If content is king, then backlinks are queen in SEO. Search engines still rely heavily on the combination of great content and strong backlinks to decide where a page should rank.
In this updated guide, we’ll walk through four effective link building techniques you can use right now and in the years ahead.
Table of Contents
Why Link Building Still Matters
Link building is an integral part of SEO, and its importance hasn’t faded. Quality backlinks:
- Increase your website’s authority
- Signal to Google that your site is popular and trustworthy
- Help individual keywords rank higher
- Drive both organic and referral traffic
What has changed is how you build links.
Google’s major updates (like Penguin, the spam updates, and today’s focus on E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) all point in the same direction: quality over quantity. Low-quality or manipulative links are now ignored at best and can hurt you at worst.
If you want rankings that last, using white hat link building techniques isn’t just a recommendation. It’s mandatory.
Below are four link building approaches that are relevant now and will stay relevant over time. They’re 100% white hat, Google-friendly, and designed to keep you on the safe side of every update.
1. Publish Quality Content That Earns Links
All good links start with a good reason to exist. If there’s nothing worth linking to, no tactic will save you.
The #1 driver of natural backlinks is high-quality, useful content.
When your content is:
- Well researched and accurate
- Covering a topic in enough depth
- Backed by data, examples, and real-life experience
- Easy to understand and act on
people are far more likely to reference and link to it.
Write With Problems and Links in Mind
When you’re creating content, think in two directions:
- How do I solve a real problem for the reader?
- Why would someone choose to link to this instead of another page?
People link to content that makes them look good for sharing it: helpful guides, clear explanations, fresh data, or unique angles. Google is good at picking up signals that users prefer your content (engagement, time on page, repeat visits), so building genuinely useful assets helps both users and rankings.
How to Create Link-Worthy Content
Start with a topic that’s closely related to your business. Then:
- Search Google for that topic and study the top-ranking pages. What are they doing well? What’s missing?
- Look at questions on platforms like Quora and Reddit to see how people talk about the problem in their own words.
- Use tools like BuzzSumo to find content that’s already getting shares and links.
Once you’ve chosen a strong angle and title, do thorough research. Gather data, examples, and quotes from credible sources. Don’t rely on assumptions. Back up your claims with statistics or insights from industry experts and cite helpful resources throughout the piece.
Aim to cover the topic in a way that feels complete without rambling. If the content needs to be long to be truly useful, that’s fine. Just make sure every section earns its place.
2. Content Marketing That Amplifies Your Links
Quality content is your foundation, but content marketing is what helps that content get discovered, shared, and linked to.
When you build audiences on social media and email, those people become the first wave of visitors for every new piece you publish. Even a small, engaged audience can make a difference.
Imagine you publish a new guide and:
- Email it to your list
- Share it on LinkedIn, X, or Facebook
- Post a short teaser on Instagram or Threads
If 20–30 people share or comment on it, more people see it. Among those new readers, a few may run their own blogs, work at agencies, or contribute to other sites. That’s where the organic backlinks start to appear.
Content Formats That Attract Links
Content marketing can take many forms, and several are naturally link-friendly:
Infographics: Visual explainers that other sites embed and reference.
Expert roundups: Articles where multiple experts contribute quotes or tips.
Interviews: Conversations with founders, specialists, or creators.
Original research or surveys: Data that others will want to cite.
Thoughtful press releases: For genuinely newsworthy updates.
Each of these formats is a discipline of its own, but they all share one principle: they give people something useful or interesting enough to talk about.
Whatever format you choose, focus on relevance. Ask:
- Does this help my target audience solve a problem or make a better decision?
- Is there a clear reason someone would reference this in their own content?
The more your content answers “yes” to those questions, the more likely it is to earn natural links as it circulates.
3. Smart Guest Posting (Not Spammy Guest Posting)
Guest posting remains one of the best ways to earn high-quality backlinks when you do it properly. It’s not about blasting generic pitches or publishing thin articles on low-quality blogs. It’s about contributing real value to relevant, reputable sites.
Guest posting means publishing content on another website in your niche with a link—usually in the body or author bio—back to your site. Done right, it helps:
- Grow your referral traffic
- Build your brand in front of new audiences
- Strengthen your backlink profile with relevant, contextual links
Step 1: Find Relevant Websites
You’re looking for sites that:
- Are related to your industry or niche
- Have some organic traffic
- Publish real, editorial-style content
You can start by searching Google with queries like:
keyword "submit a guest post"keyword "guest post"keyword "guest post by"keyword "become a contributor"
Replace keyword with a phrase from your niche (e.g., “email marketing,” “local SEO,” “interior design”).
