According to Google, backlink quality remains one of the top three ranking factors, followed by content and mobile optimization. If you want to rise in search rankings, your best bet is to focus on organic link building and get lots of high-authority links to your site.
SEO professionals are always looking for new and innovative ways (beyond established best practices) to build backlinks. Everyone has a new perspective on what they think will work or not. However, one thing is for sure, using Black Hat link-building strategies is something that can cause problems for brands, agencies, and SEOs. Google is getting smarter all the time, and it’s not 2011 anymore when SEOs used to use black hat strategies for link building like spamming, junk blog comments, and so on.
Additionally, many link-building techniques, such as people exchanging links for links, are now considered immoral. Additionally, if users continue to behave this way, search engines will likely detect this and penalize websites.
So why go through all this ordeal for your brand? Recent studies have found a connection between the number of backlinks you have and the amount of organic traffic you receive from Google.
But don’t be afraid. There are a few more ethical link building tactics you can use to gain links the right way. All you need to do is be aware of unethical practices and avoid them while trying to build a backlink profile for your website.
In this article, we’ll look at 20 ethical or best practices for organic link building in 2024. Before we get to the list, let’s answer some important questions first.
Why Is it Essential to Use the Latest Link Building Techniques?
Search engines, especially Google, are constantly updating their algorithms to provide users with the best search experience. These updates aim to combat search manipulation and promote websites that prioritize user experience and high-quality content.
Gone are the days when link building revolved solely around quantity. It’s no longer just about getting as many backlinks as possible. Google’s EEAT algorithm has become an important ranking factor, emphasizing the importance of creating an authoritative online presence.
Here are some reasons why it is essential to use the latest link building techniques:
- • Boosts organic traffic: Link building is a major player when it comes to the world of SEO. It boosts organic traffic, search engine rankings, and trust, especially in competitive industries.
- • Improves search engine rankings: Backlinks are one of Google’s most important ranking factors. The more high-quality backlinks a page has, the higher it can rank.
- • Establishes authority: Trustworthy sites tend to link to other trustworthy sites, and spammy sites tend to link to other spammy sites. By building high-quality backlinks, a website can establish its authority and credibility in its niche.
- • Increases brand visibility: Link building can help increase brand visibility by getting a website in front of a wider audience. When other websites link to a website, it exposes that website to a new audience.
- • Keeps up with the latest trends: Link-building techniques are constantly evolving, and it is essential to keep up with the latest trends to stay ahead of the competition. Using outdated techniques can harm a website’s search engine rankings and visibility.
- It is important to note that link building is not a one-time process but an ongoing effort that requires consistent work and dedication. But this way a website can improve its search engine rankings, increase organic traffic, and establish its authority and credibility in its niche.
What is the White Hat and Black Hat Link Building Technique?
Not all SEO link building techniques are created equal. Some techniques are considered ethical and safe, while others are considered unethical and risky. Let’s quickly touch on the difference between the two main types of link building SEO techniques.
White Hat Link Building Technique
White Hat techniques focus on building high-quality backlinks in legal and ethical ways. These strategies follow search engine recommendations and are aimed at creating valuable connections and relationships. It involves using legitimate and valid techniques to rank in the search engine results, more content contributions, align, and make the website more user-friendly.
Here are some key characteristics of White Hat link building strategies:
- • Content optimization: White Hat link building starts with creating valuable content that naturally attracts backlinks. By optimizing your content for keywords, providing educational information, and providing a positive user experience, you increase your chances of earning organic and relevant backlinks.
- • Building information links: This involves reaching out to relevant websites, bloggers, and influencers in your industry to establish connections and secure guest posting opportunities. It’s about building relationships and providing value for both parties involved.
- • Backlink profile audit. Regularly auditing your backlink profile helps identify low-quality or spammy links that could harm your site’s reputation. Removing or disavowing such links ensures a clean and reliable link profile.
White Hat link building is considered a long-term strategy that focuses on the creation of manual backlinks and high-quality content that offers value to the user. The goal is to build a website’s authority, which should boost its organic rankings on the SERPs
Black Hat Link Building Technique
Black Hat techniques, on the other hand, employ manipulative tactics to acquire backlinks quickly. These practices are against search engine guidelines and can lead to severe penalties or even getting your website banned from search engine results pages. Here are some examples of Black Hat link building techniques in SEO to avoid:
- • Buying links: Purchasing links from link farms or low-quality websites is a violation of search engine guidelines. These links provide little to no value and can harm your website’s reputation.
