Achieving the coveted top positions on search engine results pages (SERPs) is challenging. Compelling content with relevant keywords alone doesn’t magnify your online presence.
An additional ranking factor comes into play — backlinks.
A robust backlink profile ensures your content reaches your target customers and positions your brand as a trusted industry authority.
The result is maximum search engine visibility.
This guide explores everything you need to know about link building from its importance to proven strategies.
What you will learn
- What links are and why they’re crucial
- What to do before you build links
- 10 ways to build effective links and how to measure them
What is link building?
Link building is one of the four pillars of SEO (search engine optimization). It’s the process of getting other websites to put links to your content on their web pages.
Getting the right links will increase your ranking on search engines, bringing in more traffic.
Link building involves securing backlinks to blog content and landing or sales pages so your content gets more eyes and clicks. You can build links organically through natural citations, guest posts, or link inserts.
Backlinks act as citations for search engines.
Why are links important for websites?
Links from authoritative websites to your content are a signal to search engines, indicating that your content is valuable and useful to the readers.
There’s a direct correlation between links and higher rankings.
However, it’s important to note that backlink quality also matters. Additionally, you must create quality content, such as blogs, infographics, and case studies to link to.
So, your software company needs a solid online presence to compete. Backlinks are an essential ranking factor that contributes to search engine visibility and traffic growth.
Don’t believe me?
Beaconstac (now Uniqode) is a QR code management platform.
We helped them increase organic traffic from 150k monthly visitors to 360k. A central element underpinning the success of this SEO strategy was link building.
We used link inserts and guest posts to secure links from high-authority publications like Hubspot and LiveAgent to our target pages.
You can see the correlation between the number of links from domains and traffic.
7 things to do before you start a link-building campaign
Before you begin, there are tools and practices you should have in place to supercharge your link-building campaign.
1. Figure out your link building ROI
The first thing you want to figure out is how many leads a content piece can generate for your business vs how much it’ll cost to rank that particular piece of content.
This gives you a good idea of the ROI to expect from your campaign.
So, how much will it cost to rank for a specific keyword?
You can estimate this by looking at the ranking content.
How many authority backlinks from different domains do each of the top 5 results have?
You then need to estimate the number of leads the campaign will generate.
One way to do this is to run paid ads for your target keyword. You can then estimate the conversion potential. Alternatively, you can use existing data to figure out the conversion opportunities.
Regarding how many leads you can generate, the bottom-of-the-funnel content usually converts better. You’ll also need to consider your average conversion rate.
2. Benchmark against the SERPs
You must know where you stand on the SERPs for keywords you want to rank for. This gives you an appropriate starting point and ensures you create realistic goals.
For example, we’re working with ScalaHosting to help them rank in a pretty competitive industry.
We’re targeting this page about shared web hosting.
We look up key search phrases and use a link-building tool to get an estimate of how many backlinks are required to rank the page.
The keyword is highly competitive.
Our backlinks tool says you need 1.4k links to rank in the top 100.
That’s a simplistic view.
You need to examine the results closely to determine how many links you might need and whether this term is even worth targeting.
To realistically rank for this term you want a DR similar to sites in the top five results.
If your DR is significantly lower, you'll have a really hard time ranking for the keyword. You might even run a campaign and fail to generate results.
To better understand how many links you need, count the number of 50+ DR links from unique domains with do-follow links.
That gives you a sense of the number of links you need to secure for the campaign.
It’s a simplistic analysis. There are more variables to look at.
However, doing a comparative analysis of the DR and number of referring domains will help you estimate the cost of your link-building campaign.
3. Align content with user intent
When people do online searches, they’re generally doing one of three things:
- Informational Searches: The user wants additional information regarding a particular topic. For example, they may look up what shared web hosting is.
- Transactional Searches: The user wants to buy a product, so they might search for something like “shared hosting pricing” or “buy shared hosting.”
- Navigational Searches: These users are interested in a specific page, e.g., “ScalaHosting login.”
Your content must satisfy the user intent to get to the top of the SERPs. Therefore, you need to know the type of content that ranks for your target keyword.
Do the search results contain homepages, blogs, pricing pages, landing pages, etc.?
The top result on the keyword ‘web hosting’ is the Hostinger sales page, for example.
That implies you can rank with a sales page or homepage because this is a transaction search term.
4. Optimize for your target keyword
Before launching a link-building campaign, ensure your content is optimized for your target keywords.
This helps search engines understand your content and increases the chances of relevant users finding it.
While optimizing keywords is crucial, it's important to remember that it doesn't guarantee your target audience will see your content.
