Link Building

HARO Link Building: Strategies and Systems That Actually Work

HARO link building has been a standard practice for many digital PR and SEO specialists in getting contextual links from trusted and authoritative niche publications and news sites. 

I've watched this median platform - HARO, from being one of the early entries in the digital PR realm, to now being a go-to platform for agencies and in-house marketers, even more established after being bought by Featured (another digital PR platform focused on expert commentaries/inputs). 

Here are a couple of benefits when using HARO as an effective branding tool: 

• Automates the entire process of finding expert input requests relevant to your industry (which would take you a couple of hours doing it otherwise - manually prospecting using X, using better Google advanced operators, and other time-labor digital PR prospecting efforts. 
• Builds thought leadership of clients' personas or in-house personalities, which translates to better brand recognition and authority as they represent through their expertise and actual experience.
• Increases the link gap between your site and your competitors through the quality of backlinks you'll acquire from expert commentaries, as these links aren't easy to replicate by other methods, such as link insertion, guest posting, etc.
• Strengthens your site's backlink profile, helping your brand compete for more competitive keywords that require a significant volume of links to appear at the top of Google's SERPs.
• Flows more trust to your site and could help AI further see your brand as an authority figure in your niche, through an author or expert.

How to Use HARO for Scalable Link Building

Start by signing up on HARO to receive emails listing their daily HARO queries sent twice daily (Afternoon and Evening editions).

From here, the success of HARO link building campaigns lies in how you set up processes to scale your efforts and resources (which mainly comprise your time and thinking through every answer for a given query).

While it may seem ideal to respond to every HARO pitch, you only get a few quality opportunities per industry - so every detail of the pitch is worth optimizing for.

Here are techniques we've been tested to work in scaling HARO link building campaigns - for in-house enterprise marketers and SEO agencies:

Maintain HARO Inbox Hygiene

Setting up a HARO account is simple, but the real work happens when you organize all emails. Without a system, your inbox quickly becomes a flood of mixed queries, making it harder to spot high-value media opportunities.

Filtering, labeling, and sorting - as I call it "inbox hygiene" is critical to streamlining the entire workflow of answering queries - prioritizing relevant and urgent ones and responding faster before the deadline closes. 

Here are essential Gmail setup tips for HARO link building:

• Create a dedicated Gmail account for HARO responses to instantly have a focused email and avoid cluttering it with personal or team emails (which are often more time-consuming and eye-overwhelming than actually responding to HARO queries).
• Add a second Gmail if needed, especially if you're handling multiple clients or in-house personas - best to use Google Workspace for agencies.  
• Create a professional signature that includes your name, position, company, and a direct link to your website or LinkedIn - this is HARO 101. 
• Manage multiple Gmail accounts using Chrome profiles to switch easily (only applicable if you set up several HARO link building accounts) 

After setting up your emails dedicated to HARO link building, the next inbox to-do is creating a filtering system. 

Here are our inbox filters and efficiency tips:

• Use color-coded labels in Gmail to visually prioritize fast-turnaround opportunities - ultimately helping when juggling multiple Gmail accounts.
• Archive old queries after 48-72 hours to keep your inbox clean.
• Star urgent queries based on relevance, publication familiarity, or specific preferences.

Analyze HARO Queries

One of the biggest mistakes some digital PR and SEO specialists make is the lack of criteria when responding to HARO inquiries. Many treat every query the same, as long as it is topically relevant to their niche - by default, they think it's worth a good shot for pitching.

But HARO link building goes beyond just niche relevance - it works differently as it relies heavily on the input, the person giving the input (expert), and his/her current background (experience and expertise).

When starting any HARO link-building campaign, check the HARO query to see if it aligns well with the correspondent's expertise, your ability to present and position expertise, and the person's relevance. 

Given that you don't need to be all-knowing in every realm within a subject matter, but just credible enough to provide insights based on your experience and expertise.

This is where you also need to determine the validity of the opportunity. If a HARO query is too urgent and highly relevant to your expertise, it should be at the top of your list when responding to relevant queries.

