Most Effective White Hat SEO Link-building Techniques

1. Resource pages

MAIN IDEA: Writing in-depth resources on trending or niche topics that save time and are helpful will earn you the highest quality links for free.

Link type: Follow

When writing content, you should be willing to go above and beyond to help your audience in any way you can. If you take the concept of writing helpful resource pages and combine it with laser-focusing on trending topics that people are searching for, it won’t take much convincing for other people to link to you.

Moreover, since you’ll be utilizing the power of hashtags that are trending when sharing your content on social media, people will organically flock to your website even before it starts ranking on Google. This can create a snowball effect as people are actively searching for the topics you’ll be covering. It’s like riding a traffic tornado – you’ll be giving them exactly the kind of content they’re starving for.

So, what is a resource page? In essence, it’s a comprehensive guide featuring helpful guidance on pressing matters (examples include COVID-19, the Ukraine crisis and similar). Let’s say you decided to create a resource page on COVID-19 where you list a recap of the most important things the reader should know.

You will be covering topics such as:

• What are the symptoms?
• How to isolate properly?
• What should your first response be?

Other ideas:

• If you’re in the SEO niche: Write a post titled “200+ On-Page SEO Factors that Google Uses to Determine Your Ranking.”
• If you’re in the software/entrepreneurship/misc. niche: Write a post titled “200+ Free Websites to Download Free Legal Software.”

Finally, to make this concept truly work wonders for your SEO, you should start searching for other people’s posts on the topic and find out who’s linking back to them. You can use any suitable SEO tool of your choice for this task (Ahrefs is a great choice). 

Then, reach out to these webmasters and say something along the lines of:

“Hey, I noticed you linked to this post; we created a well-researched article that is even better, more in-depth, and covers more sub-topics. We spent a ton of time making the definitive and most comprehensive resource out there. Would you be willing to link to us instead?”

Even if you only get one out of 20 to respond, make no mistake – it’s well worth your time and effort. Keep in mind the backlinks you’ll get will be of the highest editorial quality. In fact, this is one of the top white-hat SEO strategies out there, and it’s not going against the will of Google but giving it exactly the kind of thing it wants to see instead.

By following the strategy explained above, everybody wins you, the webmaster, Google, and the readers.

• Link baiting: an alternative take on the above

Link baiting is a strategy you should use sparingly. But when executed correctly, it can bring you outstanding results. The premise is this: write something provocative or touch upon a sensitive topic and publish it on your website.

Be respectful and stay within the boundaries of the law, but other than that, say it as you mean it, and don’t pull your punches! This way, people will be compelled to reference your post to chime in, and the discussion can heat up well beyond the comment section of your blog.

This won’t always work, but when it does, your article or blog post can truly go viral. Plus, you can get a boatload of backlinks and traffic. A softer version of the same strategy is to post a discount on your products or services, which is also likely to attract links.

Get your creative juices flowing and think of other ways you could bait people into linking to your content. Anything related to politics, football, dating, and celebrity gossip is a good start.

In the beginning, however, your primary focus should be on getting traffic in the first place. This is the toughest part. Once your website starts getting the initial bout of traffic, the link baiting strategy can be a good way to expand upon the idea of “resource pages” and take it even further. 

2. Guest posting

MAIN IDEA: Gain powerful editorial backlinks in exchange for content.

Link type: Follow

Guest posting simply works. It’s one of the most efficient ways to secure high-quality backlinks from virtually any niche of your choosing. If the webmaster takes you up on your offer, this effectively grants you access to high-quality editorial backlinks, which are some of the most powerful ones you can get. This is due to the following:

Firstly, these are content-based links. Google looks upon them much more favorably compared to, for example, backlinks that are placed in the footer or the sidebar. The reason being is that backlinks in those side areas are often not human-generated, whereas the ones placed in the middle of the content most likely are.