Google’s algorithm functions mathematically, counting keyword occurrences to understand page topics.
But, overdoing it can lead to keyword stuffing, which is detrimental to SEO.
Tools like Surfer help balance this by analyzing keyword frequency in top-ranking content. They use algorithms and calculate TF-IDF (Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency) to estimate which terms, alongside the number of terms, to include in an article.
Essentially, Google doesn't read content.
It analyzes how often contextual terms appear on a page to understand a topic. For example, a good article on "SaaS marketing" might include a term like "SEO" five times.
5. Audit your target pages
The page you drive organic traffic to with different link-building strategies must be in tip-top shape.
Areas you should review include:
- Content relevance – It’s easier to get content ranking if you have topical authority for the subject matter.
- Outbound links – Quality outbound links to relevant, authoritative websites can improve your search engine ranking.
- Folder activity – Look at how active your folder is on the site. If your blog folder gets lots of traffic, it’s easier to rank content in that folder.
- Traffic trends – It’s easier to get content ranking if your site traffic is going up, not down.
It’s challenging to rank if your target pages contain outdated information, have no traffic, or show downward traffic trends.
You can use Surfer to audit your website to identify underperforming content and discover new SEO opportunities.
For example, here are a few pages with low Content Scores that require updates and have information gaps.
It makes sense to update these pages with content first rather than build links because links may not have as strong an impact if Google deems the page unhelpful.
6. Review internal links and anchor text
Internal links are just as important as external links.
A well-executed internal linking strategy helps search engines understand page relevance, page value, and the relationship between pages.
That ensures accurate indexing and better ranking.
Pay attention to anchor texts and the pages they link from. Emulate patterns that you see working based on competitive analysis.
Use anchor text variations to avoid over-optimization issues.
Adding more internal links to content within the same topic cluster also helps.
7. Run a comparative page speed analysis
Google doesn't determine ranking based on content alone.
It also considers technical factors like page loading time. Slow page load speed negatively impacts user experience, with bounce-back rates of 90% after five seconds.
Google's PageSpeed Insights tool tests mobile and desktop performance by assessing core web vitals.
Compare your target page performance against top-ranking pages to ensure your page speed is similar or better.
For efficient and automated page speed analysis, consider using the Google PageSpeed API. You can integrate this API into a Google Sheet to quickly check the performance of multiple pages.
This can save time and provide a consistent way to monitor your website's speed.
The process is relatively simple.
Head to ChatGPT and ask it to create a script to analyze page speed on multiple sites. The Google Sheet will have the following column headings:
- Column A: Website
- Column B; Time to First Byte
- Column C: First Contentful Paint
- Column D: Largest Contentful Paint
You can quickly analyze page speed across multiple sites by running the script in your Google Sheet.
4 steps to run an outbound link building campaign
Link-building opportunities don’t drop on your lap. Link prospecting requires organized effort to increase the number and quality of links to your website.
Fortunately, you can achieve this in four steps.
1. Create a target site list
SEO tools are the best way to discover websites linking to other sites within your niche. You can start by analyzing a powerful website within your niche using tools.
Filter the referring domain to match your desired criteria, such as domains with a specific DR and monthly traffic.
Export the list and go through to remove any sites you don’t want.
For example, you can ignore websites that primarily get organic traffic from regions you’re not interested in.
This process should leave you with a good list of target websites for link-building.
2. Connect with site editors
Link building outreach can be challenging. Fortunately, software like email finders simplifies the process with databases of millions of contacts.
Once you’ve identified the sites you want to build links from, go through the published content to see who regularly writes for the site.
Get their names and use an email finder to get their email address. Then, use that email address to send a personalized email (we’ll show you an email example below).
Besides using an email finder tool, you can connect with the editor on LinkedIn. However, email tends to convert better than LinkedIn messages.
3. Make your link/ guest post request
You will most often send your link or guest post request via email.
Therefore, email best practices apply.
Focus on personalization, compelling subject lines, concise email bodies, and clear calls to action.
Check this out:
The above email pitch ticks all the boxes.
- The subject line is attention-grabbing with fire emojis.
- It addresses the recipient by name
- It gets straight to the point
- It invites the recipient to collaborate with the sender.
LinkedIn outreach involves using the platform’s features to connect with prospects. These include direct messages (to first-degree connections) and InMail messages (to any LinkedIn user).
A few best practices to remember are: optimize your profile, engage with your target’s social content before reaching out, and personalize your message.
Personalizing your guest post pitches will increase their chances of converting.
