’re talking about.
    Example: So if we have a website about plumbing, we’re not going to get much value from a site that talks about food or a site that talk about fitness.

    The second one is authority, the site needs to have some authority, it needs to have some links pointing into the site itself.
    Example is a brand new website doesn’t have any links coming, in whereas an established site that’s been around for years will have some powerful backlinks and this is where you use tools like ahrefs.

    There are a few different types of backlink, you have contextual, footer, sidebar, image links even and we’re looking for contextual links, surrounded by relevant text.

    So if there was a paragraph, talking about the sort of the best london handyman, something like that and in your link in that paragraph was a link to a london plumber and that’s gonna be a lot more powerful than just a link in the sidebar.

    And those are the three elements that make up the most powerful links.

  28. Hey Sandeep,

    Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us, it was worth reading. We’ve never tried submitting our site to feedback sites or blog aggregators, neither have we attempted using Google+ for acquiring backlinks. We will consider it in the future in order to bring some diversity to our link building strategy.

    Finally, we would like to answer your question – link building strategies that get us the best backlinks are described in our article The Easiest Link Building Techniques (https://prospected.com/the-easiest-link-building-techniques/). They are probably known to everyone, but one can’t deny the fact that they are still beneficial.

    • Hey Katarina – Glad you liked this article. It’s a bit outdated, so I’m planning to update it with a few new techniques that haven’t been listed here. I’ll take a look at your link building article and share my views on your blog’s comments section.

  29. Wow, I usually follow SBM links, i.e Google+ and Scoop.it websites. The toughest process I see is guest blog post and info-graphics. Do you have any tips how to learn and get engaged in these both? Would love to learn guest blogging and info-graphics backlinking.

  30. Hey Sandeep, all great tips, I learned a lot, thank you.
    As for Crunchbase backlinks, unfortunately they recently turned them into nofollow. I know because I was really disappointed when I saw it. Because I remember how happy I was when I first created one for me and one for my business…
    Thanks for the tips Sandeep, I’ll make good use of them, especially the Pen.io one.
    First time I hear of it.
    Nikola Roza

  31. Hey!

    First of all i’d like to appreciate you for the blog’s clean design.

    You just nailed it with the advanced link building tips that helps newbie bloggers like us. Please keep writing such informative articles.

    This resource definitely helps this community to avoid link building mistakes.

    I have bookmarked this article to implement for my blog!

    Cheers!
    Mudassir

  32. Wow, I usually follow SBM links, i.e Google+ and Scoop.it websites. The toughest process I see is guest blog post and info-graphics. Do you have any tips how to learn and get engaged in these both? Would love to learn guest blogging and info-graphics backlinking.

  33. Perfect – just the kind of thing I was looking for! I’m an SEO beginner and whenever I search for linkbuilding guides, I’m overwhelmed with giant walls of text and jargon. This breaks it down perfectly, without skimping on detail – thank you!

  34. Wow! your article is so nice, thanks for the amazing points step-by-step. I have got a lot of information on this article. I have one query if comment any high DA do follow website. It will help my blog or not.

  35. Hi Sandeep,

    Good article, nice to see some easier steps as well for newbies and those of us not making the money to pay for ahrefs and buzumo which are both about $100 a month. I’ll definitely try some of them. I think it’s worth removing google plus now as it’s shutting down in a few weeks.

    Cheers
    Jason from only1invillage.com

  36. Hello Sandeep,

    I appreciate the link building strategies you shared in this post. They are genuine and add more value to our websites. Really a great resource for bloggers and web publishers.

  37. Thanks Sandeep for sharing the link building strategies to get the quality backlink..
    I am a digital marketer and know the importance of the quality back link is seo..
    it is very effective ranking factor. Your advance tips will really help me..

  38. Thanks, Sandeep for sharing the link building strategies to get the quality backlink.
    I am a digital marketer and know the importance of quality backlink is SEO.
    it is a very effective ranking factor. Your advance tips will really help me.

    Thank You

  39. I am following your link building strategies and I tried on a couple of my blogs. It starts ranking in a very short time span. My site authority also increases. I do complete on page and build high-quality links only.
    Thanks!

  40. Hi,

    This is such a great article to help build backlinks.
    Thanks, Sandeep for sharing perfect link building strategies for quality backlinks.

  41. To create a link building, your strategy is perfect whatever you have shared. it will work. I will implement all these techniques to build links for my blog. I hope the result will come. Thanx for sharing this information.

  42. Wow! What a say. Very well, sir, your article is very good, your way of understanding is so simple, that everyone will understand easily. Sir i really like it, now i will always read your article, Thank you

  43. Great article Sandeep Mallya. Really helpful tips and resources at a time I’m looking to build the best PR links to to move some of my clients websites higher on the SERP which are stuck on 4th to 7th places for all the money terms.

  44. That was a good read. I was looking for some tips on creating backlinks. This article really helped me out in many ways especially the tip about the infographic sites. Very Informative. Thanks for sharing.

  45. Thanks for this mammoth link building guide. Most webmasters are stuck in SEO practices that used to work in the past but they don’t work now. No SEO strategies are long-term when it comes to ranking on Google but, if done right, it still can generate traffic atleast. Now, I always say before anyone starts going crazy with SEO or any other traffic strategies they must focus on optimizing their sites for higher opt-in and sales conversions. That is something most webmasters overlook and then, they get stuck wondering why are they getting so much traffic but no conversions. Conversions is a by-product of a strategic process and traffic is the last thing in that process. Unfortunately, most webmasters focus on the wrong things for a long time, which is why most are struggling.

