I remember when I started marketing my first online business, it felt like a never-ending learning process.
Right when I felt like I’d finally checked all the boxes and done everything I needed to do, I’d learn some about some new strategy people were using to market their sites, and I’d need to start the learning process all over again.
Link building was one of those “new” strategies.
Maybe the same thing has happened to you: You just learned about this thing called “link building” and you’re dreading the imminent learning curve as you dive into the world of backlinking.
We’re here to get rid of that learning curve—or at least, turn it into a gentle learning slope.
To build links the right way, you only have to focus on a handful of methods. We’ll be covering the top 5 in this article.
Guest posts and HARO link-building are ideal methods for websites that already have some authority and want to use that authority to greatly enhance their backlink profiles.
Niche edits and link exchanges are ideal for newer websites that need to build authority from the ground up.
Outsourcing to an ethical link-building agency is a clean solution that allows a team of link-building experts to boost your link profile through professional, organic content creation and outreach.
Beyond direct link-building methods, focus on growing your business and engaging actively across various platforms to naturally attract backlinks over time.
Ideal for: Websites that already have some existing authority, but want to get to a new level.
Use when: You have the time and resources to invest in quality content creation.
Pros: Provides a huge authority boost, brings in lots of link traffic, and cultivates fruitful business relationships
Cons: Content creation takes a significant amount of time and money, and new industry players will have a hard time landing guest posts on authoritative websites
Guest posts involve creating content—usually written content in the form of an article or blog post—that showcases your authority within your niche and contains backlinks that point back to your website. You then send the post to a business in a similar niche, to be posted on its blog.
Guest posts are one of the most tried-and-true methods for building links. Whether you go the DIY route or decide to work with a link-building agency, guest posts should absolutely be a part of your backlink strategy.
The key with guest posts is to create content that actually adds value to the other website’s readers—otherwise, why on earth would they say yes and agree to post it on their blog? Think how-to guides, meaningful personal stories, or specialized advice on a given topic.
You also need to make sure that the partner website’s readers have enough in common with your readers that they’d actually be interested in the content you have to share, and then place the links throughout your post in strategic spots, with proper anchor text.
Guest posts can be tricky to land, especially if you haven’t yet built up any authority in your niche. But once you get into the groove, they really pull their weight, providing huge boosts both in referral traffic and SERP rankings.
Ideal for: Newer websites that have very little or no authority.
Use when: You need to build lots of links as fast as possible.
Pros: Efficient, cheap, and relatively easy to land niche edits on other websites.
Cons: Reduced authority boost and link traffic, and one-and-done nature tends not to produce long-term business relationships.
Niche edits are when you insert backlinks into already-written content pieces that you find on other websites.
Basically, niche edits are like guest posts, except someone else has already written and published the content. The trade-off, of course, is that you don’t get the same opportunity to showcase your authority as you would with a full, original content piece. But for websites that don’t yet have said authority to showcase, niche edits fit the bill quite nicely.
One of the most common (and easiest) niche edit techniques is broken link building. Here’s how it works. When you stumble upon a link that leads nowhere (think “Error 404 not found”) you reach out to the website owner and suggest that they insert a link to your website in its place.
It’s a win-win—you’ll score a free backlink, and the other website will fix a broken link (which is certainly doing its part to annoy the website’s visitors).
The only problem we sometimes see with broken link building is that many well-meaning people try to fit their links into places where it doesn’t really belong. You have to make sure your backlink will actually contribute to the experience of the other website’s readers.
Niche edits are one of the easiest ways to land backlinks, since you don’t really need any existing authority to get people to say yes. However, they do transfer a bit less authority to you, and don’t always have the same search engine perks as guest posts do.
Link building costs vary tremendously. SEO, and marketing in general, naturally entail a huge variety of different strategies and ways to achieve success. As such, keep in mind that the numbers below are best estimates and not guarantees.
Ideal for: Websites that want to be seen as an authoritative source of scholarly information.
Use when: You want to increase link traffic and authority within journalistic circles.
Pros: Substantial amount of link traffic from news readers, and one of the best ways to increase academic authority.
Cons: Heavy competition makes it difficult to acquire HARO links, and they’re usually relevant only for websites dealing with subjects covered by journalists.
HARO stands for Help A Reporter Out, and it’s an online platform that matches journalists (who need sources) with authoritative websites who can provide those sources (you) in exchange for a backlink to your website in the final article.
We’ll start with the downside of HARO: It’s not for everyone. Guest posts and niche edits can be employed by any website, no matter the industry. HARO, on the other hand, only works for websites in academic circles that can provide sources for topics currently being covered by journalists.
