18 min read

33 Advanced B2B Link Building Tactics for 2024 (SEOs proven)

Dmytro Sokhach, CEO of Admix Global
33 Advanced B2B Link Building Tactics for 2023 (SEOs proven)

16 SEO pros and our 5 years in link building for B2B. We’ve joined forces to create an exhausting link building guide full of tactics that earn backlinks in 2023, 2024, and beyond.

We’ve broken down all the tactics into 3 buckets, ranked by the difficulty of acquiring backlinks. Let’s start with advanced link building.

33 Advanced Link Building Tactics

Link Building Tactics

These tactics require extra leg work, endurance, and a high skill set. But you can expect outstanding results like getting 3,000+ unique referring domains from one single article. Let’s dive in.

1. Build the power page content

The power page content is designed to rank on Google, wow people, gain social shares, and, of course, gain backlinks. A great example is Harry Dry’s Marketing Examples. The premise is simple, a collection of marketing examples. Learning SEO and Growth Design are other excellent examples of websites with content that wows.

Andrew Holland, Director of SEO at JBH
Andrew Holland

Director of SEO at JBH

While all of Andrew’s examples are standalone products, you can roll out your power page content on a subdomain.

Example: Your product is a user onboarding tool. Create a power page where you record and explain the advantages and disadvantages of user onboarding flows for different software.

2. Ultra-personalize emails to build relationships with new blogs

Specific personalization is what boosts your positive rates. Likewise, lazy, generic templates ruin your outreach efforts and your company’s reputation.

Let’s look over the traits of high-quality and shallow personalization for guest posting or forming new partnerships.

Traits of high-quality and shallow personalization for guest posting

While both may work out, great personalization can reach as high as 45% positive reply rates based on our experience at Editorial Link. Conversely, the average reply rate for outreach emails is only 8.5%.

That said, show you’re a human who gets the business. Offer a solution for missed opportunities. Tease with a win-win collaboration.

Most cold emails from guest bloggers are lazy and dishonest. They almost never have a personal touch, get the audience right, and do anything to persuade. Which means they’re SO easy to ignore and delete. To flip guest blogging outreach on its head, make your pitches specific, personal, and helpful (see the image below).

Ben Goodey, Founder of How the F*ck
Ben Goodey

Founder of How the F*ck

An example of good and bad guest blogging from Ben Goodey

3. Explore digital PR for link building (aka create linkable assets)

With digital PR, you can trigger an avalanche of editorial DR60-90+ backlinks. Backlinko built 5,660 backlinks in 30 days with a single article. Likewise, Buffer generated 100+ links in 14 days.

Furthermore, look at the number of referring domains SaaS companies acquire with digital PR in under several months.

SaaS brands with the number of referring domains and backlinks

The number varies depending on the brand, type of content, its rankings in the SERPs, cooperation with other brands and experts, and distribution efforts.

Digital PR is by far the best link-building tactic, and for a good reason, you’re aiming to get the brand exposure and not just a link. Nothing beats humans visiting a website. It’s this real human interaction that is the goal of all marketing. If someone reads an article in a media publication with anchor text such as ‘according to a survey conducted by…’ or ‘according to the experts at…’. This is powerful. It sticks in the reader’s mind, and people also click to learn more.

Andrew Holland, Director of SEO at JBH
Andrew Holland

Director of SEO at JBH

So, which type of content earns more unique backlinks?

3.1. Data-driven original studies

Use your unique product data, analytics, internal experimentations, and research to pull off fresh and authentic content.

This tactic works great for well-established companies, personal blogs, and beginners alike. For example, the article “11 realizations from testing Search Generative Experience” by SEO expert Kevin Indig earned 36 backlinks with a DR of 55-75 within a week, according to Ahrefs.

The original study backlinks report for a personal blog.

The same is true for titans like Deloitte or Salesforce. Most linked-to Deloitte’s pages are original research, with a whopping 4,131 referring domains for two studies.

The original study backlinks report for Deloitte.

💡Pro Tip:
Master digital PR for link building with Brian Dean’s course in partnership with Semrush.

