Beginner's Guide to Link Building: Get Your First 100 Quality Backlinks

Backlinks are votes of confidence that improve your search rankings. But link building can be overwhelming for beginners.

This step-by-step guide will teach you link building basics. You'll learn:

What link building is and why it matters
The best backlink sources for new sites
10 powerful link building strategies even for beginners
Common mistakes to avoid

Follow this guide to get your first quality backlinks. We'll hold your hand through every step, from leveraging local SEO to monitoring your backlink profile.

Whether you want to rank a new site or breathe life into an old one, backlinks are the key. So let's start link building!

What is Link Building?

Link building refers to the process of acquiring backlinks from external websites to your own website or webpages.

In SEO, the main goal of link building is to improve search rankings by getting high-quality backlinks pointing to your site. These backlinks signal to search engines like Google that your content is valuable, credible, and useful.

Why is Link Building Important for SEO?

Backlinks are one of the most important ranking factors used by Google. The more high-quality backlinks your pages have, the higher they will rank in search results.

Essentially, backlinks act as "votes" vouching for your content. So building backlinks is key for SEO success.

Best Backlink Sources for New Sites

When you're just starting out, it's important to focus on building high-quality backlinks from authoritative websites. These backlinks will have the most impact on your search rankings.

75 Places To Promote Your Startup

Create profiles on platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, Medium, Pinterest, and others to gain backlinks. These profiles are easy to set up and can be a great source of backlinks. It also helps to have a presence on social media platforms where your target audience hangs out.

You can link to your social media profiles from your website and blog posts. People who search for your brand name will find these profiles and visit them, see what you're up to, and follow you.

Social bookmarking sites like Reddit, StumbleUpon, Digg, and others can be a great source of backlinks. These sites allow users to share content they find interesting, useful, or entertaining. You can create an account on these sites and share your content.

The more upvotes your content gets, the higher it will rank on the site. This can lead to more traffic and backlinks from other users who find your content useful.

3. Friends

Reach out to your friends who have websites or blogs and ask them to link to your content. This is a simple and effective way to get backlinks. Just make sure the content you're asking them to link to is relevant and valuable.

4. Get listed

4.1. Product Hunt

Submit your site to Product Hunt to get backlinks and traffic. Product Hunt is a community of tech enthusiasts who love discovering new products. It's a great place to get your site noticed.

4.2. My picks

4.3 AI Directory

https://theresanaiforthat.com/

There are many directories that list AI startups. Here are a few services that do the listing for you:

5. Local SEO

Leveraging Local SEO: For businesses with a local presence, getting listed in local directories and engaging with local community sites can be valuable. Like Google My Business.

6. Guest posts

Write high-quality articles for blogs in your niche and include links back to your site.

Link Building Strategies

Develop content that naturally attracts backlinks. This includes original research, comprehensive guides, infographics, and engaging blog posts. Regularly updating your content also keeps it relevant, increasing the likelihood of earning backlinks.

Outreach

Engage with influencers, bloggers, and other website owners in your niche.

Cold Email

Send cold emails to bloggers and journalists in your niche to ask for backlinks.

HARO

Use services like Help a Reporter Out (HARO) to connect with journalists and bloggers who need sources for their content

Broken Link Building

Find outdated resources and create updated content to replace them, then reach out to websites linking to the old resources and suggest they link to your updated content.

Skyscraper

Create high-quality, in-depth content that stands out and attracts backlinks from authority sites

Link Roundups

Find and participate in link roundups in your niche to gain backlinks

Use SEO Tools

Use SEO tools like Ahrefs, Moz, and Semrush to find high-quality backlink opportunities. These tools can help you find relevant websites that are likely to link to your content.

Backlink Gap

Analyze your competitors’ backlink profiles to identify potential linking sites. Understand the strategies they are using and adapt them for your site.

For example, using the backlink gap tool from Semrush, you can compare your backlink profile with that of your competitors. This will help you identify sites that are linking to your competitors but not to you.

Backlink outreach

I use Philipp Keller's backlink outreach tool backl.io to find relevant websites and reach out to them for backlinks.

Here is how:

Find a list of 100 pages linking to a Wikipedia article
Insert them into backl.io
It finds emails and you can use an AI template to write and send emails

Common Link Building Mistakes to Avoid

Ignoring User Intent: Ensure that the backlinks you acquire are relevant to your content and target audience.
Overusing Exact Anchor Text: Vary your anchor text to avoid over-optimization penalties.
Creating Low-Quality Content: Create high-quality content that stands out and attracts backlinks from authority sites.
Link farming: Avoid link farms and other black hat SEO tactics that can get your site penalized by Google.

Conclusion

Link building is an essential part of SEO success. Use this guide to get your first 100 backlinks and start climbing the search rankings.

Link building is a long-term strategy; consistency in applying these techniques is crucial. Patience is key as results from link building efforts may take time to materialize.

What are the best link building agencies?

If you don't have the time to do link building yourself, you can hire an agency to do it for you. Here are some of the best link building agencies in the world:

is the in link building and can help you acquire high-quality backlinks. You can buy backlinks from them or hire them to do the link building for you.

Based on the search results, the top three link building agencies are:

MagicSpace SEO: MagicSpace SEO is a leading link building agency that specializes in keyword research, content creation, and link building to boost your SEO. They leverage AI to draft SEO content, research topics, create outlines, refine drafts, and more. Their approach to link building is comprehensive, focusing on creating high-quality backlinks from reputable sources. This is a critical aspect of SEO, as backlinks act as "votes" vouching for your content, signaling to search engines like Google that your content is valuable, credible, and useful.
Digital Web Solutions: Digital Web Solutions has been delivering high authority links since 2005. They have a long-standing reputation in the SEO industry and have developed a robust link building strategy over the years. Their approach involves creating profiles on platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, Medium, Pinterest, and others to gain backlinks. They also leverage social bookmarking sites like Reddit, StumbleUpon, Digg, and others as a source of backlinks.
Stellar SEO: Stellar SEO is another top-rated link building agency. They focus on creating high-quality, in-depth content that stands out and attracts backlinks from authority sites. They also engage with influencers, bloggers, and other website owners in the niche, sending cold emails to bloggers and journalists to ask for backlinks. They use SEO tools like Ahrefs, Moz, and Semrush to find high-quality backlink opportunities.

These agencies have been recognized for their expertise in link building, which is a critical aspect of SEO. They focus on creating high-quality backlinks from reputable sources, which can significantly improve a website's search engine rankings.

They understand that link building is a long-term strategy and that consistency in applying these techniques is crucial. They also know that patience is key, as results from link building efforts may take time to materialize.