Link building for SEO is crucial as it helps improve search engine rankings and enhances the authority of your web pages in the eyes of Google (and other search engines. But let's be honest, we're all here because we want that first-page spot on Google).
Scoring those high-impact links is anything but easy however. It requires a coordinated link building strategy that taps into the latest tactics and channels for earning valuable backlink equity. With search engines continuing to evolve and user behaviour constantly shifting, the strategies that worked in years past can quickly become outdated.
That’s why we've put together this guide covering the most effective link building techniques and best practices to focus on for 2024 and beyond. We’ll look at:
- Targeted outreach and pitching methods
- Earning editorial links through PR
- Link incentive and audience research frameworks
- Broken link building and replacing outdated resources
- Making the most of partnerships and co-marketing
Plus new emerging techniques that factor in social media usage, podcast syndication and more. Our goal is to arm you with a helpful toolkit of opportunities and methods for getting the most out of your site’s backlink acquisition.
So let’s get to it. It’s time to shore up your approach to link building in a way that future-proofs your SEO performance for years to come. Here’s everything you need to know…
Targeted link building through personalised outreach
Despite the rise of more automated and scalable link-building techniques, which we’ll discuss later, there’s still plenty of value in executing personalised, targeted outreach campaigns to build links. The goal here is identifying and connecting with credible website publishers and influencers who have an authentic audience relevant to the topics you’re targeting.
To find these opportunities, you’ll need to do your homework upfront:
- Research niche-relevant blogs, publications and industry communities
- Analyse their existing content, editorial priorities and linking practices
- Understand the nuances of their audience’s interests and struggles
- Pinpoint knowledge gaps, out-of-date information and areas for novel contributions
With this audience and context in hand, you can then initiate a multi-touch outreach process that builds rapport and positions your site as a welcome, additive resource to their ecosystem.
Perhaps an introductory email shares insights and feedback on one of their recent popular posts. Then a follow-up pitch showcases your unique data or premium content as a credible value-add for their readers.
The aim is to demonstrate an authentic desire to contribute substantive quality and enrich their publication’s authority rather than coming across as yet another empty link request. Smart content creators will take this approach even further by:
- Offering exclusive interviews, quotes or expert commentary for features
- Designing custom data visuals, graphs or charts to engage their readers
- Contributing long-form guest posts featuring unique research or case studies
- Co-creating entirely new premium content assets like tools or downloadables
When publishers can incorporate your brand’s insights and resources to elevate their own editorial environment, that’s a win-win link building partnership waiting to happen. It takes patience, personalisation at scale and an emphasis on giving value before asking for anything in return.
But enlightened publishers will recognise and reward your dedication to helping instead of just taking. Execute this strategy with an air of consistency, and you’ll start earning those coveted links from some of the more reputable information resources online.
Top tip: Before initiating outreach, study the website’s existing backlink profile using tools like Ahrefs or Semrush. This allows you to identify their most linked-to pages and pieces of content. When crafting your outreach pitch, you can then discuss how your content improves upon or complements those popular resources they’ve already vetted, making it an even more compelling value-add.
Community-focused strategy for earning quality editorial links
Speaking of earning credible links through relationships, an often underrated but helpful avenue is community-focused outreach and brand presence. An approach like this expands your scope beyond individual publishers or influencers and instead positions you as a subject matter authority for wider industry groups, associations and communities of practice.
Think about all the different private communities, member organisations, online forums, interest groups and other sites surrounding your product’s niche or service area. These places all have newsletters, blogs, event roundups and other digital portals where spotlighting your brand as a value-adding contributor can lead to plenty of link opportunities.
For example:
- Offer to host a free webinar or training for a membership organisation’s audience, getting featured in their weekly newsletter and site.
- Answer questions, provide feedback and share resources in relevant active online forums, positioning your expertise while earning inbound links in process.
- Sponsor or speak at notable conferences and trade shows, securing contributor links and exposure.
- Comment on industry interviews and podcasts by sharing your perspective, which often earns citation links in the show notes.
The larger strategy is positioning your company as an indispensable educational and thought leadership resource for audiences industry-wide beyond any single publication. Links and brand exposure follow as community organisers embrace your content and subject matter expertise.
