Top 10 Link Building Strategies in 2022 + implementation steps. The Ultimate Guide [Update 2022]

Quote from Google's Webmaster Guidelines:

One thing is for sure — if you don't work on your link profile, you won't increase organic traffic, which statistically has the highest conversion to sales/leads, etc.

The saying "The more the better" does not apply to links. A link can be good or bad for an acceptor depending on the donor's industry, country, language, keywords, and other less obvious factors. Unfortunately, there is no standard formula for determining quality.

Linkbuilding is a powerful tool to either get your site to the top or downgrade its ranking with the wrong link building tactics. Therefore, the links you create should be as natural as possible.

Otherwise, Google may conclude that you are trying to manipulate its search algorithms and punish you. It's better to aim for fewer high-quality links than thousands of links that are of no value.

In this article, we will consider the current linkbuilding areas. Still, we will not go into details and mathematical models for calculating the return on investment in links — these topics deserve separate articles.

It is worth noting that the approaches listed below are more or less general and will agree with almost everything: personal pages, portals, corporate sites, SaaS, and even online stores.

If you run a blog or column dedicated to communication with the audience, the most effective linkbuilding strategies are open to you. Most described techniques work even for niches that require individual approaches, such as gambling, essays, crypts, medicine, etc.

Let's take a look at the 10 most effective SEO link building methods:

This is one of the most popular, simple, and effective strategies. But before diving in...

Disclaimer: if your competitors have links from any sources, this does not mean that they are of high quality. This method should be approached with caution if you have little experience in SEO and link building in particular.

That's all, let's move on to the details.

If you know your competitors well, you can skip this point and go directly to the section "Here are the links you need."

Don't know who your competitors are? Voila! Meet:

Use the Serpstat Competitor Analysis module. It can be used to quickly examine the list of domains competing in organic search with the analyzed domain.

Do you see Wikipedia and/or other information resources in the list of competing domains? That means your content contains many non-commercial informational keywords, which is not necessarily a bad thing. This can help attract new audiences and brand awareness. But in general, this is a call to analyze the content and, if necessary, adjust your content strategy.

This list of competitors contains the sites you share your search traffic with and found for the same (or similar) keywords.

By the way, in Serpstat, below the competitor review section, there is a domain comparison tool with which you can expand the semantics. It allows you to compare two or three sites simultaneously and find phrases for which competitors are shown, but not you.

If the list of found domains suits you, you can proceed to the next section. And if you think you must have other competitors in your search, include these "others" on your list of those from whom you can borrow linkbuilding sites. In most cases, it is enough to analyze competitors whom you have known well for a long time. But if you need to expand this list, the next section is for you.

Analyze the keywords you would like to be in the top for, commercially interesting keywords, or those for which you have a high conversion.

This is easy to do with the Leader Pages report. It will display pages that rank better than others for analyzed and semantically related phrases in the top 100 Google. In addition, here you can also see the number of keys by which these pages are ranked (you can see their list directly by clicking on the number reflecting the amount), the volume of organic content received, and how many times they have been shared in FB.

Thus, you can expand your list for link replication and select those for the level of visibility you are striving for.

In addition, you can look at the Top by Keyword report. Here you can see the top pages by keywords and basic information about them; paid results are also included in the report. Therefore, pay attention to the number of backlinks when selecting pages from this report.

The list of resources for replication can be supplemented not only with competitors' sites but also with competitors of competitors. Analyze the pages you get and find direct competitors for specific pages with similar keywords and compete with them for positions.
You are only two clicks away from such analysis; just go to the "Competitors by URL" tab in the drop-down menu of the interface of the leader pages or the top by keyword.

Once you've found your competitors, it's time to analyze their link profiles and finally get relevant linking sites.

For this, Serpstat has a Backlink Analysis module. Let's briefly study it in more detail:
To find sources of links, you need to look at your favorite competitor and then all the rest, in descending order.

So what we see:

The Overview report contains general information and visualizations that will help you draw useful conclusions for future strategies. Namely:

Let's move on to the next section of the module called Referring Domains.

These are your potential donors.

Filter the list based on your desired Domain Authority score and website traffic. And then examine the pages that link to your competitors: to which pages they link, whether it is an article, comment, image, or something else.

You can get to the interface with a list of referring pages by simply clicking on their number in front of each domain. Or filter the required domain (or several) in the inbound links tab. The screen below displays which pages of a particular site are linking to competitors, and to which of their pages.

It will also be helpful to look into the reports on outbound links and domains to have an idea where exactly the site you are trying to get closer is linking.

With the help of Serpstat, you can even look at all competitors at the same time, more precisely, at a maximum of 100. But this is more than enough. This capability is provided by a Batch Analysis tool.

An important point that will simplify further processing of the list of potential donors: if your site already has a decent number of links, you can exclude from the list of potential donors those sites that already link to you.

This is where the Link Intersection report helps you compare multiple domains and see common link sources.

Let's imagine that you have processed all the previously selected sites and have already received a bunch of high-quality backlinks from them.
Obviously, you shouldn't stop there :)

Expand your donor list by keyword researching competitors. They are easy to find with the Keyword Analysis module.

Domain rank and traffic volume are essential factors in choosing donors. These and other valuable filters are found in almost every link analysis tool.

If you have doubts about indicators optimal for donor selection, refer to the documentation or knowledge bases of the tools you use. For example, Serpstat has a comprehensive knowledge base.

The second way to assess the "health" of potential donors is to study the parameters of several high-quality sites or sites from the top. This method is suitable if you have doubts about indicators that are calculated using complex formulas.

Here are some more signs by which it is easy to identify irrelevant sites:

It is also worth mentioning that compliance with the topic does not mean that the donor should directly relate to it. For example, if you are an online cosmetics store owner, your donors do not have to be directly related to cosmetics.