3.2. Surveys

Discover what people think or experience with surveys and present the outcome as data-driven research to get more eyeballs and backlinks. The topic to explore might be anything from salary to industry struggles:

  • Freelancer Insights Report 2023;
  • The State of Outbound Sales;
  • The State of AI in Software Development;
  • Content Marketing for Demand Generation.

Surveys are versatile means, so listen to what people are talking about, what data they would like to see, research keywords, and launch an online survey. Tools like Google Forms, SurveyMonkey, or Typeform will be of great help.

In 2017, I worked on a customer service benchmark report that analyzed 250 companies. This led to full-page coverage in Forbes. I repeated the same research in 2018 (with 500 companies) and in 2019 with 1,000 companies. It’s earned well over 100,000 visits to the report page, 3,500 downloads, and more than 1,000 backlinks from the WhatsApp Business blog, Mailchimp, Zoom, and Intuit. Original research led to more visibility than any other marketing campaign.

Steven Macdonald, Head Of Content at INEVO
Steven Macdonald

Head Of Content at INEVO

Another example is Aira’s survey on link building impact on SEO growth, its measurements, and costs. Aira allocated a separate URL for each question group and landed over 1,000 high-DR referring domains in total.

The report was picked up by Shopify, HubSpot, Ahrefs, Yoast, and Search Engine Land, to name a few. 

The survey backlinks report for Aira.

3.3. Joint case studies

Team up with industry leaders with similar target audiences to double content distribution and brand exposure. HubSpot joined forces with Litmus, RockContent, and Wistia to create the latest “State of Marketing Report 2023”.

The result is over 17,500+ referring domains.

The joint case studies backlinks report for HubSpot.

Likewise, BuzzSumo teamed up with WebCEO to look into the correlation between Core Web Vitals and user experience metrics. The study has acquired 166 unique backlinks to date.

3.4. Whitepapers and ebooks

Long-form content assets work as lead and backlink magnets alike. For example, Ion’s “Interactive Content Across the Buyer’s Journey” whitepaper earned 160 referring domains and was mentioned on HubSpot, PRNewswire, and GrowFusely.

More established brands can reap umpteen numbers of backlinks from ebooks and whitepapers. For example, three LinkedIn ebooks resulted in 1,191+ referring domains. However, some LinkedIn ebooks have got just 10-26 backlinks.

Whitepaper example by LinkedIn.

3.5. Interactive assets

It can be anything from interactive infographics to playbooks or gamified landing pages. With proper distribution, interactive assets earn editorial backlinks for their novelty and creativity.

Think of Poppy Field, an interactive visualization of war fatalities. It’s got 222 referring domains, and the number is constantly growing.

An interactive infographic example.

Don’t want to create an infographic? Consider other types of interactives, like ViewSpace or Seeing Through Smoke. Together they have amassed 3,464+ backlinks.

An interactive visualization of how infrared light reveals a hidden scene.

3.6. Free tools

Develop free tools to carry out simple tasks like predicting the ROI of an advertising campaign — just like Hootsuite did. This calculator brought 333 referring domains.

Free ROI calculator by Hootsuite.

Another tactic is to give away a part of your solution. For example, Ahrefs has developed an array of free SEO tools with limited data. Not only do these tools generate backlinks, but also they are a great means for lead generation.

Furthermore, Icons8 built free design software Ljunacy to attract backlinks and SEO traffic. The page ranks for over 2,000 keywords and comes with over 3,100 ref. domains.

Free tools backlinks report for Icons8.

3.7. Browser extensions

SurferSEO created Keyword Surfer, a free keyword research Chrome extension for keyword research and search metrics analysis, such as search volume, CPC, keyword suggestions, related terms, visibility metrics, and on-page data. In two years, the tool has amassed 2,200+ ref. domains. Today, the extension has 500,000+ users with a grand total of $0 in promotional campaigns.

Tomasz Niezgoda, Head of Marketing and Co-Founder of SurferSEO
Tomasz Niezgoda

Head of Marketing and Co-Founder of SurferSEO

Browser extension backlinks report for SurferSEO.

Bottom line: Nothing can beat digital PR in link volume when done right. And here’s a teardown on how to do so by Eugene Zatiychuk, SEO Lead at Belkins.