Even something as simple as compiling an email list of prominent niche bloggers and influencers to share your most valuable new content can provide plenty of underrated link returns. Audiences appreciate helpful insights regardless of intent, and smart community leaders are happy to reward accessible expertise that keeps members engaged.
The hallmark of sustainable link earning through embedding into the community is prioritising a spirit of service—providing value first and reaping the earned editorial links as a byproduct.
Good to know: When contributing content or resources to online communities, forums and membership groups, be sure to review any terms of service or promotional guidelines first. Some may have strict rules about linking practices, self-promotion or what types of contributions are permitted. Getting banned for link building violations could backfire, so always err on the side of transparency and ask for clarification if needed.
Next-level link building with original data assets
One of the best ways for brands and publishers to earn attention and authority is through the creation of valuable proprietary data assets. Your data is yours and no one else’s. It sets you apart and offers unique insights other people can’t provide.
Since data-driven stories are pure link-building gold mines, a savvy content strategy uses this insight as an engine for link acquisition and digital PR.
For example, does your company conduct regular consumer surveys or market research reports on key industry trends? Perhaps you operate a SaaS business intelligence platform brimming with interesting datasets about customer behaviours? Whatever unique internal data assets exist, promoting novel research findings and insights can position you as a timely, credible source for journalists and publications to cite—earning valuable editorial backlinks in the process.
One popular approach is producing an annual industry trends or consumer insights report that surfaces surprising or newsworthy data points around your space. By packaging these findings into an easily scannable report or microsite, you’re enabling journalists and bloggers to quickly pull reliable data points and external source links to incorporate into relevant features and coverage. The more unique and compelling the information, the more likely it is to spread both organically and through outreach.
You can also surface data insights by piggybacking on news events or media conversations. For instance, perhaps your SaaS billing data found something interesting about usage behaviours after major sporting events. Or your ecommerce platform captured fascinating geographic datasets related to shopping during national holidays. You could then pitch relevant stories to news publishers or vertical-specific blogs covering those exact topics, adding value with visualisations and quotes from your domain’s subject experts.
Earned media links are not just reserved for major public companies with large PR budgets. Any company leveraging proprietary datasets and research for original insights can elevate their digital presence and earn valuable editorial backlinks simultaneously. And these referential links from credible publications and news sources are absolute gold for boosting SEO performance. High quality links from authoritative websites significantly enhance your search engine rankings, transferring valuable link authority to your money pages.
Building links through podcast appearances, collaborations and broken link building
The rise of audio content and on-demand digital entertainment presents exciting new avenues for strategic link building as well. By inserting your brand’s perspective and expertise into emerging cultural discussions happening across podcasts, you can proliferate backlinks and embeds across a variety of show notes, transcripts and other syndication channels.
Begin by assessing podcasts and industry thought leaders with strong existing followings and backlink portfolios related to your target topical areas on other websites.
- Pitch to be a guest expert for an episode
- Share timely commentary
- Or do a product demonstration.
Most hosts are more than happy to include your website and social media references in their episode details and show notes as a professional courtesy. Those links can then be reposted, embedded and syndicated across multiple platforms.
Next level podcasting and content marketing teams take things even further by investing in original hosted podcasts or YouTube channels purely as backlink and brand authority building manoeuvres.
Let’s say you operate a cybersecurity company. You could produce a recurring podcast specifically covering enterprise data protection issues and interview a variety of subject matter experts, industry thought leaders and news sources relevant to that space.
New website pages, blog posts, and visual content are created surrounding each episode in the form of:
- Detailed guest show notes and multimedia embeds
- Transcription articles optimised for SEO
- Audiogram social clips and preview reels for cross-promotion
- Curated resource compilations from episode topic discussions
Each new piece of content represents an opportunity to syndicate branded links, backlink embeds and topic-enriched inbound strategies from external domains through guest cross-promotion or features. Add in tactical pitches around major news events or trending topics, and your newly created authoritative multimedia hub begins earning valuable editorial backlinks as a newsworthy source to cite.
The end result is a powerful multi-channel engine not only for boosting brand awareness and organic traffic, but also systematically manufacturing a reinforcing network of backlinks from high-quality publications, industry podcasts, influencers and other authoritative voices.
