Backlinks pass value on to your website and strengthen your position in search results. Getting backlinks isn’t always easy, so how do you get those valuable backlinks? We’ll share 12 methods for building a strong and valuable backlink profile.
A backlink is a link on another website that points to your own website. It’s important that the backlink is relevant to your website and that a reliable source—such as an authoritative website in your field—links to you.
See also: What is link building?
Link building helps you acquire relevant and valuable links, with the goal of increasing your website’s authority. Higher authority leads to an improvement in your search engine rankings. Do many other relevant and trustworthy websites link to yours? If so, Google views your website as trustworthy. After all, why would anyone want to link to someone with a poor-quality website?
Each page also builds a certain level of authority. This authority is expressed as a specific value. Search engines don’t tell you what a page’s value is or how they measure it, but we do know that high-quality content, user-friendliness, and popularity all contribute to it.
When another website links to your website, you also gain some value from that other website. A good backlink therefore adds value to your website, and websites with higher value are often ranked higher in search results.
Getting backlinks isn’t always easy, especially if you’re not an SEO specialist or an SEO agency, or if you don’t have a large budget. Moreover, good content isn’t always crucial for getting backlinks.
If you’re still an unknown player in your field, you can blog as much as you want, but the chances of that content being shared are extremely slim. Chances are, no one knows who you are. Using the methods below, you can creatively acquire valuable backlinks.
It might sound a little strange to get backlinks using images, but it’s definitely possible. An image is appealing to readers, and images that are easy to find are all too often used by others. We can already hear you thinking, “Help, I’m not a graphic designer!”
Fortunately, there are solutions, such as Canva or Fiverr. These are handy tools that make it easy to create a unique image. Create a unique and valuable image that others can also use, such as a chart or a mind map.
After that, you just have to wait for someone to use your image, but how do you know who has copied it? Go to Google and click the camera icon in the search bar. A window will appear where you can paste the image’s URL. You’ll instantly see who has copied your image.
Of course, you want credit for this image. Email the websites and tell them you’re the creator of the image. There’s a good chance they’ll give you credit and might even want to include a link to your website. This isn’t the quickest solution, but it is a sustainable way to get high-quality backlinks.
When you’ve been in the game for a while, you’ve already built a reputation. It’s very likely that you’re already mentioned on another website. There’s a good chance they’ve forgotten one thing: the link to your website. It’s a smart move to simply email them and ask for a link. Of course, you can also suggest mentioning them with a link on your website in return.
If you want to know who mentions you on their website, use Google Alerts or a tool like Buzzsumo. These tools send you notifications when other websites mention your brand. That way, you’ll know exactly who mentions you on their website, and you can ask them for a backlink.
Do you have several satisfied customers or suppliers with their own websites? Ask them to post a link to your site! For example, write a testimonial for one of your suppliers and ask for a backlink in return. Or mention an existing business partner on your website in exchange for a link.
You have a good chance of success here because you’ve already built a strong relationship. You’ve already won them over; now you just need to make the connection.
Social media channels can help you get backlinks. Post relevant and valuable articles on social media and encourage people to share them. Don’t forget that you can also simply post a link yourself. This, too, adds value to your website.
Don’t underestimate the value of a good social media profile. It allows you to reach a wide audience and makes you accessible and shareable.
A backlink from a news site is valuable. Are you launching a new product soon, or is your company undergoing changes? Take advantage of this opportunity. Write a press release, and there’s a good chance it will be picked up. Include a link in the press release to your website or to a relevant article on your website.
Try actively looking for similar business owners who publish a lot of content or don’t maintain their websites properly. If you look closely, you’ll see that they have links that are no longer relevant or don’t even work anymore.
A broken internal or external link —or links to irrelevant articles—is a disservice to visitors, and of course, nobody wants that. Email the webmaster to let them know they have a broken link or that they’re linking to an irrelevant article. Of course, you’ve written a good article, so suggest your link.