- • Link schemes: Participating in link schemes, such as link exchanges or excessive reciprocal linking, is considered manipulative and can lead to penalties.
- • Automated link building: Using software or tools to automate link building processes is a risky practice. Search engines are adept at identifying patterns and can detect artificially generated links.
It’s obvious that Black Hat link building is considered a short-term strategy that focuses on “beating the system” rather than providing value to the user. Its goal is to manipulate the search engine algorithm to achieve the desired results.
Fortunately, Google is constantly improving its algorithms to identify and penalize websites that employ Black Hat techniques. So, it’s crucial to prioritize ethical and sustainable link building practices to ensure long-term success and avoid potential penalties.
Here at Mellow Promo, we’re all about playing it safe and going the White Hat route. Trust us, it’s the way to go if you want to build a sustainable online presence that stands the test of time.
20 Effective Link Building Strategies You Should Try
Now we’ll explore a range of effective strategies for link building that you should definitely try in 2024. These techniques have proven their worth and can help you build a strong and authoritative link profile.
1. Outreach
Outreach link building is a method of obtaining links, which is based on direct interaction with the owners of interesting resources for placement – sites and blogs. Mutually beneficial contacts with relevant sites are built through e-mail appeals and personal agreements on cooperation. As a result, the project receives brand mentions, and articles with backlinks.
In turn, outreach is conventionally divided into two areas:
- • guest posting;
- • exchange of links and articles.
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2. Link reclamation
- Link reclamation involves finding mentions of your brand or website on the web that don’t currently include a link. Reach out to the website owners and kindly ask them to add a link to your site. It’s an effective way to reclaim lost opportunities for backlinks and boost your website’s authority.
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3. Use HARO
- HARO (Help a Reporter Out) is a platform that connects journalists with expert sources. If you sign up as a source, you can receive relevant queries from journalists in your industry. When you provide valuable information and get quoted in their articles, you have the opportunity to earn high-quality backlinks from reputable publications.
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4. Digital PR
- Digital PR means creating and promoting informative content or stories about your brand to gain media attention and backlinks. It can be a unique piece of research, a significant milestone, or a compelling story. By reaching out to journalists and influencers, you increase your chances of getting valuable media coverage and backlinks.
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5. Create linkable content
- Link building refers to developing high-quality, informative, and easily shareable content that naturally attracts backlinks. It can be in the form of comprehensive guides, research articles, infographics, or interactive tools. If you provide valuable resources, other sites are more likely to link to your content as a reference.
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6. Forum posting
- Engaging in relevant forums and online communities (Quora, Medium, Reddit, etc.) can be a valuable link building strategy. Participate in discussions, provide helpful insights, and contribute to conversations in your industry. Make sure to include a link to your website only when it’s relevant and adds value to the discussion. Forum posting shouldn’t look spammy and it’s important to only really add information about your business in relevant threads.
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7. Local link building
- For local businesses, focusing on local link building is essential. Claim and optimize your Google My Business listing, ensuring it includes accurate information and relevant links. Seek opportunities to collaborate with local organizations, sponsor local events, or get featured in local directories to earn valuable local backlinks.
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8. Social media link building
- Leverage the power of social media platforms to build links. Share your valuable content, engage with your audience, and foster relationships with influencers in your industry. When your content is shared and linked to on social media, it increases its visibility and the likelihood of earning backlinks.
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9. Get listed on resource pages
- Resource pages are curated lists of helpful links and references in a particular industry. Find relevant resource pages and reach out to the website owners to request inclusion. If your content or website provides value to their audience, they may consider adding you to their list, giving you a valuable backlink.
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10. Newsjacking
- Newsjacking is about leveraging current news or trending topics to create relevant and timely content. By providing unique insights or perspectives on these topics, you increase your chances of getting mentioned and linked to by journalists or bloggers covering the news.
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11. Sponsoring an event
- Sponsoring events in your industry not only helps you build brand awareness but also provides opportunities for link building. Event websites often include sponsor profiles with links to the sponsor’s websites. Seek out relevant events and consider sponsoring them to earn valuable backlinks.
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12. Tiered link-building
- Tiered link building involves creating a network of links that direct traffic and authority to your website. It typically includes building high-quality backlinks to your website as well as creating secondary links to the sources linking to you. This multi-tiered approach can enhance the link equity flowing to your site.