4. Track your links and benchmark progress
Tracking backlink performance ensures your link-building efforts pay off. You can use online tools or a simple Google Sheet to track the types and number of links you’re landing.
Here’s an example of a Google Sheet template for tracking link inserts:
You can create a script to check links are live too. This is straightforward to do with ChatGPT. That way you can easily monitor your links for free to ensure they stay live.
But remember that the whole point behind link building is driving more organic traffic. So, use Google Search Console to track your monthly traffic growth.
Also, remember that link-building campaigns take time to yield results—so give your efforts enough time to work.
10 ways to secure links for your website
Link building for your domain doesn’t have to be challenging. The right strategies empower you to compile a profile of varied, high-quality backlinks.
Here are ten effective link-building techniques for websites.
1. Guest posting
Content is another pillar of SEO. It goes hand-in-hand with link-building, enabling businesses to meet search engine quality guidelines. High-quality content receives maximum visibility.
Google’s E-A-T metric ranks content for expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. To ensure users interact with quality content produced with some degree of experience from the publisher, Google added an extra E (so, E-E-A-T) for “experience”.
What does this have to do with building links?
Content marketers are always looking for link-worthy content to increase the credibility and authority of their websites.
You can create this content for them and add a backlink to your content pages.
The link is usually inserted in the blog copy with target keywords as anchor texts or in the author bio.
For example, here is a guest post I contributed to the HubSpot blog.
This post attracts more than 2K monthly visitors, too.
Building relationships with digital publications is time-consuming, though.
You must research their content and audience. You must develop relationships with editors, do favors, and deliver great content.
Alternatively, you can hire SEO agencies.
They have teams for various stages of the link-building process, including prospecting, outreach, and content creation.
Depending on the agency you go with, you might also gain access to their network of high-authority domains.
2. Link inserts
Link insertions build your backlink profile by placing links to your website into existing content on another website.
For instance, you come across an article on “Instagram video marketing” that would be the perfect place for your software guide comparing “Link in Bio tools.”
You can do a Google site search to find opportunities. Simply enter:
- site:website.com topic
You then get all the results that include your topic or keyword.
Here’s an example.
You can cross-check how much traffic these pages get using free online tools.
Then see if you can find a suitable opportunity on the page.
Finally, make your request.
Be ready to do a favor.
You might secure them a link to a target page they want to rank.
You get better results doing favors for editors, like a link exchange, to get what you want than just saying give me a link.
Another tactic is broken link building.
You’ve likely come across 404 error pages after clicking a link.
You can offer the website owner your content to replace the broken link. Broken links negatively impact user experience and search engine rankings.
So, there’s a good chance they will take you up on your offer.
SEO tools ca help you find broken links in the domains from which you want to build links.
A key point to note is that you should have existing content for link insertions. Creating new content for these backlinks takes too much time.
3. Unlinked brand mentions
Unlinked brand mentions are the low-hanging fruit of link building.
Other businesses mention your brand or products without adding links to your web pages. It happens all the time.
Fortunately, the solution is simple.
- Monitor mentions. Set up social listening tools or Google News alerts to find web pages that mention your brand.
- Prioritize: Rank websites by domain authority and traffic to find high-quality link building opportunities.
- Outreach: Contact the site owners and ask them to add a link to your website. They will likely honor your request since they’ve already mentioned you.
This method also works for linked mentions.
For instance, you can ask them to change the link to a relevant page instead of your homepage.
4. Podcasts and interviews
Podcasts are an increasingly popular medium for sharing information.
Forecasts by Statista show a 47.8% increase in U.S. podcast listeners (32 million people) between 2024 and 2029.
Customers may not have time to read a white paper.
However, they can listen to podcasts and interviews while engaging in other activities.
How does this help you build backlinks?
It’s similar to guest posting.
Most podcasts publish their content on their website. They also have the ‘show notes’ feature, which describes the episode.
As a guest, you get a link to your website.
When the CEO and co-founder of Freemius appeared on the Mastermind podcast, he earned backlinks to the company’s homepage, feature page, and social media account.
Another way to get backlinks from podcasts is by sponsoring them.
In the above example, WP RSS Aggregator gets prominent logo placement, with the logo link taking users to their homepage.
The advantage of podcast link-building (over guest blogging) is it is less resource-intensive.
You only need enough talking points to fill the allotted air time.
5. Release a free tool
Free tools are valuable linkable assets.
Nothing attracts authoritative links and traffic to your website like a free calculator, template, or tool.
Many SaaS companies do this.
For example, Surfer’s free SEO Chrome extension led to a ton of backlinks from high quality websites.