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about the benefits.
On the flipside of the previous coin, the backlinks you’ll receive via HARO are of the highest quality—your website will quite literally be positioned as a subject-matter expert, providing the information that backs up whatever claim the journalist is making in the article. In the same way, the referral traffic you’ll receive will mostly consist of readers who mean business and want to dig deep into your material.
At the end of the day, HARO link building is an amazing way to efficiently build top-quality links—but it works only for businesses that specialize in providing scholarly, authoritative information.
Ideal for: Businesses that have heavy link-building needs they can’t meet on their own.
Use when: You don’t want to deal with link build yourself and have enough resources to pay for a professional service.
Pros: Links are built with little involvement from the website owners, and strategies are built and executed by professionals.
Cons: Expensive and potentially unethical if you choose a sketchy agency.
Paid link-building services involve paying an agency to create and execute a link-building strategy on your behalf.
Link-building agencies will happily take your hard-earned cash to do what they do best: build backlinks for your website. There are many different scenarios where using a link-building agency is advantageous—we’ll touch on a few below.
Large, popular websites usually have heavy SEO needs. Even though they’re already out there and relatively well-known, they need to have a solid link-building plan if they want to stay relevant. By outsourcing to a link-building agency, they can pay a flat, monthly fee to have the agency handle everything for them: creating content for guest posts, reaching out to potential collaborating websites, and monitoring the overall link profile.
Conversely, many smaller businesses prefer to use link-building agencies as opposed to building links themselves. As long as these businesses have the cash on hand, outsourcing to an agency on a per-link basis will allow them to build strategic backlinks here and there, without needing the marketing infrastructure necessary to do everything themselves.
Link-building agencies often provide demonstrable, professional results for their clients, greatly boosting SERP rankings and overall business. If you do decide to go this route, make sure you choose a legitimate, white-hat agency like Profit Engine, and not a sketchy, black-hat link farm.
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Ideal for: Websites that have enough authority and traffic to be attractive link-building prospects for others.
Use when: You have a limited budget and would rather trade link-for-link than pay out of pocket.
Pros: No monetary cost, increased traffic, and potential for long-term business relationships.
Cons: Not effective for new websites with no authority, and can be hard to identify prospects willing to exchange links.
A link exchange is when two website owners agree to “trade” and place their own backlinks on each other’s websites.
Provided you can find a website willing to trade with you, link exchanges are a pretty common sense move. It’s a win-win, since you’ll each be benefiting each other with referral traffic and link juice at essentially no cost.
Link exchanges aren’t exactly our most highly recommended method, however. Here’s why.
First of all, link exchanges aren’t actually that much easier to land than niche edits or other similar strategies (in some ways, they’re actually harder). And since link exchanges usually only work with websites on your same authority level, you won’t get as many benefits as you would with niche edits, where you’re usually inserting your link into the article of a more authoritative website.
Finally, Google loves doling out penalties for link exchanges. One of the main reasons for this is that link exchanges can be very easily manipulated and multiplied by site owners with many different websites—so sometimes Google feels the need to crack down.
Link exchanges can be an easy way to get a few odd backlinks here and there, but relying on them too heavily could cause you to miss out on better link-building opportunities and even incur penalties from Google.
There’s one link-building method that we haven’t touched on yet—and believe it or not, it’s the best one of them all: Build links organically and indirectly through actually growing your website and business.
As you continue to wade deeper and deeper into the link-building world, you’ll find that all of Google annoying rules and penalties around link-building are actually meant to serve that exact purpose: to ensure that the majority of backlinks out on the internet are organic, created without prompting by regular people and other website owners that have actually found the linked content, products and services to be genuinely helpful.
Give people a good reason to link to your website, and with enough time, they will.
At the same time, there are some specific things you can prioritize in order to move the process along and boost your organic link-building velocity:
Build a social media presence on Instagram, TikTok, X and YouTube;
Conduct giveaways and other online “events” that boost your reach;
Participate in forums and comment sections, providing helpful information and posting links to your website so people can learn more;
Proportionally build up your other online marketing channels, like paid ads, email outreach, and in-person networking.
Though it’s easy to get lost in the nitty gritty, building backlinks in 2024 really only involves a handful of tried-and-true methods—namely guest posts, niche edits, HARO submissions, paid link-building services, and link exchanges.
Like we mentioned, if you go with a link-building agency, it’s extremely important to ensure it’s a legitimate agency that employs ethical, white-hat methods—just like we do at Profit Engine.
If you’re interested in learning more about what we bring to the table, book a strategy call—they’re 100% free.
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