This way, they have little or nothing to do. You’re helping them keep their website up to date. There’s a good chance this will work!
A few years ago, portal sites were the go-to method for getting quick results with link building. Countless websites built their entire backlink profiles using backlinks from portal sites.
Google is now smart enough to recognize that a backlink profile consisting solely of homepage backlinks is not relevant. However, that doesn’t mean homepages no longer have any value.
Start pages are a good foundation for your backlink profile, as long as you choose relevant and reliable ones. Be careful not to rely solely on start page backlinks; other high-quality backlinks are also very important. Also, avoid vague homepage sites, such as linky.nl and linkstapelaar.nl.
Many websites have a page where they post backlinks to other relevant companies in their industry. You can identify these websites by searching on Google or by reviewing your competitors’ backlink profiles.
If you’re a plumber, you can use the search terms “plumber links” or “plumber partner page” in Google. You can come up with countless variations on these.
You can also easily find relevant websites using Google queries. Use the query intitle:{your keyword here} or inurl:{your keyword here} to, for example, display only websites that include your keyword in the title or URL.
Once you’ve found a few websites, you can contact them to ask if they’d be willing to include a link to your site.
There’s a good chance you sponsor a local organization, such as a soccer club. In exchange for the sponsorship, the organization often posts your company’s logo or name on its website. In most cases, the logo or company name is not clickable.
If so, ask the organization if they’d be willing to add a link to your website—that way, you’ll immediately gain a high-quality backlink. Of course, you can also become a sponsor of an organization purely for the sake of backlinks. This is a smart way to build a strong link profile.
There are various reputable business directories on the internet. You can often list your business there for free, or sometimes for a small fee. A backlink to your website is then added to your profile.
Examples of business directories include infobel.com, openingstijden.nl, allebedrijvenin.nl, and drimble.nl.
Do you have an online store? If so, don’t forget to get backlinks from online marketplaces. When you post an ad on Marktplaats, Speurders, Marktnet, or one of the countless other online marketplaces, you can often add a link to it. These links also contribute to your backlink profile.
There are bound to be influential blogs active in your industry. Blogs are always on the lookout for compelling and unique content. That’s why many blogs allow you to contribute as a guest blogger. Guest blogging is important for three reasons:
Many blogs allow you to include a backlink in a guest post or an author bio. This gives you an immediately valuable and authoritative backlink, while helping the blog provide quality content. It’s truly a win-win situation.
Many marketers and entrepreneurs forget two important things when they enthusiastically get started with link building:
It’s important to always keep these two things in mind. With SEO tools like Majestic, Ahrefs, Ubersuggest, and SE Ranking, you can easily assess a page’s quality. If you find that a page is irrelevant or of very low quality, don’t reach out to the website for a backlink.
Are you having trouble getting quality backlinks and not climbing in the search results? Keep in mind that search engine optimization involves multiple factors and that you need to perform well on the fundamentals of SEO: technical aspects, content, and authority.
Your website’s technical SEO needs to be in order, and the content must be up-to-date and strong. Getting high-quality backlinks isn’t everything. SEO takes a long time; it can sometimes take as long as 2 to 3 years to achieve a top-10 ranking for competitive keywords.
What’s more, link building is hard work if you want to do it yourself. Keep in mind that link building takes time, and you should focus on building sustainable links. A single link from a high-quality website is worth many times more than ten low-quality links.
With a passion for SEO and an unmatched drive for results, Jarik Oosting is the driving force behind SmartRanking. With over 15 years of experience in the field, he has built an extensive body of knowledge spanning technical SEO to complex site migrations. As the founder of SmartRanking, he has assembled a team of like-minded SEO specialists who help businesses achieve sustainable online growth.
His academic background in information science at the University of Groningen, with a specialization in natural language processing, gives him a unique perspective on the world of SEO. For Jarik, it’s not just about visibility in search engines, it’s about sharing knowledge and guiding businesses toward sustainable online success. That mission also led him to write a Dutch book about GEO.