With free tools like these, you’ll only need an initial marketing campaign to get the word out there.
But once their value becomes apparent, other websites will start linking to them even without your input.
Need proof?
Ahref’s free keyword generator has 7.4 thousand backlinks.
I’m having a go at this approach with a domain name generator I created.
6. API/ Product documentation
Many SaaS brands partner with other SaaS companies to extend the usability of their products. No one will purchase your software if it doesn’t integrate with existing or new tech.
Integrations are also a source of backlinks.
You can leverage these partnerships to
- Add links to the integration directory
- Add links to API or help documents
- Write guest posts
The Zapier-Slack integration page includes a backlink to the communication app’s homepage.
That’s not all.
Zapier also creates blog posts and resource pages to educate its audience about integration partners.
All these articles contain links back to Slack’s web pages.
Unlike Zapier, some integration partners may not write or accept blog posts about your product.
However, user guides or API documentation present a viable opportunity for your link building efforts.
These valuable resources help their customers get the most out of both products.
7. Release data trends and industry insights
Industry trends and benchmark reports are another linkable asset that attracts backlinks.
Take this State of AI survey report from McKinsey as an example.
It generated 3.6 thousand backlinks, as shown below.
Content marketers and journalists reference studies and statistical analysis to make their points.
You could be one of these sources if you create and publish this type of content.
The drawback is that it is resource-intensive.
Evolving trends mean your information becomes outdated quickly. Still, it’s a solid link building strategy for establishing authority. Moreover, you can update the same URL with current data and keep existing backlinks.
Curating statistics from various sources is a viable alternative to creating original content. Take this Instagram stats post by Sprout Social, for example.
The blogger collected existing statistics for the given topic and created a resourceful piece of content.
It has 5.6 thousand backlinks from medium to high-rated domains.
8. Release a widget
Widgets are an overlooked link-building strategy. These interactive software displays direct users to linked pages.
Here’s an example of a social proof widget for an insurance company.
When customers click on a review, it takes them to the Trustpilot website. Consequently, it has 820 million backlinks.
Embedding widgets on clients' and partners’ websites can also generate an astounding number of backlinks.
Note that the widget must be relevant and provide real value to users.
Otherwise, Google will flag these links as spam.
9. Acquire relevant domains
A grey hat technique is buying an expired or live site with a strong backlink profile and redirecting it to your site.
A 301 redirect moves traffic from the old URL to the new one, allowing you to get the old website’s ranking power.
This is an advanced technique.
There’s a great guide by the folks at Foundation Inc. covering how Canva used this technique to boost search rankings.
Before purchasing a website from the site owner, research the site’s:
- history for fraudulent activities
- traffic to ensure it attracts a relevant target audience
- content to ensure quality and consistency
Ensure the website isn’t associated with fraudulent activities and that the content and generated traffic are relevant to your niche.
Confirm that Google is still indexing the site to avoid the dreaded sandbox effect.
10. Use HARO
HARO (Help a Reporter Out) connects industry experts with journalists looking for quotes. The platform has been rebranded and relaunched as Connectively.
When you sign up, you receive an index of request summaries based on your registered interests and expertise.
Here’s an example of an index with tech topics that align with SaaS.
When you click the request that matches your expertise, you see the query description, submission deadline, and requesting publication.
HARO is a great way to earn backlinks from high-quality news sites, but there is a significant drawback.
Backlinks aren’t guaranteed.
If you get one, it may be a nofollow link that doesn’t contribute to your SERP ranking.
Still, a nofollow link from Forbes or Bloomberg isn’t something to sniff at. These publications can boost your brand reputation.
HARO alternatives include SourceBottle, T, Qwoted, Featured, and SourceBottle. You can also use #journorequest on X (formerly Twitter) to connect with reporters in real-time.
5 metrics to measure link performance
Backlinks are not equal.
Some perform better than others for various reasons. Tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) helps identify link opportunities that drive traffic.
Domain authority (DA)
DA uses factors like domain age and the number and quality of links to predict how well websites rank on SERPs.
Moz developed the metric and rates sites on a scale of 1 to 100. The higher the grade, the more authority and trust the site has.
Aim for relevant sites with 40+ DA.
Domain rating (DR)
DR uses factors like the number of links from different domains and do-follow links to measure the strength of a website’s backlink profile.
Ahrefs developed the metric and rates sites on a scale of 1 to 100. Select sites with 50+ DR.
Trust flow (TF)
TF uses the quality and reputation of backlinks to measure a site’s perceived trustworthiness. Majestic developed the metric and scores sites on a scale of 1 to 100.