Secondly, content-based links imply a healthy amount of editorial pressure. In other words, it’s up to the webmaster to either approve your guest post or reject it, meaning it has to offer something valuable to the reader – otherwise, there would be nothing in it for the webmaster to publish it. By favoring editorial backlinks, Google promotes the distribution of helpful and well-written content. It’s a win-win arrangement for everyone involved! The webmaster gets amazing content for free for their readers to enjoy, and you get a powerful backlink.

Best of all, any blog in your niche could potentially be willing to link back to you in exchange for quality content. At this point, you’re presented with two options:

• You can start contacting bloggers on your own. However, bear in mind it’s a labor-intensive process, and it’s quite typical for the majority of your emails to go unanswered. Furthermore, although still effective, the strategy has been chewed to the bone as you’re not the first one to think of utilizing it. Bloggers these days can be very picky with regard to what they’re willing to publish, so you’re going to have to come up with the very best content to stand a chance and pass through their filters. And that’s not even mentioning the time it takes to compile a list of bloggers and email them one by one.
• In case writing and emailing people is not your cup of tea, you’re better off outsourcing it to a professional or finding the best link-building service with native writers on board (like the ones we mentioned above). But be very careful who you entrust this task! A no-name blogger outreach services provider could end up promising the sky and under-delivering, or worse yet, providing the wrong type of links that could harm your entire SEO campaign.

Long story short: in the SEO sphere of today, guest posting remains the holy grail of white-hat link building. At the same time, it also helps position you as the authority in your niche and grow your brand. Once your posts get published, don’t forget to count the highly targeted traffic your website will receive directly from the webmaster’s blog when people start clicking through your link. This can drive highly qualified leads immediately, even before SEO benefits start taking place.

3. “Parasite” websites (with high Domain Authority)

MAIN IDEA: Utilize high DA websites that can rank for low-to-medium competition keywords on their own.

Link type: Nofollow

How would you like to ride the waves of another website’s authority and capitalize on its high search engine rankings? With the so-called “parasite” SEO strategy, you can quickly claim the top spots in Google for low-to-medium competition keywords.

There are numerous websites you can use for this purpose, with some of the best being:

• – Medium
• – LinkedIn Pulse

After registering, simply publish an article there, and the platform will let you insert a backlink. Granted, it will have the “nofollow” attribute, but the strategy is worth pursuing for the direct clicks your website will receive alone.

For example, let’s imagine you’ve written an article about “blue widgets” and published it on your main website. Do some keyword research and identify some related LSI keywords (typically, these will have a low difficulty). All of these long-tail keywords are perfect to write a supporting article for – inside, you will mention your website as a reference where they can learn more about the topic.

You could, of course, use the long-tail keyword strategy on your main website as well, but don’t expect a miracle in terms of search engine rankings if it’s new. Although you will eventually rank for your chosen keywords, either way, know that “parasite” websites already have a high domain authority in Google and are thus much better suited for ranking quickly. Yes, even without building any additional backlinks to them at all!

4. Infographics

MAIN IDEA: Create eye-catching materials that people distribute without you even asking

Link type: Varies

Infographics have long been a closely guarded secret and a potent link-building weapon in the hands of the best link-building services and their clients. Much like press releases, once created, infographics are the kind of content people will happily distribute on their own without you having to lift a finger, provided the content (and its presentation) is truly something remarkable.

Granted, not every topic will perform equally well, so you have to do your due diligence. In general, info-based topics that are packed with stats tend to perform well (hence the name “info”-graphics). When brainstorming ideas, make sure to think about what kind of statistics or facts would invoke the “WOW, I didn’t know that!” response in your readers. Because let’s face it – some statistics are just plain boring. And content that makes people yawn won’t get shared.

Last but not least, consider hiring a graphic designer for the job. Even though you could technically get away with doing it for free using Canva or similar template-based tools, it’s essential to create something eye-catching.