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13. Ask your clients about a review
- If you have satisfied clients or customers, don’t hesitate to ask them for reviews or testimonials. Positive reviews not only build credibility but can also lead to backlinks when they are posted on review websites or shared on social media.
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14. Internal link building
- Internal linking can help your less popular pages gain some value and authority. This has always helped users stay on the site and access many other links. You can have several benefits from internal page links such as spreading link weight, increasing page views, boosting page rankings and improving average time on site.
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15. Broken link building
- Finding broken links on other websites you can reach out to the website owners to suggest replacing those broken links with links to relevant content on your site. It’s a win-win situation where you help website owners fix their broken links while earning valuable backlinks in return. Tools like Ahrefs, Moz, and Semrush can help you with that.
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16. Competitor backlink analysis
- Analyze the backlink profiles of your competitors to identify their high-quality backlinks. Once you make this competitor analysis and identify these opportunities, reach out to the same websites and offer them unique content or resources that provide equivalent or better value. This approach can help you secure backlinks from websites that are already linking to your competitors.
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17. Guest infographics
- Many people prefer to view a well-explained and informative infographic rather than reading two or three thousand words. Create visually appealing infographics that contain interesting and valuable information related to your industry. Then reach out to relevant websites and offer them your infographic for publication. Many websites are willing to share infographics as they offer engaging visual content and can be a valuable resource for their audience.
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18. Skyscraper technique
- The Skyscraper technique, popularized by Brian Dean, involves finding popular content in your industry and creating even better and more comprehensive versions of that content. Once your content is ready, reach out to the websites that link to the original content and let them know about your improved version. This approach increases the chances of earning backlinks from those websites.
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19. Influencer link building
- Collaborate with influencers in your industry to leverage their audience and reach. Engage with influencers through guest posting, interviews, or co-creating content. When influencers share and link to your content, it exposes your brand to their followers and can generate high-quality backlinks.
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20. Interview industry experts
- Conduct interviews with industry experts or thought leaders and publish them on your website. When you feature influential individuals and their insights, they are likely to share the interview on their own platforms, which can lead to valuable backlinks and increased visibility for your website.These are just a few of the effective link building strategies for SEO you can implement in 2024. It’s important to approach link building with a focus on quality, relevance, and ethical practices.
What Link Building Techniques are Best for New Websites?
When it comes to link building for new websites, you need to utilize strategies that will help build a strong backlink foundation and improve search engine visibility. The right combination of the following approaches can bring positive results:
- • Content creation and promotion: Create valuable content and promote it through social media, forums, and newsletters.
- • Guest blogging: Write high-quality articles for authoritative websites in your niche, including a backlink to your site.
- • Resource link building: Provide valuable resources and offer them to relevant websites for inclusion.
- • Build relationships with Influencers: Collaborate with influencers to leverage their audience and gain backlinks.
- • Local link building: Engage with local organizations, sponsor events, and participate in community initiatives for relevant local backlinks.
- • Social Media engagement: Interact with your target audience and industry influencers on social media to attract backlinks.
Keep in mind that link building for new websites requires a combination of approaches. By diversifying your strategies and focusing on creating valuable content and building relationships, you increase your chances of earning quality backlinks and improving your website’s visibility in search engine results.
To further illustrate the effectiveness of these techniques, we recommend you explore our relevant SEO cases that provide real examples of successful link building campaigns and can offer valuable insights into the strategies that work best for new websites.
Best Link Building Strategies & Techniques: Final Thoughts
The effectiveness of certain methods of obtaining links is a constant subject of debate among promotion specialists. Each strategy has its fans and opponents. We do not claim to be the truth in the last instance but still believe that each of the existing methods has the right to life. However, this does not mean that any of them will necessarily work and bring maximum benefit. We have considered some of them in this article.
Different methods can work at different stages of promotion. Do not dwell only on one or two directions – different strategies bring different types of links, which is valuable for the diversity of the link profile of the promoted site. It’s crucial to adapt these techniques to your specific industry, target audience, and website goals.
If you’re looking for professional assistance with your link building efforts, consider exploring link building services from Mellow Promo, a trusted provider of SEO and digital marketing services, including comprehensive link building strategies tailored to your specific needs. Our experienced team can help you develop and execute a customized link building plan to improve your website’s visibility and organic rankings.