Leverage Expert Positioning

Expert positioning is a big part of HARO link building campaigns. It means knowing how to present yourself as the right source for a specific query.

By establishing expertise immediately in your pitches, you can instantly capture the interest of your target journalists or reporters, making it easier for them to consider your inputs.

The best way to position yourself as an expert is to identify the reporter's needs. Pinpointing these needs and delivering precisely is an obvious effort, yet it will set your HARO emails apart from high-conversion pitches. 

Start expert positioning by reading the entire pitch request requirements and assessing the inputs they are looking for. Are they looking for trend insight, a technical explanation, or a personal experience? With these specifics in mind, you can adjust your HARO pitch template later on, which would significantly dictate the conversion rate of your campaign. 

Here are a couple more tips if you want to integrate more expert positioning in your HARO response pitches. 

• Anchor your introduction to the expert's actual role (i.e., "I'm the founder of X coffee brand sourcing directly from local farmers", instead of a vague response like "I run a business"). 
• Match the tone and depth of the query. For instance, a personal finance query needs precise numbers or strategy, while a lifestyle topic needs more relatable, first-hand experience.
• Avoid overusing accolades, media mentions, or awards, especially if they are unnecessary to the query. Always keep the pitch aligned with the topic.
• Attribute the input to a real, trusted source (yourself or your client) using actual experience, not recycled insights. 

The key to succeeding in HARO link building is figuring out the breadth and depth of your/your client's expertise early—the wider the scope of knowledge you can provide input for, the more HARO queries you can respond to.

Create Expert-Role Email Templates

Many digital PR and SEO specialists believe templates no longer work. They only dilute pitch quality by being too structured and are often flagged as spammy in someone else's inbox.

In our decade of doing link building outreach and digital PR campaigns, we can guarantee that it's almost impossible to scale link outreach without templates. For HARO, a huge part of the outreach campaign comes down to how easily it is to hyper-personalize pitches with less friction using outreach templates. 

Unlike other outreach-driven link building campaigns, such as guest blogging, link insertions, and blogger outreach, there are only a few placeholders in outreach email templates for inputs, so you can effectively send semi-personalized emails to hundreds or thousands of link prospects. HARO pitching requires high customization to turn a HARO query into a link placement.

Create a standard email template for each role, correspondent, or thought leader you represent. If you're working on three digital PR campaigns, you need three separate email templates for each campaign.

Each correspondent represents the expert—you or your client, whom you'll pitch in on behalf of. 

For instance, if you're corresponding with a coffee machine retailer, you aim to speak on behalf of your client as someone knowledgeable and experienced in the coffee industry. When you filter HARO emails, you will only be looking for expert input requests about brewing methods, machine quality, or maintenance tips.

Use Language That Gets Quoted

Framing your insight like a ready-to-publish quote is one effective way to make your pitch stand out among the hundreds, if not thousands, of emails journalists receive daily. It helps journalists save time sifting through the correct information they need from experts. 

The best way to start is by placing the value at the top of the email. After establishing your expert positioning, give the exact "expert input" they request in their HARO queries. 

A couple of things that will make your writing more enticing for journalists:

• Use concise, vivid phrasing that sticks. 
• Sprinkle in lyrical elements when appropriate - adds flavor and brings your voice as an expert.
• Keep it natural - don't make pitches impressive, but instead must reflect your confidence and personality. 
• Prepare 2-3 go-to phrases you can reuse, giving your pitches a recognizable edge. Just make sure you tweak them as needed. 
• Run your pitch through Grammarly - clear writing builds credibility. 

Turn Nofollow to Dofollow, Unlinked to Linked

Providing the right expert input takes a lot of work, so it's vital to ensure that you get the most benefit from your efforts while adding value to journalists.

Track new mentions and links using Ahrefs Alerts,  similar link intelligence tools, or Google Alerts. Set alerts to notify you of any new backlinks to your site. 

If any links are no-follow, you can reach out to the journalist or reporter and politely request link adjustments:

• For nofollow - ask if they'd consider changing it to dofollow.
• For unlinked - thank them first for using your expert insight, and ask if they could link to your website. 

