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23 SEO Backlink Building Strategies (Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced)

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Backlinks are one of the 4 pillars of SEO success.

The right SEO backlink strategies elevate your site’s authority, increase visibility, and drive organic growth.

If you want your website to rank higher on Google and drive potential customers to your website, building backlinks is a necessary part of your SEO strategy.

I’ve personally been building backlinks for my companies and my SEO clients for the past 10+ years.

Use these 23 proven methods so the authority of your website goes up, up, up.

23 SEO Backlink Building Strategies

Beginner

1. Give Testimonials

  • Provide reviews for products or services
  • Get a backlink in exchange for your testimonial

2. Claim Unlinked Brand Mentions

  • Find mentions of your brand without a link
  • Politely ask the site to add a link

3. Offer Free Resources

  • Create tools or guides
  • Get backlinks by offering them for free

4. Join Online Communities

  • Participate in relevant forums and blogs
  • Share valuable content and include links naturally

5. Link Swapping

  • Offer mutual value with another site
  • Swap links with partners in your niche

6. Ask Your Network

  • Reach out to existing contacts
  • Leverage personal and professional relationships

7. Create Industry-Specific Tools

  • Develop free tools like calculators or templates
  • Promote them to niche audiences for backlinks

Intermediate

8. Guest Blogging

  • Write for other industry blogs
  • Include backlinks to your site in the content

9. Host Webinars or Events

  • Collaborate with industry experts
  • Generate backlinks from event promotions

10. Create Shareable Infographics

  • Design high-quality infographics
  • Encourage others to share and link back to you

11. Write “Expert Roundups”

  • Collect insights from industry leaders
  • Ask them to link back when they promote it

12. Fix Broken Links

  • Find broken links on relevant sites
  • Offer your content as a replacement

13. Contribute to Niche Directories

  • Submit your website to reputable directories
  • Focus on niche-specific ones for quality backlinks

14. Host Giveaways or Contests

  • Partner with other brands for promotions
  • Encourage backlinks in return for participation

Advanced

15. Publish Original Research

  • Conduct studies or surveys
  • Offer data that others will link to

16. Launch a Badge Campaign

  • Create badges for partners or top clients
  • Ask them to display the badge with a backlink

17. Leverage Digital PR

  • Pitch story ideas to journalists via Editorial.Link
  • Secure backlinks through media coverage

18. Offer Expert Insights to Journalists

  • Respond to journalist requests via platforms like HARO
  • Provide quotes in exchange for a backlink

19. Create a Resource Page

  • Build a page of useful links and resources
  • Attract backlinks by curating valuable content

20. Pitch Podcast Appearances

  • Get featured on industry podcasts
  • Secure a backlink in the show notes

21. Acquire Expired Domains

  • Find expired domains with high authority
  • Redirect them to your site or repurpose their content

22. Offer Scholarships or Grants

  • Create a scholarship or grant for students
  • Get backlinks from educational sites

23. Collaborate with Content Creators

  • Work with YouTubers or bloggers
  • Earn backlinks through their content promotion

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What are the most effective SEO backlink building strategies?

Guest blogging, shareable infographics, digital PR, and resource pages are key. These methods consistently earn high-quality backlinks and scale as you grow.

2. How can beginners start with SEO backlink building?

Start simple: give testimonials, claim unlinked mentions, and create free resources. These strategies are easy to implement and build your site’s credibility.

3. Why are backlinks important for SEO?

Backlinks show search engines your content is valuable. The more quality links you have, the stronger your site’s authority and search rankings.

4. What are common mistakes to avoid in backlink building?

Don’t use low-quality or spammy links—search engines will penalize you. Stay away from link schemes and anything that feels unnatural.

5. How long does it take for backlink strategies to show results?

Results take time—think weeks to months. It’s all about consistent effort and building a solid backlink profile over time.

Thoughts

There’s an endless amount of backlink building strategies out there.

And there’s new ones that come around every few years.

And others that disappear because they were sketchy.

Don’t rely on buying backlinks. If it seems to good to be true, it is.

Put in the work to develop your own backlink building strategies that truly work.

A lot of them come back to relationships that you build.

And the ability to set up and execute a sound process over and over.

Get obsessed and you’ll be a backlink building pro in no time.

Action Items

  1. Start by claiming unlinked brand mentions to build initial momentum.
  2. Plan a guest blogging strategy for your top niche sites.
  3. Create a shareable infographic to encourage natural backlinks.
  4. Explore opportunities for expert roundups and collaborations.
  5. Develop a resource page this month to establish continuous link generation.

That’s all for today.

If you need help with building high quality SEO backlinks, hit me up at [email protected].

I’m always here to make SEO and digital marketing simpler for millions.

Cheers,

Connor

Whenever you’re ready, here’s 3 ways I can help you:

1. My SEO Course: “The SEO System” teaches the exact daily, weekly, and monthly SEO processes I’ve used to scale multiple companies to 6, 7, & 8 figures in sales. Available for pre-sale now!

2. TrioSEO: Hire me & my team to create SEO content for your business. We’ll create a comprehensive SEO plan, execute, & keep you updated so your business gains more traffic, leads, & sales. Get a Free SEO Audit.

3. Promote yourself to 90,000+ SEOs, marketers, & entrepreneurs by sponsoring this newsletter and my social channels. (Booked out 1 month). Email me for info.

Want me to run SEO for you? 
Apply to work with me & my SEO team. I’ll research your SEO then reach out with next steps. 

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better SEO?

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About Connor Gillivan

In the past 10 years, I’ve started 7 businesses & built two to $10M+ in annual revenue, teams of 30+ & an exit in 2019. Today, I run SEO & growth for my 4 B2B companies while teaching millions how to make SEO simple.

Do you want
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