  46. Hey Sandeep,
    Thank You for all these tips and tricks.
    Well, I’m interested in testimonials.
    I even saw the exact same strategy on Matthew Woodward’s blog.
    My question is, Matt and you also are going after high authority sites.
    Since you guys already have a ‘shiny’ reputation, those big companies/high DA sites may not have a single hesitation mentioning you and your website.
    So what I need to know is, how a newbie (Like me) fight for high authority links by providing testimonials?

    Thank you and keep inspiring.

    • Hi Nimesh – Thanks for dropping in and sharing your thoughts. While it’s true a few authoritative websites may include my testimonial on their website now without hesitation, that wasn’t always the case. Especially with the Serpstat testimonial you see in this post. I shared that review on their site less than a year into my blogging career back in late 2016 when the DA of my website was below 20. Back then, I’d share 10 such reviews on tools that I liked and 1-2 would get published; fetching me a few high DA backlinks in return. It’s certainly not my favorite link building technique, but it’s worth trying.

      • Thank You Sandeep.
        Well, even this strategy might not get you a huge amount of backlinks. But as a newbie, if I can get at least one link from a high authority site, then that would be a huge win!!!!
        Trying my best to get my DA up while sharing quality content.
        Keep up the Good work!!!

  47. Thank you for sharing such an informative blog. These are some really good techniques to increase your website’s backlinks.

  48. Took me an hour to go through the article but it was worth it . However , I’m not sure if the website that provide Nofollow links are actually worth it when comes to building backlinks . Love from United Arab Emirates .

  49. I have followed your guides to build a high quality link and within a month, I got 4 links from 70-80 DA websites.
    Thank you for your article. Keep up the good work.

  50. Thanks for sharing an informative tip. Using your guide, I have created the Crunchbase profile i.e. my business profile. Though it is nofollow link but still worth it. I will definitely try your infographic and HARO method. However, all these are perfect for linking to the homepage. Can you suggest few effective free techniques to get backlinks to single posts?

  51. great content and tips on link building here in this article. I would also suggest including social signals as a major ranking signal that Google takes into account when determining the rank of your website on their search results. The more high quality social signals you have the better it will be for your site’s rankings on google search.

  52. […] The challenge is in the acquisition of backlinks. This is normally a much more time-consuming activity than either the technical SEO or the creation of quality content. You might in fact find that you run out of ideas without professional help. Sandeep Mallya at 99signals has written a really helpful piece on this entitled ‘How to Get High Quality Backlinks (25 Proven Techniques)’. […]

  53. I still find it hard to achieve back links from high authority sites and especially when it’s based on high quality content. And time consuming too.

    But thanks anyway for sharing these thoughts.

  54. Hi Sandeep,
    I am a beginner in the field of SEO and was searching for the topic link building strategies and ended up on your content, seriously got great value from your resource, the way in which the entire article is crafted was awesome.
    Thank you once again, Sandeep for providing such a great piece of knowledge to us.

  55. Use your blog as anchor text by linking to an article you’ve previously published. When sharing a post on social media, include the name of the blog followed in parentheses with a link to your article, such as “Great read!”. Create and share draft content that focuses on relevant topics to build backlinks for other people’s sites. Offer bloggers reciprocal backlink benefits by asking them to place links back at one of their articles in exchange for free links at yours. Identify 50 blogs that are credible, popular, and well-respected in your niche — place links pointing back at one or more posts within their site from an author page on your website.

  56. Thank You so much for this information about backlinks. It will help a beginner like me to get some quality backlinks. Because backlinks are the most important and toughest part of SEO.

  57. A really informative post especially for those who are struggling to create high-quality backlinks for their website. Thank you so much Sandeep for this article on high-quality backlinks. Lots of love from Punjab, India. I’m a big fan of you, you are doing a great job.

  58. Dear sir
    As usual a great method. The only problem is that there aren’t enough hours in the day for me to try out all these tactics! I wish I had a team member to assign to each method you post.. lol
    Regards
    Kumar Abhishek

  59. Wow! That was quite an engaging blog! Very well explained!
    Recently I discovered this backlink-building tool called Postifluence. It would be great if you could share your thoughts on it.

  60. In addition, you must Create valuable content as this is the most important step. If you don’t have something of value to offer, no one will want to link to you. Publish guest posts on high-quality websites, guest posting is a great way to get your content in front of new readers, as well as getting quality backlinks from authoritative websites. You also must submit your blog posts to popular article directories, there are a number of article directories that have high PRs and can send a lot of traffic your way. By submitting your blog posts to these directories, you can get quality backlinks in addition to traffic.

  61. Additionally, here is my list:

    1. Publish great content on your website: This is the most important step. If you don’t have great content, no one will want to link to you.

    2. Get mentioned in some of the top publications in your industry: When you’re mentioned on high-authority websites, other websites will be more likely to link to you as well.

    3. Reach out to bloggers and website owners in your niche: If you can provide valuable information and a compelling reason for them to link to you, they may do so
    4. Create valuable resources and tools: People are more likely to share and link to resources that are helpful and useful.

  62. I am a beginner in the field of SEO and was searching for the topic link building strategies and ended up on your content, seriously got great value from your resource, the way in which the entire article is crafted was awesome.
    Thank you once again, Sandeep for providing such a great piece of knowledge to us.

  63. Wow, Sandeep, I was looking for this strategy for a long time and today after reading your content I will be able to create even more super effective quality links. I will add some of my techniques also.

  64. One of the best ways to attract high-quality backlinks is honestly, organically. Create awesome content that people want to link to and recommend to others. The rest just falls into place.

  65. Hi Sandeep,
    I am working in SEO from last 2 years. I am following different link building strategies. Thank you for providing this methods, it will help me to improve my website’s SEO

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