By turning soft wins into real backlinks, you maximize the value of every pitch investment in your HARO link-building campaign. 

Do Followups

There are a couple of studies that already show that doing follow-ups helps secure backlinks:

• Sending follow-ups increases the number of backlinks by 40% (Source: Authority Hacker).
• Incorporating at least one follow-up email will achieve a 27% reply rate, compared to a 16% reply to those without follow-ups (Source: Woodpecker).

Here's how to do follow-ups effectively:

• Wait 1 to 2 business days after your initial pitch, giving journalists room to review your submission without appearing pushy.
• Keep your message short and polite.
• Include your original quote or reply for context.
• Track follow-ups using a spreadsheet.
• Know when to stop. 

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Need help running high-impact digital PR campaigns or scaling link acquisition with expert-driven outreach? Explore our link building and digital PR services.

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by Venchito Tampon

Link Velocity in SEO: How Fast Is Too Fast When Building Backlinks?

Backlinks are still undeniably the strongest signals in ranking websites these days- as links no longer just count as votes of confidence, but also as contextual signals that support entity recognition, citation, and even AI-driven indexing. 

In an attempt to outcompete big brands in many industries, most SEO specialists would try to influence their website rankings by aggressively building links at an unnatural pace that doesn't match the site's authority or age, which is not only questionable but highly vulnerable to algorithmic devaluation or manual penalties. 

This is where understanding the concept of link velocity comes in—learning why it matters and how to manage it so that it works for you, not against you. 

What is Link Velocity? 

Link velocity is the speed at which a website gains new backlinks over a specific period (daily, weekly, or monthly), giving data on how fast a site's backlink profile is growing. 

How fast should you be building backlinks? 

You should build backlinks at a natural pace that aligns with your site's authority, age, and content publishing frequency. For new websites, 5 to 10 high-quality backlinks per month is a safe range. Older, more established sites can earn links, especially if supported by fresh content, linkable assets, and a strong brand reputation. 

The Myth of “Faster Is Better”

Getting backlinks at an unusual rate ("fast" but careless) without actual context and control can signal attempts to manipulate rankings. 

Here are some scenarios where faster link building becomes a problem, especially when no real-world context justifies the upward trend or spike. 

1. Getting Irrelevant and Types of Links That Don't Matter Anymore

Topical relevance is a strong indicator of a link's value. In contrast, acquiring irrelevant links from websites of weaker domain authority can dilute your site's trust profile and confuse search engines about your site's content theme.

Below are the types of links that are considered to be devalued:

• PBNs, especially multi-category blogs without niche relevance (and which are linking to each other). 
• Hacked links - inserted random links into other sites' existing content.
• Forum and comment spam links - irrelevant/spam links in forums as part of signatures
• Low-quality directories - scalable submission of profiles to spammy directories
• Irrelevant link exchanges - doing a link exchange from a completely unrelated website

Off-topic and uncontextual backlinks from irrelevant sources add noise to your site's backlink profile and weaken its branding and reputation. 

2. Unusual Anchor Text Variations

An interesting study by Cyrus Shepard shows that actual text variations in links correlate well with search traffic and that sites with more anchor text variety get better search performance. Conversely, sites with unvaried anchor text links tend to lose search traffic.

At one extreme end of the pendulum, savvy SEOs are trying to game the link building system with high variations of anchor texts. While this approach is strategic and with a positive intent to naturalize their sites' backlink profiles, it could spell trouble if the majority of the links are filled with partial, and exact match anchors.

In addition, when links are acquired at unnatural link velocity with over-manipulated anchor texts, search engines may be signaled of any manipulation. The unusual link spikes make strategic anchor text optimization less likely to achieve favorable results in rankings and search traffic.

For better anchor text variety, you can check out our guide on how to optimize anchor texts. 

3. Aggressive Link Volume That Doesn’t Match Content Publishing Frequency

Content publishing frequency on your site is often ignored when talking about link velocity, given that the lens is more focused on the external link building efforts than on the quality and volume of content assets published on the website. 