Note: In case you catch someone publishing your infographic without linking back to your site, kindly reach out to them and ask for a backlink. Most will be happy to oblige. But just in case, don’t forget to also include your logo and your main website URL in graphical form.

5. Broken link building

MAIN IDEA: Get a free backlink in exchange for fixing other people’s broken links.

Link type: Follow

This backlinking strategy is severely underutilized, but if executed correctly, it could net you some high-quality editorial backlinks. In essence, it works like this:

First, do some thorough research and web crawling to discover whether any bloggers in your niche have published any articles with broken links in them. These can be broken due to typos, but sometimes, the domain they were linking to could have expired or is simply no longer hosting that content. Then, get in touch with them, notify them about the issue, and offer your website’s URL as a replacement (ideally, you’ve already published an article that covers this topic).

As you might have guessed, the hard part is locating these broken backlink opportunities, and if you were to do it by hand, you’d probably go crazy. The good news is that there’s a myriad of SEO tools you can use for this purpose, so this aspect of the equation is semi-automated and practically done for you.

If you’re planning to use this strategy, there’s something very important to keep in mind: don’t try to hide your intentions. Be transparent. Say that “yes, my goal is to get a backlink from you, but if you help me out, we both gain something from it.” The reason being is that you’re solving a problem they’re having, but for this to work best, the replacement URL you’ll provide truly has to contain the kind of content that will leave them breathless. Ideally, it should be better to cover the topic more in-depth than the original. To check out the old article that is no longer reachable or someone has taken it down, you can use a free tool like Archive.org.

6. Email those who scrape your content and request they link back to you

MAIN IDEA: Instead of going after copyright violation, turn it into your favor and get a backlink.

Link type: Varies

Stealing other people’s content is not only a copyright violation, but it’s also not recommended for SEO (duplicate content issues). Nevertheless, the internet is full of individuals who are utterly unaware of the fact, so expect them to do it regardless.

Even though you’d be 100% in the right to request they take down the content that legally belongs to you, might we suggest a better strategy? Instead of going at them hard, kindly ask them to link back to you as a way to say “thanks.” This way, they can continue using the content, but you’ll get something out of it as they’ll list your website as the source.

Don’t worry about their stolen article potentially harming yours. If you published the article before they did and Google crawled your website before crawling theirs, your version will be recognized as the original.

7. Press releases

MAIN IDEA: Raise brand awareness with PR articles that get picked up automatically.

Link type: Varies (mostly nofollow)

Although Google claims to be ignoring links obtained by distributing press releases (after all, most of them will have the “nofollow” attribute), it’s unlikely these backlinks will hurt you. In fact, they are not only great for diversifying your backlink profile but also for the purpose of growing brand awareness. If you get lucky and your PR articles get picked up by the right news outlets, you can even score some high authority “follow” backlinks along the way.

So how do you write an amazing PR article that has the best chance of getting picked up by the media? In essence, structure your content in such a way that it addresses the following 5 big questions:

• – What message are we conveying/what is our announcement?
• – Who are we trying to reach?
• – What’s in store for our target audience?
• – When will it be launched?
• – Who will be the one to deliver the message?

Of course, the exact questions can vary from niche to niche, but you get the idea. As long as you cover the “who,” the “what,” the “when,” the “where,” and the “why,” you should be in good shape.

8. Q&A websites

MAIN IDEA: Get direct traffic by sharing your expertise.

Link type: Nofollow

Q&A websites are an under-utilized yet powerful tool to grow your online presence. Not only do they let you leave a link back to you inside your profile and answers, but they also help you establish yourself as an authority in your niche – provided that your answers are genuinely helpful. In other words, you’ll be placing your business directly in front of a highly targeted audience who’s looking for a solution, which is exactly what you need.

The leading Q&A websites in today’s web space are:

• – Quora
• – LinkedIn Answers

However, you need to approach them with the right strategy in mind – mindlessly throwing your website’s URL around won’t get you anywhere (and it may even get you banned from the platform). In fact, even directly linking to your products or sales pages is NOT recommended most of the time.

