Link building is often considered the most challenging part of SEO. It requires not only technical skills but also creative thinking, as well as sufficient patience and execution. If you are new to link building or have tried it with poor results, this article will help you systematically understand the core logic of link building and master practical execution methods.
Link building is often defined as "the process of getting other websites to link to your website's pages," and these hyperlinks are called backlinks.
However, this definition is incomplete because it focuses only on the outcome and ignores the process. Truly effective link building should be defined as:
Link building is the process of building relationships with other relevant website owners who are willing to link to your content because it enhances the value of their own content.
This definition emphasizes three key elements: relationships, relevance, and value exchange.
Since Google launched PageRank in 1998, backlinks have been a core factor in search engine rankings. PageRank is a mathematical formula that judges the value of a page by analyzing the number and quality of other pages that link to it.
Google clearly states on its "How Search Works" page that if authoritative websites in a particular topic area link to a page, it's a good signal that the information is of high quality.
In Ahrefs' study of over one billion web pages, we found a strong positive correlation between organic traffic and backlinks from independent websites.
In other words, while creating high-quality content is important in itself, backlinks are indispensable if you want to rank for competitive keywords.
Take SEO-related keywords as an example. These terms are extremely competitive but also highly valuable commercially. If you look at the backlink growth curve of the Ahrefs blog, you'll see it almost perfectly mirrors the organic traffic growth curve.
This is the true value of link building.
There are primarily three ways to acquire backlinks: creating, buying, and earning.
Creating links means manually adding your website link to other platforms, such as:
• Submitting your website to directories • Leaving links in blog comments • Adding your website link to social media profiles
This method can be done by almost anyone, so its effectiveness from an SEO and ranking perspective is very limited.
Buying links means paying website owners or authors to link to your pages.
This practice violates Google's Webmaster Guidelines and can lead to penalties, ranging from a drop in rankings to having your pages removed from Google's index.
Ahrefs contacted 250 websites to inquire about link selling and found that the average cost to purchase a single link was nearly $353.
Earning links typically involves reaching out to other website owners and editors via email to request they link to your content.
This is the most difficult of the three methods but also the most valuable. Generally, the harder a link is to acquire, the higher its SEO value.
This article will focus on how to earn backlinks through email outreach.
Not all links are created equal. Some links can help your pages rank quickly, while others might harm your website.
There are two main dimensions to assess link quality:
Ideally, you should be getting backlinks from relevant websites and pages.
For example, if you have an article about "best USB microphones," a link from a page discussing videoconferencing is much more relevant than a link from a page about gardening tips.
This relevance also applies at the website level. A link from a tech website like Cnet might be more valuable than a link from a recipe website like All Recipes.
"Authority" in link building represents the "link equity" a webpage possesses, which is directly related to how PageRank works.
PageRank is not generated out of thin air; it comes from other pages. This means that authoritative pages can pass on their authority to other pages through hyperlinks.
The more PageRank a linking page has, the more weight it can pass on to the outbound link.
For instance, suppose page C has two links: one from page A and another from page B. Page A is more powerful than page B and has fewer outbound links. Inputting this information into the PageRank algorithm allows us to calculate page C's PageRank.
While Google no longer publicly shares PageRank scores, Ahrefs provides two metrics to quantify it:
• Domain Rating (DR): A metric for website authority, representing the overall strength of a website's backlink profile. • URL Rating (UR): A page-level authority metric, representing the strength of a single page's backlink profile.
You can use these metrics to evaluate the quality of potential linking sources.
A hyperlink might seem simple to a visitor, but in HTML code, it contains several parts that have a significant impact on SEO.
The target URL is the address of the page users visit after clicking the link.
Anchor text is the clickable text, phrase, or image that is attached to a link. For example, if the link text is "Site Explorer," that is the anchor text.
Google uses anchor text to better understand the topic of a page and which keywords it should rank for.
However, if a large number of links use keyword-rich anchor text, it can be seen by Google as link manipulation, leading to penalties.
For example, if you have an article about "best wireless headphones" and receive 100 links pointing to it, all with the anchor text "best wireless headphones," it would appear very unnatural.
In reality, anchor text commonly used includes brand names, page titles, URLs, or phrases like "click here."
For example, in an Ahrefs study on featured snippets, the anchor text of backlinks pointing to the page included "old study," "ahrefs," "research," and even specific statistics like "99.58%" and "8.6% of all clicks."
For most naturally acquired links, you have little control over the anchor text, so there's no need to overthink anchor text optimization.
Some links include a rel attribute, which tells crawlers the relationship between the linking page and the linked page.
The three rel values you need to know are:
• nofollow: Tells Google not to pass authority to the target page. • UGC (User Generated Content): Identifies links within user-generated content. • sponsored: Identifies paid links.
Google has announced that these link attributes are treated as "hints," meaning they may pass some value through these links at their discretion.
If a link has none of these rel values, it is called a "followed" link, which can pass PageRank and help improve rankings.
It is recommended to focus on building followed links, although this depends on you to some extent.
Prominent links are more likely to be clicked, and it's believed that Google considers this when determining how much weight a link passes.
For example, editorial links (links within the body content) are more likely to be clicked than footer links, so, all else being equal, the former are more valuable.
While theoretically any page can earn links with effort, the work becomes much easier if your content is inherently link-worthy.
Linkable content typically has the following characteristics:
Commercial content (like e-commerce product pages or sales pages) is harder to earn links for. Why? Because no one wants to contribute to your bank account without compensation or at least a personal benefit.