When link volume grows without a clear content-based trigger—e.g., publishing new pages, content updates and upgrades to existing pages, and other internal branding efforts—it may actually signal artificial link building. 

And to think that it is very unusual for any brand to consistently get new links without consistently updating its own content library. 

Safe Link Building Practices to Manage Link Velocity

Here are actionable ways if you want to take safety measures when building backlinks to your site:

1. Natural Link Acquisition at Scale

The penalty triggers occur more often for sites that heavily involve manual link building methods, such as guest blogging, link insertions, profile creation, etc. 

The reverse—natural link acquisition, where you invest in linkable assets that passively acquire links independently, is the safest link building practice to pursue.

When you get backlinks naturally, your methods highly depend on the quality of helpful content on your site and the strategy to get more eyeballs for these pages, which will increase the chances they'll become more visible to target publishers. 

Publish more linkable assets that naturally attract links from publishers at their writing stage. Given that they will tend to search on Google to find resources they can reference in their content, and naturally link to your page to expound on terms they don't want to define anymore. 

Most natural links from ranking linkable assets for informational queries will form an upward trend for the site's link data for referring domains, not sharp or suspicious spikes. 

This pattern reflects a more natural backlink pattern, which you would typically find with most sites that have solid branding and reputation. 

2. Match Link Building Efforts With Site Authority and Maturity

The best approach in managing link velocity is to anchor it to your site's current level of authority and domain age.

Acquiring hundreds of backlinks in the first month, especially without investing in topical assets to build your site's content library, looks unnatural. However, getting hundreds of links is more acceptable and often expected for established websites with higher domain age, currently ranking for industry keywords, and building foundational SEO work. 

Recognize these maturity signals when deciding the volume of links and anticipating link velocity for your site:

• Growing library of topically related content. 
• Increasing organic traffic and brand search volume (caused by the brand's offline marketing efforts and growing interest from ranking information pages). 
• Number of trusted links from highly authoritative domains (DR60+)
• Frequent updates on the product or landing pages

Given that search engines evaluate context, not just raw numbers, matching your link velocity to your site's stage of development protects against penalties and sustains long-term rankings. 

Pro Tip: Ramp up your link building efforts for new websites slowly - and as it gains more organic traffic from rankings, you can gradually increase links. 

3. Use an Anchor Text Cycle Instead of Obsessing Over Ratios

Monitoring anchor text ratios is often a standard approach to managing link velocity and reducing the tendency to get penalized. However, micromanaging percentages can become rigid and resource-intensive, especially if you're managing several web properties or clients' websites. 

A more flexible, straightforward approach is using the anchor text cycle. 

The main idea is using rotating anchor text types month after month, instead of trying to hit perfect ratios - this reflects how natural link profiles develop their backlink profiles - gradually, unevenly, and are influenced by different content sources. 

For instance, when building backlinks for a new website, you focus on building exact-match anchors to increase your page's topical relevance in the first month. Though it may seem contradictory, remember that building a single link doesn't automatically penalize your site. Then, in your second month, you can focus mainly on acquiring branded anchors. The cycle continues until you reach a perfectly balanced anchor text profile. 

Rotating anchor texts focus helps distribute your optimization efforts without creating suspicious, over-optimized patterns. 

4. Distribute Link Equity Across Multiple Pages

Link diversity is a healthy approach to ensuring that your site develops a more natural backlink profile by spreading backlinks across different pages, ones you intentionally want Google to acknowledge as your most important pages. 

Here are two essential ways to do more link diversity for your website:

• Attract more inbound links to your informational content assets (not just your landing pages) by promoting them to target interested linkers (publishers, bloggers, journalists, etc) - seeing that a well-built online brand typically also gets natural links to its informational pages.
• Use internal linking to pass link equity to deeper pages or pages you want to rank for. You can use Ahrefs to find top-linked pages and build internal links from them to topically relevant but less internally linked pages. 

5. Focus on Quality and Brand Association

While "quality over quantity" is standard SEO advice, it's often overlooked in practice for many SEO audits I've conducted for numerous clients' websites. 

Earn and build the types of backlinks that truly reflect your brand's reputation. 

