How to Get Backlinks: 15 Expert Strategies for 2024

The above image is showcasing the number of backlinks one of the top business suites in the market has. Zoho is an Indian brand that is one of the largest competitors of brands like Hubspot, Pipedrive, and Zendesk. 

With 9.8 million USD worth of organic traffic, Zoho made it big by cracking the SEO and in that process building backlinks definitely must have played a crucial part. 

But do you think 4.5 million links were built with just collaborations? Absolutely not! They have that many links because they put link building on autopilot mode. And you can do that too! 

Here are 15 tactics on how to get backlinks with smart work! 

15 smart tips on how to get backlinks from ZeroAdo’s SEO experts 

Getting backlinks is one of the toughest nuts to crack in the SEO industry. But it is also a necessary nut to crack if you want to reap the benefits of SEO. 

It involves a lot of manual chores to get one link placed on a good quality website. But that does not mean that hardcore manual tasks are the only way through which you can build quality links from. There are some other creative and shortcut ways as well check them out below and nail building backlinks. 

Link building outreach 

Link building outreach is the oldest trick in the book and still as relevant as it was 10 years ago. The best part about link building outreach is that, if done correctly it is bound to give positive results. 

To make sure that your link-building efforts are a success keep the following things in mind: 

• Design a campaign or what, why, how. 
• Figure out the aspects like which brand to reach out to, in what industry, and who to reach out to. 
• Use SaaS tools to automate the process to reduce some manual efforts. 
• Be crystal clear about basics like anchor text, link placement, and kind of websites you want to place links on. 

Here is an example of how you can reach out for a link placement and negotiate adding your links. 

The only drawback about link building outreach is that it requires a lot of manual effort, resources, time, negotiation skills and most importantly patience. However, there is an easy way out as well and that is opting for the best link building services and letting the experts do it all for you. 

Create guest posts 

Another full proof way of getting backlinks is writing guest posts. A guest post is an article or blog that you offer to write for a website in return of a link for your website. Here an example of what a guest post looks like. 

The good thing about writing a guest post is that you might get multiple links from it. And the downside is that you have to write an entire article to get just one link at times which is a lot of manual effort. 

To ensure that your guest posts get approved for building link here are a few things that you can keep in mind: 

• Always suggest topics that are relevant to the website you are willing to write for. 
• Checkout their ‘wrote for us’ page and make sure that you are following all their editorial guidelines. 
• Ensure that you do not place links in forbidden areas of content. For instance several websites do not permit a link in introduction. 
• Use content writing tools to analyze your content and make it SEO oriented before submission. 
• Lastly, be prepared to make multiple changes because the chances of getting a guest post approved in one go are next to impossible. 🙂

Offer content updates 

Writing an entire guest post for high quality backlinks is indeed a hassle especially when at times you will get just one link by spending hours or an article. 

So here is a smarter idea to build backlinks. Offer to update the content of the website you are reaching out to in return of a backlink. 

Google has said on multiple occasions that they prefer updated and recent content over the outdated one. So use this as a reference point to build backlinks. Here is how you can do it 👇.

• Find out the content that is top ranking for the website/business you want SEO backlinks from. 
• Figure what if it has lost any ranking positions or clicks lately. 
• If yes, figure out why and suggest the improvements and updates that can help the content improve the rankings. 
• Negotiate a link in return for the updated content. 

Updating a content piece will take one fourth of the effort of writing a guest post. So wherever possible, opt for the smarter tactic. 

Checkout the image below to know how you can find out the content pieces of a website with declining traffic. 

Replicate your competitor’s link profile 

This might surprise you but your competitors are actually making backlink building easy for you. 

If you are thinking how to get backlinks and more importantly where to get backlinks from then checkout your competitor’s backlink profile. 

Why? 

Because through that you will be able to find out where they have placed all their links and you can reach out to the same websites to add your link too. This also gives you a fair chance to compete in the market and of course an easy way to find relevant websites to get links from. 

There are several SaaS tools available that you can use to find the backlink profile of your competitors. At ZeroAdo, we use Ahrefs and here is how you can replicate your competitor’s link profile using it. 

• Find out all the best links your competitors have and the websites they are placed on.
• Store the data and find the person of contact for getting backlinks from the websites. 
• Try and negotiate to be able to get a link for your business as well from the same website. 

Steal your competitors broken links 

When you will dig through the link profile of your competitor to replicate their links you will come across another category of links - ‘broken links.’ 

Broken links are the ones which due to some glitch or error are not opening or not reaching the desired page. This is a bad user experience in the eyes of Google. 

That is exactly the reason why you will reach out to the websites which have broken links added from your competitors and ask them to replace that link with yours for better user experience. 

It is not going to be easy to get a link replaced but it is not impossible either. It is a double win that too from a white hat link building method. You get one quality backlink for your website and make your competitor lose. 

Recover your lost and broken links 

In backlink building, every rookie makes a mistake and that is just constantly building links and forgetting to maintain their links. 

You don’t have to just build links but also maintain them, recover, and rebuild them if any of the links are lost. Keep an eye on your link profile and an even closer eye on your lost and broken links. 

If you see any lost links, reach out to the concerned person, and recover your link. Every lost link recovered is a new link built. 

Here is how you can find your broken links in the website to improve SEO. 

Find out unlinked brand mentions 

Unlinked brand mentions are another opportunity to create backlinks the smarty way. Unlinked brand mentions mean that a brand/blogger/writer/ has mentioned your brand in their SEO content but haven’t backlinked to it. 

For instance, if I mention Amazon in this blog and do not give a link to it, then it would be called unlinked brand mention. 