Step 1: Find ideas that resonate with society, press, and the blogosphere — data privacy, personal data collection, and selling.

Look for studies mentioned in big media:

  • 7 in 10 Smartphone Apps Share Your Data with Third-Party Services (Scientific American);
  • How smartphone apps track users and share data (Financial Times).

Step 2: Verify if this is still a current issue.

Explore Google News and other SERPs to see if people are talking about your idea.

Step 3: Come up with an idea. Think of a unique angle and/or dataset. Or steal and tweak proven ideas to replicate the success. Get inspired by my team’s work:

  • Big Brother Brands Report: Which Companies Access Our Personal Data the Most (Clario, Oct 2020. Results: 342 Ahrefs RD as of today)

This study has got a link even from National Geographic, probably the biggest link building win I experienced. It was an offline version of the magazine, so no passing Page Rank, lol.

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    4. Create viral content on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Pinterest

    I am active on LinkedIn and write a lot about link building. That helped me to get quotes published in amazing articles on HubSpot and similar high-authority websites. Establishing yourself as an authority in a specific niche will be more important than ever for content. If you manage to do this, then you can expect some inbound link building opportunities

    Antonio Gabric, Outreach Manager at Hunter
    Antonio Gabric

    Outreach Manager at Hunter

    And we couldn’t agree more! The bigger your following and engagement, the more content managers and journalists want to cite you.

    Create carousels and share your opinion on hot topics and trends. Break down your internal processes and bolster posts with numbers.

    “The best-performing posts by far are carousels. Sharing a specific strategy that helped me do X works the best. For instance, ‘How to scale guest blogging: Tactics helped us get featured on 75 websites.’” — Antonio Gabric.

    An example of a viral LinkedIn post.

    Also, a well-established personal brand on social media opens lots of doors for guest blogging

    I do rely on pitching potential link partners via LinkedIn or Twitter rather than via cold email. This works well because those platforms give me instant social proof, thanks to my personal brand (8K+ on Twitter, 14.2K+ on LinkedIn, plus daily posts about SEO and blogging).

    Samantha North, Founder of Digital Émigré, SEO consultant for income-generating blogging
    Samantha North

    Founder of  Digital Émigré, SEO consultant for income-generating blogging

    The same tactic proved fruitful for Tomasz Niezgoda:

    We love chatting with other brands, offering them top-notch content to build strong links. Each month, we aim for 12-15 new high-quality citations to our blog. Along the way, we also make new friends, boost our visibility, and sometimes even sell a Surfer subscription or two!

    Tomasz Niezgoda, Head of Marketing and Co-Founder of SurferSEO
    Tomasz Niezgoda

    Head of Marketing and Co-Founder of SurferSEO

    5. Offer scholarships or sponsorships

    This tactic works wonders for local SEO. The essence is you offer $1,000 scholarships on behalf of your company and ask educational institutions to feature your scholarships with a link. If your contest is meaningful and beneficial to students, you’re likely to secure high-quality .edu backlinks and media mentions.

    Consider AutoAccident’s college scholarships. The team offers scholarships every year. All topics are tied back to the company’s mission and services — personal injury lawyers.

    Scholarship examples.

    The latest Sacramento Driving contest was rolled out in May 2023. In one month, the scholarship page earned 155 referring domains. Worth to mention that 30% of the links are of DR70-91. Considering the reward of $1,000 and extra spend for pitching colleges and media outlets, the end totally justifies the means.

    Scolarship backlinks report.

    💡Pro Tip:
    Use Google search operators to compile a list of sites that provide scholarships — site:.edu external scholarships and inurl:k12 external scholarships.

    📚Recommended reading: A Complete Guide to Charity Link Building.

    6. Run creative ad campaigns to make buzz and get mentioned

    Brainstorm a show-stopping ad to go viral and get thousands of media mentions and backlinks alike. For instance, Heineken’s ad "Not all nights out are out" returns about 2,640 results in the SERP. 

    Of course, not every media will place a backlink. So, it’s a good chance to claim your unlinked brand mentions.

    7. Build links from expired domains

    An expired domain is any website that hasn’t been renewed and is no longer in use. However, some of them have amassed lots of high-quality backlinks and come with a DR of 40-70. This makes expired domains a quick win and a “white-hat” way of boosting SEO rankings.