A couple of tips to help you lean on backlink quality even more:

• During the link prospecting stage, ask yourself, "Would I want my brand mentioned on this site even if SEO didn't exist?".
• Set a list of link metrics your SEO team or outsourced link building agency will follow to ensure quality for backlinks. 
• Prioritize providing value to more, but trusted, authoritative domains using different link building strategies and value-driven link outreach angles.
• Think long-term sustainable link building instead of a one-time off approach to chasing links. 

Resilient Backlink Profile That Scales Safely

Focus on natural link acquisition, anchor text cycle, and aligning your link building efforts with your site's growth stage to create a resilient SEO foundation. There is nothing safer than positioning your link building campaigns as a branding effort instead of another chase to game the system. 

If you're looking for more sustainable link velocity, explore our link building services and see how we can help. 

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by Venchito Tampon

The 9 Best SaaS Link Building Services in 2025

SaaS is a continuously growing yet increasingly competitive industry. 

Search engine optimization (SEO), one of the top user and revenue growth drivers, has been a channel moving forward to reduce CAC and increase MRR. And in ranking for your head commercial terms, there are definitely other players who've invested in their in-house SEO, strategy, and execution. 

SaaS link building isn't as sexy for many SaaS CMOs and Founders, yet it is extremely critical to ranking your software company for high-value commercial and comparative terms. So, being competitive—I must say "competent"—involves learning to hire the right SaaS link building agency. 

This guide will review the top 8 SaaS link building services and who they serve best (strengths). We'll also share how to choose the best SaaS link building agency to serve your SEO needs. 

1. SharpRocket

Best for: Seed-funded, A+ funded, Public, and Enterprise-level SaaS

Headquartered in: Offices in Manila, Philippines, and London, UK (operating remotely and serving clients globally, including UK)

Strengths: Performance-driven link building with a focus on landing page backlinks to drive immediate rankings and demand generation. 

Recognizable SaaS clients: Credible and Shopify 

With over 10 years of experience, SharpRocket specializes in high-authority SaaS link building services designed to help landing pages rank for commercial intent keywords — the ultimate objective is to drive demo requests, sign-ups, and MQLs.

Founded by link building consultant Venchito Tampon and Joseph Gojo Cruz, SharpRocket is one of the trusted white-label link-building agencies that delivers backlinks through a stringent process—from niche-relevant prospecting to client approval for backlink prospects and value-driven outreach campaigns. 

All campaigns are tailored to the SaaS buyer journey (mostly to BOFU content) and integrated with in-house SEO strategy on keyword clusters, use-case content, and product-led blog creation. 

SharpRocket is incredible in its unique way of communicating with internal SaaS SEO teams and startup founders, ensuring alignment between link building and the brand's core growth metrics. Making this SEO integration ensures every link building engagement is worth their investment. 

With over 15,000 links delivered to clients since 2013, they've helped notable clients  Keypath, ZenBusiness, Credible, and Shopify scale their in-house link building needs and grow search traffic and organic revenue. 

Just check out their client reviews and explore their link building services. 

2. USerp

Best for: Any SaaS company from Series A to IPO

Headquartered in: Lone Tree, Colorado, USA (serving global clients)

Strengths: Authority link placements, KPI-aligned SEO strategies, and content-first outreach

Recognizable SaaS clients: Monday.com, Active Campaign, Freshworks, and Reply

uSERP specializes in high-authority PR and is strongly concerned with ongoing KPI evaluation and adjustment with clients. Through content-led outreach, their links appear in top-tier publications. 

3. Powered by Search

Best for: B2B SaaS 

Headquartered in: Toronto, Canada (operates globally)

Strengths: ICP-driven link building

Recognizable SaaS clients: Fortra, Basecamp, Elastic

After Powered by Search joined forces with Growth Gorilla (who specialize heavily in SaaS link building campaigns), they became one of the link building powerhouses we have today, with most of their clients loving their strategic perspective and outreach-based link campaigns. 