By creating non-commercial, highly practical content, you can create resources that are more worthy of being linked to.
People are willing to link to useful content because it provides supplementary resources for their audience.
Useful content can take many forms:
• High-quality blog posts: Healthline is a great example. Their blog posts are often concise and clear, and many are reviewed by medical professionals. As a result, their popular pages individually have thousands of referring domains pointing to them. • Calculators and tools: Ahrefs' free backlink checker tool has earned links from over 2,000 independent websites. • Data studies and case studies: Ahrefs' study on featured snippets has earned links from over 1,200 referring domains.
If your content is helpful to your audience or supports a point they are trying to make (like statistics or facts), your chances of earning backlinks increase.
For teams looking to systematically produce high-quality SEO content, SEOInfra offers a complete solution that supports batch conversion of video content from platforms like YouTube into original blog posts, automatically handling SEO keyword placement and content publishing, significantly enhancing the content foundation for link building.
Link building means you need to contact authors and editors to ask them to link to you. Similar to sales, these individuals are called "prospects."
You need a compelling reason to reach out. Generally, the more compelling the reason, the higher the chance of success.
Imagine if someone knocked on your door and asked you for money directly, what would you do? You'd likely be startled and close the door.
But if they told you they were fundraising for a community charity, you might consider listening to their story.
Personalization can significantly increase your link conversion rates.
For example, a fundraiser might say:
"Hi Bobby, my name is Samantha, and I'm a member of the Ahrefs Tigers soccer team. I'm reaching out to you because our team recently lost its funding, and I'm fundraising to help our team buy new uniforms. Since your daughter Felicity played on our team a few years ago, I thought you might be willing to help. Would you be willing to donate $10? That would cover half the cost of a jersey."
If you were Bobby, would you give Samantha $10? Maybe.
How can you turn a "maybe" into a "very likely"? By adding a value exchange.
"Since we are a registered charity, for any donation over $10, we'd be happy to provide a tax receipt."
This makes the outreach more persuasive and might even lead to a larger donation.
The same logic applies to link building. If the other party can gain some value from linking to you—whether it's a resource that adds value to their blog or free content from a guest post—your chances of getting a link increase.
But remember, exchanging money for links or engaging in excessive link exchanges violates Google's Webmaster Guidelines.
Link building is both an art and a science. While outreach emails can vary from person to person, the following strategies have been proven effective over time.
Guest blogging is the practice of creating content for other websites. This strategy works because the value exchange is clear: they get quality content for free, and you almost always get a link back to your website, either within the content or in the author bio.
Implementation steps:
• Find other blogs in your industry. • Propose and agree on a relevant topic. • Write an article for them.
You can use Ahrefs' Content Explorer to find relevant blogs, search for topics related to your niche, set the "one page per domain" filter, and set the Domain Rating to 40-60 to find websites with good site authority.
This is a strategy for acquiring backlinks from web pages that specifically curate and link to useful industry resources.
This strategy works because the sole purpose of these pages is to link to helpful resources. If your content is excellent and you catch their attention, you're actually helping them fulfill their page's purpose.
Implementation steps:
• Find industry resource pages. • Reach out and suggest including your resource.
The easiest way is to search Google for queries like intitle:resources inurl:resources.html followed by a phrase related to your topic.
Visit these pages, check if they are indeed resource pages linking to other external pages, and then contact the pages where you'd like to be mentioned.
Broken link building is a strategy where you find broken links on a page, create your own page on that topic, and then ask everyone linking to the broken resource to link to your page instead.
This method works because website owners who care about their site don't want to direct visitors to broken pages, so they are usually willing to replace the broken link with yours.
Implementation steps:
• Search for a topic in Ahrefs' Content Explorer. • Filter for broken pages. • Set the referring domains filter to a minimum of 10.
Once you find a page, check it on archive.org to understand what the broken page used to contain. This can help you define the angle for your own page's content.
Finally, look at the backlink report to identify all the linking pages you can contact.
HARO (Help a Reporter Out) is a website that connects journalists with sources.
You'll receive emails from media outlets with journalists requesting information on specific topics. Filter through the topics, and if you find something you can add value to, reply to the journalist with your expert opinion.
If they include you as a source, they will usually link back to your website.
The value exchange in this strategy is simple: you exchange your knowledge for mentions and links from authoritative websites.
There is no shortage of requests on HARO from major publications like The Huffington Post, Forbes, Inc, Entrepreneur, Reader's Digest, and more.
The effects of link building typically take weeks to months to become apparent. Google needs time to discover, crawl, and evaluate new links before incorporating them into its ranking algorithm. Consistent, strategic link building is a long-term process, not a one-time task.
Quality is far more important than quantity. A single link from a high-authority, relevant website is more valuable than ten links from low-quality sites. Google's algorithms are sophisticated at identifying low-quality links and may even penalize link manipulation.
While great content makes it easier to earn natural links, the "if you build it, they will come" mentality often doesn't work in reality. Even with the best content, without active promotion and relationship building, most people will never know it exists.
While nofollow links don't directly pass PageRank, they can still provide value. They can drive referral traffic, increase brand awareness, and since Google has changed nofollow to a "hint," they may still pass some authority in certain circumstances.
Avoid any practice that violates Google's Webmaster Guidelines, including buying links, excessive link exchanges, participating in link farms, or using automated link building tools. These strategies can lead to severe ranking penalties.
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