    But how?

    You’ve got several options.

    1. Purchasing an expired domain and redirecting it to your website.

    For example, Petkeen.com bought petnet.io with over 1,000 referring domains and a DR of 62 and redirected this domain to Petkeen.com, according to Wayback Machine. This way, petkeen.com flooded the site with link juice. Moreover, Petkeen thought up a smart and safe way for a 301 redirect strategy and created a separate page discussing Petnet.

    The cost of the deal was $26,725. The domain was sold on 2021-04-30 at NameJet, according to NameBio.

    petnet.io las sold for $26,725 — NameBio.

    Another excellent example is how learn-about-tea.com, with over 200 referring domains, was redirected to https://recipes.net/drinks/tea/

    To find expired domains, look through spamzilla.io or expireddoamins.net. Be ready to spend $2,841 on average for the quality domain.

    Dmytro Sokhach, CEO of Admix Global
    Dmytro Sokhach

    Founder & CEO at Editorial.Link

    If it still sounds like a way time-consuming venture, explore the second option.

    2. Purchasing expired domains collectively for backlinks.

    For example, Shared.Domains perform group purchases of powerful auction domains, where each participant gets a link from it. With Shared.Domains, you can get a strong homepage backlink for 7-10 times cheaper and boost your site's SEO performance.

    If you don’t want to search and vet domains, resort to Shared.Domains and place your order. This vendor participated in over 10,000 expired domain auctions on GoDaddy, Namecheap, DropCatch, and NameJet.

    As such, Oleg Galeev recovered his affiliate site with backlinks from Shared.Domains after the Google update in May 2020 and saw exponential growth in his website’s traffic and revenue. Later, that site was sold for over $600,000.

    8. Benefit from manual link building audit and pair it with expert roundups

    Prepare to roll up your sleeves and find numerous link building opportunities.

    Conducting a manual link audit for low-quality or non-relevant backlinks to your domain is a great first step to generating more backlinks to your website. Audit your backlink profile from the last 2 years and look for non-relevant, broken, or better-quality pages on your domain to link to. Something like a tool or resource can be forgotten over time; a simple update or refresh can drive hundreds of fresh backlinks to your page. How? As Google updates its E-E-A-T quality guideline, we are studying the new guidelines and trying to identify SMEs in the relevant spaces to SaaS and software. We recently found success in creating an expert roundup piece featuring niche SMEs trending in their respective industries. Emerging experts from niche communities are often happy to be featured in editorial content and actively want to backlink when relevant. Creating this sort of content can have a snowball effect and organically lead to more backlinks and new content opportunities.

    Evan Sherbert, SEO Manager at G2
    Evan Sherbert

    SEO Manager at G2

    Ten Intermediate link building tactics

    These are popular link building tactics for B2B companies. They’re relatively easy to carry out, and you may expect a great return on investment.

    Link-Building Tactics

    9. ABC or smart guest blogging

    Everyone does guest posting, but only a handful of companies drive tons of links. The most common reasons for poor results? Templated and boring pitches that get an immediate turn-off. Shallow content ideas. Outreach to irrelevant contacts. The hard sell.

    I like to guest post only with SaaS websites that I recognize the company and trust they’ll stick around for the long run. My secret advice? Make a real connection with the people who run a blog. For me, contacting directors of content is not just to get links, but also to talk shop.

    Ben Pines, Director of Content at AI21 Labs and Wordtune
    Ben Pines

    Director of Content at AI21 Labs and Wordtune

    Ben’s secret sauce is exactly what you need for ABC guest blogging, which is a reverse-engineered approach that connects people (aka blogs), so everyone in the group receives, say, 5 unique backlinks from one member.

    So, how the ABC approach does work in practice?

    First, you get friends with several companies that acquire links through guest blogging. Next, you offer them a mutually beneficial collaboration — you’ll link to their websites from your guest posts, and you expect them to reciprocate.

    This way, one person can bring 5-7 links to your site monthly, depending on their guest blogging volume.