4. Siege Media 

Best for: High-growth startups, and Enterprise SaaS

Headquartered in: Austin, Texas, USA

Strengths: Passive link acquisition through solid linkable assets

Recognizable SaaS clients: Zoom, Zapier, Zendesk

Siege Media blends link acquisition with modern-day content marketing, creating data-driven assets that naturally earn links from authoritative publications, industry journalists, and content creators. 

5. SimpleTiger

Best for: SaaS startups, lean teams, and founder-led software companies

Headquartered in: Sarasota, Florida, USA

Strengths: Streamlined SaaS SEO, lean content + links approach, and fast execution for early-stage growth

Recognizable SaaS clients:  JotForm, Segment, Bitly, Gelato

SimpleTiger offers tactical high-authority link building and digital PR campaigns with data-backed strategy—best for SaaS brands that need fast results without bloated retainers. Its focus on clarity, keyword alignment, and manually built outreach makes it ideal for startups scaling their SEO up to IPO, and it is a good contender for SharpRocket, the best SaaS link building agency.  

6. Skale

Best for: VC-backed SaaS companies

Headquartered in: Fully remote (London, England)

Strengths: Product-led link building and SEO strategy

Recognizable SaaS clients: Test Gorilla, Maze, and Piktochart

Skale delivers link building with a focus on measurable outcomes like demo signups and SQLs, not just rankings. They're known for producing SaaS SEO playbooks that combine link acquisition, technical audits, and performance reporting as a holistic SEO framework. 

7. Dofollow

Best for: B2B SaaS

Headquartered in: Wilmington, Delaware, USA (remote team)

Strengths: Relationship-based link building

Recognizable SaaS clients: Pitch, LegalZoom, Vonage

As strange as their brand name is—getting what actual link-building agencies must acquire—Dofollow delivers clean, personalized outreach for link building. From audit and strategy to constant iteration of link-building campaigns, they're a strong choice for B2B SaaS companies. 

8. Digital Olympus

Best for: Mid-to-enterprise SaaS companies prioritizing digital PR

Headquartered in: Wilmington, Delaware (remote global team) 

Strengths: Digital PR for SaaS

Recognizable SaaS clients: Ramp, Credo, Ramp

Digital Olympus specializes in digital PR campaigns for SaaS brands, helping them get featured on major publications and niche-relevant authoritative websites like USA Today, BBC, CNN, and The New York Times. 

Their authentic relationship link building approach to digital PR makes blending this marketing discipline and SEO a strong flavor to the mix for SaaS companies.

9. Minuttia

Best for: Enterprise B2B SaaS

Headquartered in: Tallinn, Estonia

Strengths: Content-driven link acquisition

Recognizable SaaS clients: NordVPN, Toggl, Service Titan 

Minnuttia combines data-backed content strategy with link building to help SaaS brands adapt to ever-changing search markets. Utilizing their content operations and deep keyword mapping makes them a good choice for scaling B2B software visibility.  

How to Choose The Best SaaS Link Building Services? 

Vetting a SaaS link building agency involves researching, reviewing, and considering standards beyond surface-level considerations. Ultimately, you want a partner who understands SaaS sales cycles, product-led growth, technical buyers, and how a SaaS link building campaign can help improve target pages' rankings and drive visibility and pipeline—this makes SEO investment worthwhile. 

Below are actionable tips to help you evaluate SaaS link building agencies before signing a contract. 

Check if they understand SaaS buyer intent.

The best SaaS link-building agencies truly understand buyer intent at different stages of the SaaS funnel, as this is where they align the types of backlinks they acquire for their SaaS clients. 

Nowadays, you'll find many of these agencies that point their backlinks to TOFU pages, trying to rank for informational queries. These generally have higher search volume as users are looking and researching about their problems ("problem-aware"), but the intent isn't to sign up for any online software.

Pro Tip: Consider SaaS link building agencies that prioritize getting backlinks to MOFU and BOFU pages to rank for lower search volume, but high conversion intent queries, as the qualified traffic here actually converts into users. 

Read reviews on G2, Clutch, and Capterra

Reading verified reviews from clients gives you real insights into their experiences, helping filter serious, client-proven agencies who deliver from those that only look good on their websites. 