For example, it can also be quality news resources with relevant headings or sites for entrepreneurs where you can organically link, telling their audience something about your business.

To promote the site for specific keywords, the method should be slightly adjusted, taking into account which page and keywords you need to bring to the top. One option is to collect semantics close to the query of interest and build up links from sites from the top for similar phrases.

We hope this section of the article gave recognition of what a competitor's link replication method is and how to collect a database of potential donors.

There are 9 more linkbuilding directions ahead, which will be no less useful for your site.

In general, strategy of guest blogging is somewhat similar to the previous one, with the only difference that in the previous one, you need to analyze each potential donor and get links yourself, but here everything is transparent.

This option is based on sharing — creating unique, high-quality content, sharing experiences, research, statistics, infographics that can be included in the blog post publication, etc. That is, you provide some value, contribute to the donor's content, and in return, you get a natural mention of your site.

Guest posting promotes SEO, increases visibility, and, in most cases, has a positive effect on brand awareness and generates valuable referral traffic. Moreover, it is thanks to this strategy that you are reading this post :)

This is where advanced search operators come in handy. Use different combinations — requests for "guest post" or "write for us" in the URL or content, combined with keywords related to your topic, "become an author" or "post an article" in the content, etc.

For example, here is what was found by the query "inurl: write-for-us + web development" for our topic:

Don't forget to check the sites for domain rating, traffic, trust, and other essential indicators so that the links bring the maximum benefit.

Many sites provide potential contributors with content topics, but you can always offer your options, having previously studied the interests of their target audience.

Serpstat will help us with this again — the Leader Pages report mentioned in the previous chapter will help us see the pages with the biggest traffic.

In addition to the search method described above, no one forbids you to turn to sites of interest, even if they do not have a section dedicated to guest publications.

You can link to sites that you visit yourself, that have been recommended to you, reputable in your niche. Offer them several options for content topics that will interest their audience.

There is another very effective method, which has already become a classic, which I first learned about thanks to Brian Dean; for those who may not have heard of it, I'll retell about the Skyscraper Technique.

In the context of link search, one cannot fail to mention the actual statistics regarding the content. Some time ago, BuzzSumo specialists conducted research in which they examined 1 million publications. They found that most of the content has no links at all. That is, more than 75% of all online content is not linked to.

But the good news is that research has found that some forms of content perform better than others. In particular, list posts are superior to other content formats.

Also, according to the research results, the following formats work perfectly:

These formats give you a starting point for writing awesome content that works.
The second thing to mention: when offering guest publishing options, in addition to exploring the popular pages of the site, ask if any trending topics fit its format.
This will dramatically increase your chances that your topic will be accepted. You can find popular topics using Google Trends, BuzzSumo, or even Twitter.

Since these tactics are very similar, we decided to combine them in one block. In the previous section, we learned that the vast majority of content attracts almost zero links. Linkbait content is a trending title for content that serves one purpose — building backlinks.

Let's give an example:

Stone Temple surveyed 1,000 people about their voice search habits.

Because their post gave people many insights and citation data, it has been an absolute link magnet since day one.

But not everyone has the resources to create such studies, you might say, and you'd be perfectly right. This is an example of the highest quality, original linkbait. But everyone saw cool infographics that contained what everyone seemed to know already. Still, someone guessed to consolidate and visualize it, and at the same time get a lot of links.

In addition, as stated above, the method is similar to the skyscraper tactic: the key to linking is to create valuable content on trending topics, given the insights above. Only this time, you make this content for yourself and not for third-party sites.

This is one of the oldest and most effective strategies, the essence of which is to find broken links on third-party sites, inform the administration about them and offer a replacement — your content.

The easiest way is to look for broken links to competitors. For this, the aforementioned Serpstat Link Analysis tool is suitable. It contains the "Lost backlinks" section, which shows a list of inactive anchor texts to the analyzed site.

You can now contact the owners of the original pages and report broken links. A good reason to replace them with your relevant pages!

Many sites may mention you but not link to the site. And you have every right to contact the administrator and ask to turn the mention into a link.

To do this, you need a brand mention monitoring tool. These include free services (such as Google Alerts) and paid tools (BrandMentions, Brand Analytics, and YouScan).

For all business owners, this item can be considered a must. What could be easier than placing a link to your website in a business directory and getting additional visitors? Just don't forget to update the information from time to time and follow the reviews if there is an opportunity to leave them on the site.

Among the must-have listings, one can distinguish Google My Business, Facebook Business, LinkedIn Pages, online maps (Google, Apple, and so on).

More examples: TripAdvisor is suitable for several companies directly or indirectly related to tourism: hotels, restaurants, experience-related businesses — rafting, rock climbing, etc., and much more.

Please note that many listings have lost their relevance today, so it is essential to check the SEO parameters of the directory to which you want to add the site.

For example, lists of the best SEO tools tend to include Serpstat. Those who did not include it in the list probably did not use it, and it is worth contacting the author of such a list to have the tool in the list, indicating its merits.

If your site contains content that targets a specific set of people, try promoting it through various lists of valuable resources.

Also, suitable sites can be found using the search keywords "[subject] + useful links", "[subject] + resources".

Placement of crowd links is, in the long term, a reasonably effective strategy for some niches. The essence of the crowd is to communicate with the target audience on web 2.0 resources, forums relevant to your industry, blogs, reviews, knowledge exchange platforms, etc.

For example, Reddit, Quora, and StackOverflow are suitable crowd sites for the SECL Group. Each niche has its own sites, up to Facebook, where everyone can meet their target audience. Also, everyone should check their company for negative reviews and work them out.