    When we have partners who don’t want to do a traditional one-to-one link exchange, we resort to ABC link building. So, we put them into our little network of reciprocal partners, and we’re able to request links on their behalf while also having them provide us links in return to our priority pages. This way, everybody receives links on a variety of different domains.

    Autumn Witter, Associate Account Manager, SEO and link building at HubSpot
    Autumn Witter

    Associate Account Manager, SEO and link building at HubSpot

    ABC link exchange

    Another tip to smart guest posting is to boast your best-written content ever in pitches and deliver on promises.

    When I reach out for new guest post opportunities, I typically include links to the most epic posts I wrote before (especially those that rank on the 1st SERP). It helps convert editors immediately, as it’s a win-win collaboration. On average, it helps to get 10-20 high-quality links every month. I target mainly DR 80+ websites and write top-notch and SEO-optimized content for them. Since I deliver highly-relevant and valuable content to the websites, many editors are happy to add a few of my links to say “thank you” and often invite me to contribute more posts to their blogs.

    Irina Maltseva, Growth Lead at Aura and Founder of ONSAAS
    Irina Maltseva

    Growth Lead at Aura and Founder of ONSAAS

    We at Editorial Link also employ this tactic to secure high-quality links on DR85+ domains, like HubSpot, Forbes, BusinessInsider, etc. Cultivating long-lasting and mutually beneficial partnerships has opened hundreds of doors for delivering only quality backlinks for our clients.

    Want to explore our white-hat link building services? Get in touch with our Senior Link Building Strategist.

    10. Leverage parasite SEO

    Parasite SEO is when one populates the SERPs with its product by a certain keyword being featured on authoritative domains. Examples include:

    • Sponsored SEO-optimized articles;
    • Guest posts;
    • Sponsored companies’ blogs on media outlets.

    The logic behind is similar to guest blogging. First, you identify keywords and websites you want to be published on. Next, you pitch guest posting ideas or purchase sponsorship packages. Once your article is live, we recommend boosting it with backlinks to advance its appearance in the top-10.

    At Editorial Link, we tested this tactic with an article on Search Engine Land on How to outsource link building: Benefits and tips to follow. The results are amazing! The piece has already occupied the 2nd position by a competitive keyword “outsource link building”.

    The snapshot of the SERP by the keyword “outsource link building.”

    11. Reverse listicle link building

    Reverse listicle link building, or a two-way listicle link building, is a strategy that involves creating and publishing listicle-style content on your website and then reaching out to other relevant websites and suggesting including their content in your listicle.

    In return, you ask them to link back to your listicle.

    Add software tools to listicle blogs in exchange for links. Let a link builder know that you have a list coming up soon, asking if they want to be included. These can make your content deeper while generating a link in return.

    Jakub Rudnik, Director of Content Marketing, ActiveCampaign; Adjunct
    Jakub Rudnik

    Director of Content Marketing at ActiveCampaign

    Start with listing all the niche websites and their DRs. Sort them by descending DR and write about the most-known and several less popular businesses for free. Then, reach out to other relevant sites and offer them an inclusion for a backlink.

    Example: If you were to create a listicle about social media scheduling tools, you’d go to G2, enter your primary keyword for the listicle, and collect products’ URLs.

    Next, you open up Ahrefs/Semrush and navigate to the Batch analysis. Drop the prepared URLs and generate the report. Sort it by DR.

    How to batch analyze domains and filter them by DR with Ahrefs.

    💡Pro Tip:
    Upon publishing your listicle, contact every business on the list and politely ask them to give a shout, ABC link building, or link back. Reverse listicle link building can help you forge partnerships with top-notch brands.

    12. Collaborate with freelance writers and contributors

    The next underrated tactic for obtaining backlinks on any website is to collaborate with freelance writers, bloggers, and contributors. It can go two ways:

    • Pay for backlinks on a particular website;
    • Introduce writers to your network in exchange for backlinks.

    While the former directly violates Google’s Spam Policies, as paid backlinks are prohibited, the latter is just networking and is safe.

    To find freelance writers on specific websites, go to LinkedIn, type in “Writer” in the search box, select the current company, and set a page language. Go through the results and contact every writer to offer a collaboration.

    How to find freelance writers for link building.