Most SaaS users and potential customers consider web-based products and trust G2 and Capterra to compare software. And they are also helpful for checking B2B service providers—SEO and link-building agencies.

Through the platforms, you can look for client reviews of the agency mentioning results for SaaS clients, including increased demo signups, improved keyword rankings, and topically relevant backlinks within the client's vertical.

Those review platforms are also suitable for seeing reviews about the agency's communication and transparency—how agencies update their clients on the campaign's progress, and whether they are flexible for any valid change in the actual SEO strategy.

Additionally, you want to see red flags from actual client reviews—repeated issues like missed deadlines, recycled backlink placements, vague reporting, or any not-value-for-money comments. 

Ask for SaaS-specific link samples.

Get the types of links that matter to your SaaS. Many agencies will brag about their links coming from high-DR blogs, but many of these links are either irrelevant or don't have any organic traffic, all worthless links, if you may. 

It is best to truly assess their credibility by asking for backlink samples—the best agencies will provide them when you inquire about their services or share them exactly during your initial meeting with their SEO strategists. 

Without link samples, ignore agencies that fluff their way to getting you as their clients.

With SaaS-specific link examples, look for the following:

• Contextual placements - a standard should be for many links - be strict to only getting backlinks within the page's content.
• Types of pages where links will come from - will they secure links from product-led content (e.g., How X solves Y articles, "Top X tools for [Use Case]", "Best Alternatives to [Competitors]"). The referring source matters as it dictates the topical relevance of the link and how much branding and link equity power you can obtain from the referring domain.

The types of links an agency acquires determine the real value of its work. 

Confirm KPIs and Reporting Cadence

Clear metrics are what you need to measure the success and value of every link you'll pay for.

Ask SaaS link-building agencies about what they report, how often they report, and what results they track—they will send you these as part of monthly reports. 

Request for regular updates—it could be monthly reports showing live links and placements, bi-weekly updates for approval, and possibly live dashboards (or just a spreadsheet) for real-time tracking. These are all different for every agency and depend significantly on how they do their link building operations. 

Pro Tip: Find SaaS link building agencies that allow you to approve the list of sites before outreach. You want to ensure all links match specific criteria (niche relevance, quality metrics) and maintain control over where your brand appears (or which domains your brand associates with).

Remember that once links are placed, they can't be undone unless the agency requests link removal or a change of target page. 

Test With a Short Pilot

This has become a standard initial effort from SaaS companies when outsourcing link building agencies, as they want to test the waters before seriously investing big budgets on links. 

Based on my 12 years in the SEO industry, I noticed the most underlying reasons why SaaS companies prefer to do a trial run (usually 2 to 3 months of work) when hiring link building agencies - here are some of the reasons:

• Two to three months is a viable time to see the type and impact of their links to the website (assuming you've built the necessary SEO foundation- technical SEO, on-page SEO, etc, so you can maximize the value of every inbound link).
• Early assessment of transparency, communication, and professionalism within the first months - how they handle updates, how frequently their link-building reports are, and how quickly they respond to questions. 
• Check if the agency truly understands the SaaS's target users, product, and brand positioning, and if all the links they will build truly align with their brand's ICP. 

In essence, a trustworthy SaaS link-building agency doesn't need a 6-month lock-in to prove value. A short pilot run of a link-building plan will show the agency's effectiveness with its process and actual deliverables, determining whether your SaaS is confident in its ability to scale up the volume of backlinks. 

FUQs (Frequently Unasked Questions)

There are a lot of questions that are often overlooked but are essential for SaaS companies to know when investing in link building. Here are some frequently unasked questions about SaaS link building services: 

Do backlinks help reduce CAC in SaaS?

Yes. Backlinks help improve a website's organic rankings, driving free, long-term traffic to your product pages and blog content. This lowers your reliance on paid ads and actually reduces your cost per acquisition (CAC) over time.

What kind of backlinks help PLG models?

Backlinks that point to and pass link equity to use-case pages, onboarding tutorials, or integration guides can support product-led growth (PLG). Those mentioned pages attract users who are already searching for solutions and are more likely to push them straight into the product experience.