Structured citation building and directory link acquisition
While the flashier and cutting-edge tactics tend to steal the spotlight, you shouldn’t ignore tried-and-true methods around structured citation and directory link acquisition. While perhaps more mundane, these fundamentals still play an outsized role in powering local search visibility, brand authority metrics and overall relevance signals in the eyes of search engine algorithms.
Start by seeking out any relevant web directories, business or trade listings, local citation sources or open data repositories that are contextually relevant to your specific business category, geographic region, products or services offered. Establish entries, internal links, and backlinks that reinforce key on-site signals like:
- NAP (name, address, phone) data consistency and accuracy
- Business operating details like hours, payments and amenities
- Links to your website, socials and other digital knowledge panels
These external citations and listings don’t just contribute valuable backlink equity. They also help search engines triangulate and affirm the core relevance of your web presence surrounding location, category niche and contact information. This, in turn, powers your visibility in maps and local search results and improves your overall domain authority.
Good to know:* be strategic about diversifying your business listing sources across high-authority commercial directories and databases like Yelp, YellowPages, WhitePages, FourSquare, FreeIndex and the like. While any single directory inclusion won’t move the SEO needle much, a concentrated cluster reinforcing your entity’s prominence can significantly amplify its impact.*
You’ll also want to look beyond traditional directories and seek out niche blogrolls, industry business portals or association member lists where you can earn referential links.
For example, joining professional trade groups or non-profit affiliate networks and getting listed as a partner or sponsor. Or pursuing guest posts featuring your executives as bylined contributors in industry publications.
Tactics like creating profiles on job boards showcasing your available career opportunities, or producing skyscraper content resources that are embedded across academic .edu or .gov sites can unlock incredibly high-equity link opportunities.
Don’t ignore the power and compounding effect of a balanced, diverse structured citations profile working with your other link building efforts. A rising tide of reinforced entity prominence lifts all your digital boats.
The Future is Strategic Partnership Co-Marketing for Links
Lastly, we’d be remiss not to discuss strategic partnership marketing as a vector for manufacturing new backlink portfolios and mutual amplification. Everything is more connected now, and brands can’t afford to operate as isolated islands. Joining forces with non-competitive entities pursuing aligned goals is a win-win for expanding the online footprints of all parties. Each link building campaign can be analyzed to learn and improve the total number of links earned for the next one.
For example, let’s say you’re a SaaS content optimisation platform for enterprise marketing teams. You could collaborate with a complementary workflow automation suite or digital asset management tool on a co-branded webinar series covering advanced content marketing operations and tech stack management.
Not only does each brand benefit from reciprocal promotion and cross-audience exposure, but new co-created content assets like webinar recordings, articles, slide decks and more spawn a wealth of fresh link and embed opportunities.
Or perhaps you’re a boutique social media agency serving DTC ecommerce brands. Why not partner with a rising product sampling app or unboxing video influencer on a regular co-produced video series or YouTube channel following entrepreneurial journeys? Tons of new cross-linked video descriptions, guest embeds, and promotional cross-pollination will emerge organically.
The goal of these types of initiatives isn’t necessarily direct one-to-one link exchanges, but rather compounding expansion of relevant online footprints. As you continue to produce co-branded assets or collaborations extending into your partner’s audiences and channels, both your individual backlink portfolios increase with high-relevance embeds, syndications and guest features that couldn’t have existed otherwise.
Mutually reinforced brand perspectives conveyed in co-created content resonate far more authentically than shallow one-off guest posting attempts. And of course, the networking and partnership momentum unlocks entirely new doorways for even bigger co-marketing initiatives, events, and digital product collaborations in the future.
Top tip: In 2024 and beyond, the biggest link building wins won’t come through isolated tactics executed in siloes. True modern SEO fortitude stems from interconnected digital ecosystems amplified by the momentum of strategic brand partners in lockstep—progressing together with creatively compounded footprints everyone gets to share.
Summary: SEO link building for search engine optimisation
Link building isn’t going anywhere soon; it remains at the forefront of search engine optimisation, so adapting to its evolving landscape is essential for long-term success.
At Conturae, we specialise in simplifying content production with a streamlined process that ensures high-quality, SEO-friendly content that's delivered quickly and efficiently. Our combination of AI technology and expert human writers guarantees content that aligns perfectly with your brand voice and goals.
Ready to revolutionise your link-building strategy? Contact Conturae today and discover how we can help you achieve lasting SEO success.