    💡Pro Tip:
    Don’t specify “freelance writer” in your search, as it limits the results. Not every writer specifies they’re freelancers on their pages.

    13. Statistics link building

    High-quality research remains the most effective link building tactic that has consistently yielded successful results throughout my 5-year career in SEO. When searching for topics related to Statistics or Research-type content, I advise not to rely overly on Keyword tools. These tools excel in providing historical data but may not accurately reflect the current market trends. Instead, adopt a visionary approach when considering new and trending topics. We constantly write research and statistic posts that bring hundreds of high-quality backlinks. It is also important to mention that for competitors to copy-paste these activities is pretty challenging.

    Evaldas Mockus, VP of Growth at Omnisend
    Evaldas Mockus

    VP of Growth at Omnisend

    And here’s another way to get links from statistics link building by Jakub Rudnik.

    Become a source with unique data and create original research reports. Proactively send emails for inclusion in already existing statistics roundups posts.

    Jakub Rudnik, Director of Content Marketing, ActiveCampaign; Adjunct
    Jakub Rudnik

    Director of Content Marketing at ActiveCampaign

    So many SEO experts see value in statistics link building that we’ve got one more powerful tip from Andrew Holland:

    Known as reverse or snowball link building, the idea is simple. Create data or stats that people can reference. Digital PR does leverage this approach, but you can do it by collating stats. The theory around this is reasonably straightforward, freelance bloggers are writing content, and they need stats to reference. They do a quick search and find something that supports their view and link to it. They don’t have time to find the original source, so they link to your article. And not all brands fact-check the original source. It’s not glamorous but can add quite a lot of links if you get the right stats page.

    Andrew Holland, Director of SEO at JBH
    Andrew Holland

    Director of SEO at JBH

    Finally, statistics link building is also a favorite tactic for SaaS of John Ozuysal, Founder of House of Growth and Co-Fouder of Datapad. And John has devised a way to earn even more backlinks to statistics articles:

    Say, my client is an eComm SaaS. I’ll focus on a keyword such as cart abandonment statistics. Then, I’ll talk about the top 20 statistics. But now my content is plain and doesn’t stand out from the competition. So, I try to put my own review on the average data and how you can improve it. For example, if the conversion rate is 5%, I’m going to ask my team to put some ideas there on how people can increase their conversion rate and why the conversion rate is low. You can also increase the shareability of the content by designing a great-looking infographic. And for fast backlinks, I suggest running a PPC on the keyword itself.

    John Ozuysal, Founder of House of Growth and Co-Fouder of Datapad
    John Ozuysal

    Founder of House of Growth and Co-Fouder of Datapad

    14. Publish thought leadership and provocative content

    What makes a good story go viral? It hooks the readers with a title. Next, you set the premise and unfold, contradict, and offer unexpected twists. Lastly, you strengthen it with data or personal experience.

    The best examples of thought leadership content in the SEO world, in our opinion, are Kevin Indig’s blog, Rand Fishkin’s LinkedIn posts (I wish Rand turned them into blogs), and Tim Soulo’s articles on Mention and Ahrefs.

    That said, Kevin’s blog has amassed over 4,200 referring domains from HubSpot, Ahrefs, SearchEngineLand, Wix, YCombinator, Business 2 Community, and more.

    Kevin Indig’s blog content

    Likewise, Tim Soulo’s single article with a pretty provocative title “I Just Deleted Your Outreach Email Without Reading. And NO, I Don’t Feel Sorry” has earned 600+ referring websites

    15. Host and participate in webinars, workshops, and podcasts

    The next and often never tried link-building tactic that works is to do real marketing. We often forget about this, but real marketing tends to create links as a by-product. Speaking events, podcast appearances, tradeshows, thought leadership. These methods are great ways to generate high-quality links and brand exposure.

    Andrew Holland, Director of SEO at JBH
    Andrew Holland

    Director of SEO at JBH

    Here’s Ben Pines’ secret advice on how to become a sought-after guest:

    Treat podcast booking like an author going on a book tour or a PR firm getting a story published. Make sure you have a reason, expertise, or agenda that would encourage the podcast host to book you. Are you an expert on a certain trending topic? Use that! Form a connection with hosts to get booked. And take a proactive approach over time — text in the second or third chat, ‘Hey, when are you going to invite me to be in your podcast/webinar/workshop?’