What you need to do is research the most common questions people are asking, categorize them, if need be, and write a blog post on your website that addresses them from various different angles. Now, you have a powerful free resource you can share with them if they want to learn more.

So, let’s say you come across a question that asks about X.

In your answer, you would do your best to answer that question to give the reader a good basic idea of what they need to do (but don’t go into the details too much). Then, at the end of your answer, you can say something to the extent of “if you’d like to learn how you can solve X, check out the detailed guide I’ve posted on my blog that answers your question even more specifically.” And inside that blog post (and NOT on the Q&A website directly), you subtly promote whatever products or services you’re offering.

Do you see the difference? By doing it this way, no one will ever flag your answers as spam – in fact, the readers will thank you for it. Moreover, these Q&A websites often rank very highly on Google, meaning you can legitimately piggyback off of their search engine authority and funnel a healthy portion of their traffic your way.

Although things may change over time, these will always be worth it for marketing purposes in one way or another. Even if they suddenly decide to make all of your links “nofollow” (or even prohibit you to insert links in the first place), it’s well worth it to participate as these may net you a handsome chunk of direct traffic.

9. YouTube

MAIN IDEA: Repurpose your content by turning it into videos that generate traffic.

Link type: Nofollow

Video distribution sites like YouTube and Vimeo are fantastic for getting your content out there and generating some thematically relevant backlinks while you’re at it. Did you know YouTube is the world’s second-largest search engine? It functions exactly like Google in many ways, with the main difference being its focus on video rather than written content. By uploading to YouTube, not only can you leave a link under every video you post, but you will also get direct traffic to your website from targeted visitors.

If you’ve ever published an article, you can repurpose it for all sorts of things, including turning it into a video. Feel free to use the content you’ve already written as a manuscript for your video or amend it slightly if you wish. At any rate, most of the hard work will have already been done at this point – now, you only need to figure out what video production/editing approach would work best.

If you’re camera-shy, there’s no need to put your face on the screen if you’re not comfortable with doing so for any reason. You can make a captivating video by using nothing more than a couple of PowerPoint slides or it can simply be you talking over an image background. As long as you’ve got a decent microphone at hand, you should be able to produce something in a matter of minutes. Alternatively, you could also outsource any part of the video creation process to a freelancer.

10. Blog commenting

MAIN IDEA: Get direct traffic by adding value to the discussion.

Link type: Nofollow

Although blog commenting shouldn’t be your primary link-building strategy due to it yielding nothing more than “nofollow” links that don’t count for much, the best link-building services still recommend using it in modesty. The reasons are twofold:

• – It makes your backlink profile more diverse
• – It helps you establish a brand in your niche

Keep in mind that the vast majority of these links will be “nofollow.” In most cases, your author’s name will appear as a clickable link you can use to link back to your website, but don’t try to shove your links inside the body of the comment (this will most likely cause the webmaster to delete your comment straight away).

To be successful with blog commenting, the trick is to find relevant blogs in your niche and, ideally, be the first to leave a comment. This way, you’re almost guaranteed to be noticed and may receive some direct clicks to your website, provided the comment you leave contributes something valuable to the discussion.

In other words, don’t just leave a comment for the sake of doing it. Comments like “hey there, great blog post” are not enough to get your comment approved – you have to do better! The goal is to invoke curiosity in the reader. If possible, try to use your real name with an avatar for your posts to have an added bit of legitimacy and to stand out more.

• Bonus strategy 1: Unlinked mentions

How many times has it happened to you that someone mentioned your name or brand, but it’s in plain text form rather than it being a clickable link? A pity you can’t do anything about it being hyperlinked… or can you? Listen: if someone decided to mention you in a positive context, chances are they will be more than willing to link back to one of your websites when asked nicely. And if not, try your luck with another person who mentioned you somewhere. With SEO tools (or Google directly), you’ll discover more of these unlinked mentions than you can chew on, especially if your brand is popular.