From the results, create a list of potential sites. Prioritize those with:
- Decent domain authority (or an equivalent metric in your SEO tool)
- Real traffic and engagement
- Content quality that you’d be proud to appear alongside
There’s no point spending hours writing for a site that gets no visitors.
Step 2: Choose Strong, Relevant Topics
Once you’ve got a list of sites, the next step is deciding what to pitch.
Look at each site’s:
- Existing content and categories
- Most popular posts
- Gaps or angles they haven’t covered yet
You can use Google or tools like BuzzSumo to see what’s working in your niche. Aim for topics that:
- Fit the site’s audience
- Are specific, not overly broad
- Let you naturally reference something on your own site without forcing it
For example, instead of pitching “How to Do SEO,” you might pitch “How Local Service Businesses Can Use SEO to Get More Phone Calls.”
Step 3: Pitch Concise, Personalized Ideas
Now it’s time to reach out.
Avoid long, generic emails. Editors and site owners are busy, and short, personalized messages almost always perform better.
A simple structure:
- Brief intro (who you are and what you do)
- One line about why you like their site or a recent article
- 2–3 topic ideas, each with a one-sentence description
- Reassurance that the content will be original and high quality
Don’t expect a 100% response rate. Some will reply quickly, some will take weeks, and some won’t reply at all. That’s normal. What you can control is the relevance of your ideas and the clarity of your email.
Some sites will skip the pitch stage and ask you to send a full draft right away. Follow their guidelines carefully.
Step 4: Write Better-Than-Average Content
Once a topic is approved, deliver your best work.
- Follow the site’s formatting and style guidelines
- Add examples, screenshots, or simple visuals where helpful
- Include internal links to their relevant posts (this makes editors very happy)
- Add your link in a way that feels natural and useful to the reader
Most sites will let you place a link in your author bio, and some will also allow a contextual link inside the article where it makes sense. Don’t overdo it. One or two relevant, non-spammy links are enough.
If you consistently deliver strong content that performs well, you’ll often be invited back to write again, which can lead to multiple high-quality links over time.
4. Strategic Outreach for Links
Outreach is one of the most overlooked link building techniques because it’s manual and time-consuming. But when you do it well, it’s also one of the most reliable ways to earn high-quality, relevant backlinks.
At its core, outreach means contacting site owners, editors, or creators and giving them a clear reason to link to your content, product, or resource.
Find the Right Prospects
Start by identifying pages that are already talking about topics related to your offer.
For example, if you have a product page for an “order editing” extension for an eCommerce platform, search Google for terms like:
- “edit order in [platform]”
- “[platform] order management”
- “how to update customer orders”
You’ll find articles, guides, tutorials, and comparison posts that already cover the topic. These pages are strong outreach prospects because:
- They’re topically relevant
- They already link to related resources or tools
- They’re proven to rank and get traffic
Make a simple list or spreadsheet with:
- URL
- Site name
- Contact info (email, contact form, LinkedIn, etc.)
- How they currently cover the topic
Prioritize pages that feel like they could naturally mention or recommend your product, tool, or guide.
Offer Real Value, Not Just a Favor
Outreach works best when it feels like an exchange of value, not a cold ask.
Instead of:
“Can you add a link to my product?”
Try something closer to:
- Suggesting your product as a helpful tool to solve a problem described in their article
- Pointing out a missing angle your guide covers in depth
- Offering a quote, mini case study, or updated data they can add to improve their content
Whenever possible, give them something they can plug in easily to make their page better. That might be:
- A short paragraph they can copy-paste
- A simple comparison they can reference
- A quick statistic they can cite
If it’s appropriate, you can also mention that you’re happy to reference their article in one of your relevant posts. Don’t turn it into a link exchange scheme. Keep it natural and focused on mutual benefit.
Keep Outreach Short, Personal, and Honest
Your outreach message doesn’t need to be long. A clear structure is usually enough:
- Quick intro and why you’re reaching out
- One sentence about what you liked in their article
- The specific suggestion: where your product or content fits and why it helps their readers
- A simple, low-pressure ask
Expect most people not to reply. That’s normal. A small number of “yes” responses over time can still build a strong, relevant backlink profile.
Wrapping Up
Link building is challenging, especially when you commit to white hat methods. But it’s still one of the most important factors in how well your content performs in search.
If you want to compete at the top of the results, you’ll need a mix of:
- Link-worthy content that genuinely helps people
- Content marketing that gets your work in front of the right audiences
- Thoughtful guest posting on relevant, reputable sites
- Strategic outreach that offers real value to other site owners
These approaches take time, but they compound. Each strong, relevant backlink makes it easier for the next piece of content to gain traction.
Treat link building as an ongoing process rather than a one-time task. If you keep publishing helpful content and consistently apply the techniques above, you’ll build an authority profile that can withstand algorithm changes and keep your rankings growing over the long term.