    Ben Pines, Director of Content at AI21 Labs and Wordtune
    Ben Pines

    Director of Content at AI21 Labs and Wordtune

    16. Create and distribute case studies

    Detailed and transparent case studies can also serve as backlink magnets. For example, when writers want to back up their claims or give an example, they often mention relevant case studies.

    The more data you showcase in case studies, the more valuable resource you create for potential customers and content creators alike.

    Get inspired by LASSO and Belkins' case studies. Both companies describe their obstacles and wins in the nitty-gritty with tons of stats and expert comments.

    Take a unique angle on case studies like LASSO.

    17. Mend broken links

    Safe to say that 67% of SEO pros are skeptical about broken link building, as it’s time-consuming and dubious in terms of ROI. But those who’re doing it right rank broken link building in the top-5 amid their link building methods.

    HubSpot, Editorial Links, ActiveCampaign — we all get high-quality backlinks by finding and fixing broken ones.

    We look for and replace 301 redirects or broken links for people (companies) who are very heavy into SEO. Those who know that broken links can bring down your SEO value. So, we are reaching out to people who may have a broken link on a relevant anchor, and we’re saying, ‘Hey, I notice you have a broken link. Let me give you a new one. That’s up to date. That’s high quality. And that way, we can have something that’s mutually beneficial.’

    Autumn Witter, Associate Account Manager, SEO and link building at HubSpot
    Autumn Witter

    Associate Account Manager, SEO and link building at HubSpot

    📚Recommended reading: Broken Link Building: The Complete Guide

    18. Badge link building

    Using embeddable content like badges is one of my favorite link building tactics. You start out by coming up with one of the following concepts surrounding your business field: Quality label or hallmark; Certification of excellence; Prize or award. Here’s an example. Say you run a business in marketing technology. Your ideal customers might be marketing agencies. To build backlinks to your website, you come up with, say, an award for the best marketing agencies in category X. Next, you write a listicle where you list a selection of these marketing agencies. Aside from that, you create a nice visual design for a badge. Make sure it says something like best marketing agency in [category].”

    Jonas van de Poel, Head of Content Marketing at Unmuted
    Jonas van de Poel

    Head of Content Marketing at Unmuted

    Now, you simply reach out to all the listed agencies, congratulate them on their award, and send over the badge, asking them to put it on their website and link back to yours. Everybody wins!

    G2Crowd is obviously lord and master in embeddable badge link building.

    G2 badges

    Eight Beginner link building tactics

    We’ve labeled these 8 tactics as "beginner-friendly" because you can easily employ them and start building links straight away. What’s more, you can seal backlinks even from DR90+ domains.

    Beginner link building tactics

    19. Join white-hat link exchange communities

    At Scribe, I built 500+ referring domains in a year simply by swapping links sourced through inbound link builders and link builders in Slack communities. We would add a natural link to our new blog posts in exchange for a similar-quality link to our pages.

    Jakub Rudnik, Director of Content Marketing, ActiveCampaign; Adjunct
    Jakub Rudnik

    Director of Content Marketing at ActiveCampaign

    So, what are you waiting for?

    Join Slack, Discord, and Facebook communities for link builders to level up your link building! Here’s a handpicked list of link building communities you can trust:

    20. Leverage your circles

    You can try all sorts of backlink plays, but for starters, I’d always look at customers, partners, and your LinkedIn network. Cognism’s SEO team spends 10% of its time on backlink outreach (10% of a roughly 40-hour week = 4 hours each per week). That’s a good amount of time to dedicate to it if you don’t have unlimited resources at your disposal. We track any backlinks secured on a Google sheet and use Asana tasks to provide weekly updates on progress.

    Joe Barron, Senior Content Manager at Cognism
    Joe Barron

    Senior Content Manager at Cognism

    21. Acquire links from testimonials

    You can’t scale this tactic, but you can land a handful of high-quality backlinks. How?

    Get in touch with products or services you are happy with. Say that you want to spread your love towards their services and write up a testimonial.