• Bonus strategy 2: Link reclamation

Not every backlink you’ve created will last for a lifetime. Sometimes, sites get taken down for a myriad of reasons, domains expire without being renewed, etc. But in other cases, they get removed deliberately by the webmasters. Chances are, at least one of the websites that used to be linking to you no longer does, and several SEO tools can help you pinpoint precisely what those are. Then reach out to those people and ask if they could add it back. Be polite. Sometimes it’s a mistake on their end, or perhaps they decided to rewrite the entire article. Either way, it doesn’t hurt to try.

• Bonus strategy 3: Superior content

Have you ever stumbled upon a low-quality piece of content that had a ton of backlinks and couldn’t help but wonder how it got them in the first place? If you’re a part of the SEO industry, you’ll come across one of these sooner or later. Then, write an article on the same topic, but make it bigger and make it better. It has to be superior to the original in every way you can imagine. After it gets published, convince the webmaster to link to your article instead. If you’ve done your homework, this should be an easy win.

• Bonus strategy 4: Directories

Obtaining backlinks from directories is an old-school SEO strategy, and most of them will be “nofollow.” While this is unlikely to give you a substantial boost in your search engine rankings, it does serve an essential purpose – diversifying your backlink profile. Do you think it’s natural to have only the highest quality editorial backlinks pointing to your site and nothing more? Of course not. So go out there and claim these surefire victories, as small as they may be.

• Bonus strategy 5: RSS feed

Is your website powered by WordPress? Then you probably have an RSS feed already. In essence, this is a mechanism that broadcasts your newly published content to the world. Unfortunately, some will blatantly steal your content and republish it on their blog. But often, they’ll employ some sort of automation to do it, meaning they won’t bother stripping out any internal links you’ve left in there. So, make sure to insert them in your articles and mention other related content you’ve published on your website – it’s a good on-site SEO strategy you should consider utilizing either way.

• Bonus strategy 6: Spying on your competitors

A wide range of SEO tools allow you to check the backlink profile of any page you’re interested in, including your competitors’. Why would you want to do that? The reason is simple: to see where they’re getting their backlinks from. If they’re willing to link to your competitors, they’re likely ready to link to you as well, especially if your content is far superior. The next step is to identify backlinking opportunities – which webmasters should you reach out to first? Go through them one by one and you should be able to get a response eventually.

• Bonus strategy 7: Social media

Although any backlinks obtained from social media tend to be “nofollow” (Facebook, in particular, is set to “noindex”) and thus not likely to have a significant impact, it’s still a good idea to have them for multiple reasons. First of all, your backlink profile should be natural, varied, and diverse. By sharing valuable content on social media, not only do you get your brand in front of people’s eyes, but also foster healthy relationships with those who could end up becoming your loyal customers. You need to show them that you’re not just another faceless corporate entity; that there’s a real human face behind all of this, someone whose vision is to help others achieve their dreams and solve their problems. As a result, most will feel indebted to you and be more willing to do business with you – that’s the power of reciprocity.

• Bonus strategy 8: Our retailers’ pages

This method only applies if you’re running some sort of retail or eCommerce store. Simply make a list of the products you carry in your inventory and jot down your manufacturers and suppliers. Then, write them an email and inquire whether they have some sort of “our retailers” page. Ask if they could link to your e-store. Most will be willing to oblige.

• Bonus strategy 9: Tweak your redirects

In case you’ve restructured your website, it’s important to have 301 redirects pointing from the old URL structure to the new one. Without it, you’d be losing out on link juice from anyone who’s linking out to you. Of course, newly launched websites won’t have to worry about this problem, but if yours has been around for a couple of years, it’s good to have this in mind – a little tweak like this could do wonders for preserving your existing rankings.