Choose sites with 50+ TF.
Page traffic
Traffic measures the number of unique visitors in a given period.
Aim for sites with more than 5,000 organic visitors per month.
Avoid sites with significant traffic drops, which signal penalties for breaching search engine guidelines.
Relevancy
Relevancy refers to how appropriate or relatable your content is to the referring website. If you provide technology-related products or services, links from SaaS and tech websites are more valuable than links from unrelated niches.
Relevancy also applies to the link’s contextual fit.
The anchor text and the linked content must be relevant to the topic.
Key considerations for backlink building campaigns
Let’s address some link-building debates common in the SEO industry.
New referring domains versus repeat domains
One of the largest discussions I see in link building is the number of times you can get links from the same domain.
Some SEO experts from SaaS companies say you should only get one link per site.
Others say more than one link is fine.
The ‘one link’ camp argues the positive correlation between organic traffic and backlinks from unique domains. As one increases, so does the other.
Posting a link on a new domain earns you a new root link, increasing your authority.
I’m pragmatic.
Established companies get links from the same domain multiple times.
When actively building links, get fewer links from less powerful domains and more from the best.
For example, I might get two links from a site with 10k traffic and DR 50-59. Target as many as five links for high domain authority websites with 100k traffic and DR 90+.
New page level referring domains
Don't get multiple links from one domain to the same page.
Instead, get links to different target pages. Google gives companies credit for links from a domain to a page.
You’re unlikely to get much more credit for two links from the same site to the same page.
Create an anchor text distribution list
You need to vary your anchor text to ensure your backlink profile looks organic or natural. So, create an anchor text distribution list before starting your link-building campaigns.
Combine exact and partial match anchor texts. You can also use branded anchor texts.
The ideal anchor text distribution is 50% brand/URL anchor texts, 25% topic anchors, 10% target keyword and long-tail anchor text, and 15% miscellaneous anchors.
Anchor texts help search engines and users understand linked content, i.e., what to expect when they click the link.
For example, a “best products for x” anchor text should take users to a round-up post discussing the best products for x.
Using appropriate anchor texts improves SEO performance and user experience.
Site and page level relevancy
Relevance is one of the basic signals search engines use to rank web pages.
You want backlinks from websites in similar or complementary industries.
These factors affect link relevancy:
- Anchor text
- Link placement
- Page content
Referring domains are the links to a site. You want to get links from a site that's not collecting spammy links and is primarily linking out to other sites in your niche.
Avoid sites linking to gambling, adult websites, and other random content.
How long does it take to generate results from link building?
Link building is a long game. Search engine crawling and indexing take time, and you won’t see results from a new campaign for 3-6 months.
Two primary factors affect this timeline:
- Competition – it takes longer and more campaigns to outcompete rivals in competitive industries
- Domain authority – websites with strong backlink profiles experience faster gains
But don’t be discouraged. Link value tends to increase over time. A strategic campaign generates results.
Check this out.
We worked with a client for a high-volume keyword. Within four months of running the link-building campaign, we took the domain from no clicks to 85,000 monthly clicks.
How much does link building cost?
One quality backlink from a DR60+ website with 10K+ monthly traffic costs $250-$300. This includes content writing and other expenses if you’re doing guest posting.
If you work with a US-based SEO agency, the costs can be between $300 to $900 per link.
Two critical factors impact the cost of a link:
Type of link
Backlinks are usually acquired in two ways: through link inserts and guest posts. Link inserts are faster to acquire, unlike guest posting links.
Guest posts require additional resources to write and secure the content opportunity.
Quality of the domain
Backlinks from domains with a good Domain Rating (DR), high Trust Flow, and growing traffic will always be more expensive.
So expect a backlink from a site with a DR 90+ and 1 million visitors to cost more than one from a DR50 website with 5K traffic.
You need large budgets to operate in competitive industries like web hosting and VoIP. You’ll need more links to rank for keywords.
That pushes up the cost of your campaign.
Another factor worth mentioning is building links in-house vs through an SEO agency.
While an in-house team may initially be cheaper than hiring an agency, the hidden cost of learning and the mistakes you make along the way quickly add up.
Wrapping things up
Building links is a pivotal component of SEO.
Acquiring high quality backlinks drives relevant traffic to your website and increases your domain authority, resulting in higher search engine rankings.
The quality of backlinks is as important as their quantity. You build high-quality links through:
- Research and content auditing
- Relevant referring domains
- Outreach and content distribution
- Tried-and-true link building strategies
- Effective tracking
Effective link building for your website is a long game, but it can help build a link profile that dominates the SERPs.