These are the opportunities you need to find out your business name or references to it and ask for a link from the publisher. 

The easiest way to find your brand mentions is by using search operators. Here is one of them for you. 👇 

When you use the above search operator, any page that has your brand name or your searched keyword will show up in your Google search results. This is how the filtered results will be after using search operators. 👇 

Create link-bait assets 

When it comes to building backlinks, you need to keep coming with new and unique backlinking strategies to have an edge. Backlinking is tough already and the competitor’s make it tougher for you and in that case nothing less than the best backlink strategy will do the trick. 

Creating link-bait assets is one of those smart and unique ways of building backlinks. Link bait assets are the pieces of content, templates, or any company asset that writers can use in their articles to reference back to. 

For example, the detailed statistics reports from Gartner are one such link-bait asset. 

ZeroAdo’s SEO blog template is also an example of one such asset. 

So along with content, also build assets that can get you backlinks on autopilot mode even from top-notch websites. 

Create skyscraper TOFU content for reference purposes 

TOFU aka top of the funnel content is one that can get you a lot of clicks, impressions, and also free backlinks. TOFU content caters to the informational and knowledge based keywords. 

Here are a few examples of queries and keywords which are for top of the funnel content. 

“What is a digital business”

“What is SEO”

“Benefits of marketing”

Here the intention of the user is to learn and not buy a product. TOFU content might not get you leads but if it ranks it can get you a lot of high quality backlinks because these kinds of articles get referenced by writers. 

Now the real question is how to rank these content pieces. The competition of such keywords is extremely high, especially after Google AI overviews have come up. 

The answer - Skyscraper technique. 

Skyscraper technique is where you write your content to make it better than the existing content which is ranking.

Once your content is ranking, your possibility of getting referenced at relevant places improves and thus you can build backlinks on autopilot mode. 

If you want to make sure that your ranking content is better than other pieces of content then you can follow ZeroAdo Content Quality Guidelines®. We have curated these guidelines with a collective experience of 15+ years in the content and SEO industry. 

All our clients use this checklist as well and it has been doing wonders for them in the market. 

A-B-C link exchange

Link exchange refers to giving one link in return of getting a backlink. Link exchange is one of the most common methods of building backlinks. 

But link building is of two kinds: A-B link exchange and A-B-C link exchange. A-B link exchange refers to placing your backlink on a website and then giving a link to the very same website from your own website. 

This can get reported as spam too. If you want to get the benefits of SEO then a 3 way link exchange or A-B-C link exchange is the best option to build links. 

In A-B-C link exchange you get your link placed on a website and in return give a link back from a third website. This makes sure that your links are naturally built and not a mutually benefited deal to play with Google’s algorithm. 

Create detailed content pieces 

Hubspot’s main product is its inbound software and yet it is famously known for its detailed and guide like types of SEO content in the market. 

They created several e-books and how-to type of detailed content pieces with helpful content which has earned them plenty of backlinks. 

Creating descriptive and helpful content has multiple benefits. It not only gets your brand name established in the market but also helps you build plenty of backlinks. Once, even Hubspot was a beginner and we all know where the brand is now. 

So do not hold back on grabbing opportunities if they fit your resources window. 

• Write detailed content pieces with helpful content to earn references. 
• Put your expertise into play and give unique perspectives. 

Design infographics and value adding images for backlinks 

Content is not the only thing that can get you backlinks. There are images too that you can leverage. 

Create information oriented and visually appealing infographics for your content. Do image SEO for it, and improve your chances of ranking it in the images section. 

When your image will rank on Google or in AI overviews, the chances of it getting picked and being used in other articles increases. Every writer that knows the basics, will always reference your infographic and images back to the source. 

Checkout the image from ZeroAdo blog on SEO copywriting examples, where we have added images from brands and have given them a reference link. 

Become a source for reporters 

HARO - Help A Reporter Out, is another brilliant way of building quality backlinks from sites with high website authority like Forbes and New York Times.

There are several journalists on the lookout for someone to contribute to their article to make it more credible. Find those opportunities and grab them because they are one of the best ways to build backlinks as well as get yourself some business. 

Checkout this article by Forbes where small business owners have contributed to the article and they not only got a backlink but also brand marketing. 

Get listed in directories

To build easy yet authority links from websites with good domain rating then getting listed in directories is another smart way of doing that. Directories offer you a less complicated way of building links all you have to do is find the right directory. 

• Find directories in your industry and niche to ensure that the link you are adding is relevant. 
• Check the quality of directories. You do not want to get listed on poor spam directories. 
• Write your content in an organic manner for humans and don’t just make it crawl worthy for bots. 
• Add links vigilantly by making them contextual instead of forceful. 

Some examples of directories where you can list your business are Google My Business, G2, Bing Places, Yelp, Brown Book, and eLocal. 

Get your brand mentioned in relevant listicles and round up articles

Listicles and round up articles are the ones which have been written by contribution of multiple authors or brands. 

For instance, here is an example of a listicle from Unrola. 👇

You can get your brand listed in articles like these and get a backlink for your business. 

Similarly, here is an example of a roundup article where Vishnu Goyal - Founder and CEO of ZeroAdo, has contributed his two cents from their experience with building a business and secured a backlink for ZeroAdo. 

Building backlinks the smart way! 

All the above mentioned tips on how to get backlinks have been curated by the experts of best link building services in the market. These are tried and tested tips that we use ourselves at ZeroAdo. 

However, link building is time and effort consuming so if you do not have either you can simply buy backlinks and put getting backlinks in the hands of experts while also saving your resources. 

Either way, you now have 15 ways to build backlinks, try them all and find which one works the best for you!