• Bonus strategy 10: Testimonials

Bought any products recently that you’d have zero second thoughts about endorsing? Send an email to their creators, share your love and enthusiasm for the product, and ask if you could write a testimonial for them. In most cases, you’ll also be able to provide a link to your website. This works two ways: their sales pages get more credibility and you’ve just scored a powerful backlink to your site. Nice!

• Bonus strategy 11: Free web-hosted tools

If you have a decent knowledge of coding, you could come up with a free tool and host it on your website. It could be something as simple as a calculator or as complex as an online scraper or SEO tool. These tend to attract quite a bit of organic backlinks. Alternatively, you could also hire a developer to do this for you, but bear in mind that, depending on the length and complexity of the project, it could end up costing you a pretty penny. Alternatively, it can be something creative: maps, tests, quizzes… you get the idea.

• Bonus strategy 12: Blogger reviews

If you have a product to give away, see if they would like to receive a free copy in exchange for a review. It’s quite easy to score some high-quality editorial links this way. However, be careful how you present the offer – it’s against Google’s Webmaster Guidelines to give out a product in exchange for a backlink directly.

• Bonus strategy 13: Get interviewed

Are you an established name in your niche? Perhaps you’re holding a Ph.D. or you’re a well-known athlete? Capitalize on your accomplishments by letting other people interview you. You can bet they’ll be happy to leave a link as well. And in case you’ve been interviewed before and haven’t had a website at the time, reach out to them and ask them to insert your link next to the podcast or interview.

• Bonus strategy 14: Start a petition

Is your niche about a passionate subject, something to do with human rights, perhaps? If there are people who believe in the same cause as you, they will do anything in their power to support it, including linking to it. You might even get featured in the media.

• Bonus strategy 15: Provide a transcription

There are many podcasts and videos online whose creators simply don’t have the time or resources to generate a transcription or provide subtitles. Offer to do it for them in exchange for a backlink.

11. The dos and don’ts of white hat SEO

Before we conclude our guide, here are some of the key points you should apply to your SEO strategy:

• DO: Go after editorial backlinks

Editorial backlinks are placed somewhere in the body (as opposed to the sidebar or footer). For Google, this indicates that someone has placed the link there intentionally (as opposed to the link being auto generated by some plugin or a script). Therefore, it acts as a vote of confidence and thus carries more weight.

• DON’T: Overuse “exact match” anchors

In the past, overusing “exact match” anchors worked tremendously well and was used by many SEO experts as a shortcut to attain high search engine rankings in a relatively short period of time. However, ever since Google introduced its infamous Penguin algorithm update in 2012, this is a surefire way to shoot yourself in the foot and get penalized by the search engines. In other words, you’re 10 years late to the party!

• DO: Focus on backlink quality rather than quantity

In SEO, quality goes a long way. Anyone can build thousands of spammy backlinks using automated tools, but nowadays, this will kill your rankings faster than you can say “cheese.” The ones you want to shoot for are usually the kind that is the hardest to get. 

• DON’T: Worry about keyword density (too much)

Keyword density is another SEO metric that used to be relevant back in the day, but nowadays, its relevance is minimal at best. Yes, it’s important to mention your main keyword at least a couple of times but going above 2% in terms of keyword density could get your content flagged for “keyword stuffing.” Just don’t do it – Google is now smart enough to know what your content is about because it can understand its intent (read about the Hummingbird algorithm update if you’d like to know more).

• DO: Build backlinks at a steady pace

As a general rule of thumb, it’s much better to spread out your backlinks over a long period of time than trying to get it all out there in a single day. Also, it’s normal for your search engine rankings to fluctuate as you do this, so there’s no reason to panic. The odds of witnessing this phenomenon are even greater if your website is new.

• DON’T: Engage in link exchanges

You may be compelled to link back to someone in case they linked back to you due to common courtesy. But in reality, this could harm your SEO efforts. Google isn’t the biggest fan of link exchanges; it wants to see people linking to you naturally.

Resource: searchengineland.com