    Spice it up by showing off the numbers, like with tool X we improved our CTRs by 78%. This will make your testimonial irresistible even for big-name companies.

    Ask if they could place a backlink to your website or a concrete landing page. Done!

    22. Claim unlinked brand mentions

    If your brand has strong recognition, set up media monitoring tools like BrandWatch or Mention for your brand and product-related keywords (e.g., productivity tools). Get alerted on new mentions and check if a media outlet has placed a link to your site.

    Or use Ahrefs to find unlinked brand mentions.

    1. Open up Ahrefs Content Explorer and enter your brand name;
    2. Create filters: Published (e.g., Last 30 days), Language, Only live;
    3. Click on “Highlight unlinked” and type in your domain name;
    4. Analyze link prospects and select those with high domain authority (DR) and topical relevance.
    Find unlinked brand mentions with Ahrefs.

    Next, you outreach to selected websites and ask them to link back to your site under your brand mention.

    23. Use HARO, HAB2BW, and Terkel.io

    All three are platforms that connect journalists and sources. Register as a source, select your niche, and receive daily emails with journalists’ requests. Set up alerts for Slack to be the one among respondents to seal the backlink from prominent blogs and media outlets, such as CNN, The Verge, The WSJ, etc.

    Disrupt Magazine sources quotes on Terkel.

    💡Pro Tip:
    When drafting your input, mention your analytics data, statistics, numbers, or studies. The more unique and fascinating your answer is, the higher your chances of getting featured on top-notch media outlets.

    24. Niche edits

    Niche edits require link builders to find relevant articles ranking on the SERPs and ask webmasters/editors, to put a contextual backlink to your landing page. Usually for a monetary reward, a favor, or a backlink from your side in return.

    Here’s how HubSpot approaches niche edits with a smart twist called HisOps.

    Simple niche edits don’t always require a super strong intent for placing that link. It just has to be a relevant anchor. With HisOps, we’re really trying to take content that’s already out there and improve upon it, make it better, and make sure that it’s optimal to support driving traffic and signups. So, what we’re doing is finding content where our products are already being mentioned and asking webmasters to add more relevant links.

    Autumn Witter, Associate Account Manager, SEO and link building at HubSpot
    Autumn Witter

    Associate Account Manager, SEO and link building at HubSpot

    25. Launch a product reviews and comparisons campaign

    If you’re a B2C or B2B product company, set aside your marketing budget for a product reviews campaign. Reach out to bloggers and offer them a trial, a sample, an affiliate commission, or a shout-out for their honest review or a comparison post.

    26. Claim links with reverse image search

    This tactic works two ways:

    • A complementary method to digital PR techniques, as you accompany your findings with unique visuals (e.g., screenshots, charts, infographics);
    • A standalone method to acquire links from image banks.

    1. A complementary method to digital PR

    The idea behind is to search for blogs that have borrowed your images/infographics without giving credit back and claim the link.

    To find unauthorized imagery uses, turn to reverse image search (Google or Bing image search).

    1. For Chrome users: Right-click on the image and choose “Search image with Google Lens”;
    2. Paste the URL of the image in Google Images and run the search;
    3. Upload an image to Google Images.
    Try reverse image search to find backlink opportunities.

    2. Earn links from image banks

    Think of imagery that associates with your product. Take professional photos and upload them onto photo banks like Flickr, DepositPhotos, or Unsplash.

    Coffee blog CoffeeRank did just that and successfully received unique backlinks from Flickr.

    Use image banks to passively get backlinks.

    💡Pro Tip:
    Denote the URL a user must credit for the image in the image description. Run a reverse image search monthly to spot unauthorized image uses.

    Employ next-level link building tactics to power your SEO game

    We do hope you’ve enjoyed reading this ultimate link building guide! If you have any questions or need a helping hand with backlinks, contact Editorial Link’s team for a personal consultation.

    We offer white label and traditional link building services for IT, Tech, SaaS, Crypto, Real Estate, Finance, Marketing, Design, E-commerce, and Automotive industries.

    📌Have got one more secret practice on acquiring backlinks? We’d love to feature your tips and tricks! Contact our editorial team ([email protected]) and offer your input for the article update.

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