Can backlinks help my SaaS get listed on G2 or Capterra rankings?

Indirectly, yes. Higher organic traffic from backlinks can help drive more user sign-ups and reviews. And with more verified users, your chances of being listed or ranked higher on G2 and Capterra will improve.

How do backlinks support product-led SEO?

In many ways, but in particular, backlinks help the site's topical authority around the product's core use cases. And when it ranks for queries related to features or integrations, you attract users from search who are more likely to activate and engage with the product.

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by Venchito Tampon

Link Building Plan: 7 Steps to Better Backlinks (No More Guesswork)

Link building plan is the operational blueprint that turns your link building strategy into measurable outcomes, timelines, and specific actions required to acquire backlinks for your site - helping you achieve your campaign objectives.

Having a documented plan will help your team navigate their tasks and maintain focus, maximizing resources to scale your link building campaign and producing quality output that surpasses what your competitors can do.

A couple of reasons why link building plan is a must for in-house SEOs, agencies, and enterprise teams:

• It centralizes efforts on things that matter to the business - given that there are many routes you can take in link building, the links you get or earn must ultimately contribute to the overall business objectives. 
• It pushes you to achieve as many quick wins as possible, especially for SEO agencies that operate on a pay-per-link model - knowing you'll have guaranteed links at the end of each month eases a lot of stress and ensures you're delivering on agreed-upon expectations.
• It helps you persuade internal stakeholders or clients to invest more budget in link acquisition, as they can see the value of the work right on paper - your link building plan. 
• It measures your actions and adjusts elements of your tactics to create higher-quality links - without a plan, you wouldn't know where your campaign is failing. 

Bring these compelling reasons to your link building plan. 

Having a Strong Base

The success of any link building plan can be traced back to the SEO strength of the website and its internal capabilities to obtain or get backlinks.

Part of the link building plan is to ensure that the pillars of SEO are in place, so that links will have a more significant impact on their destination pages and the overall site's link equity and authority. 

I won't delve into all fundamentals of SEO, but here are the ones you should prioritize:

• Crawlable and indexed pages by search engines (especially the most important pages and the ones you want to build links to).
• Produce helpful content assets you can later use as a value proposition in outreach or direct destination pages for links (from which you can include internal links to pages you want to rank for).
• Well-optimized pages (meta tags, headers, internal links, etc.) - for less competitive keywords, applying this basic optimization can help you show up in a good position on Google's SERPs.
• Optimize the page speed of target pages - as you only have a few seconds to impress your link prospects when you send content for link requests.

Apply basic optimization before any link building efforts to get the maximum value from your link building campaign.

How to Create a Link Building Plan

Now, let's go over how to create a link building plan:

1. Understand The Business, Target Audience, and Link History

Knowing your target audience (whether for your own site or your clients) is crucial to creating a link building plan that meets the exact needs of your target customers. 

Given that it's possible to hit both the business goals and ranking objectives of your client when you acquire links from websites where your target customers are also engaging in ("hitting two birds with one stone").

The best way to learn more about your audience is by asking the right questions and gathering the correct information directly from your organization (for in-house SEO specialists) or from the client (for agency SEO). 

Create a questionnaire you can send over to your client or internal stakeholders. 

Here's a sample list of important questions: 

• Who is your ideal customer? What are their demographics, interests, and online behaviors?
• What distinguishes your product or service from competitors? What value do you offer that others don't?
• Who are your main competitors in your industry?
• Have you previously engaged in link building or SEO efforts? What were the outcomes of those initiatives?
• Do you have existing relationships with influencers or distributors? How have these relationships been utilized in your marketing efforts?
• Are there any other details or insights about your business that could inform our link building strategy?

With these questions, you'll have a better understanding of the business, its target audience, and any previous link building campaigns (the ones that worked and that didn't).

Having all this historical data enables you to manage client expectations and set campaign objectives that are more realistic to achieve, which leads to the next step in creating a link building plan. 

Pro Tip: One of our standard practices as a link building agency when working with clients is conducting a quick analysis of their backlink profile during the proposal stage - to review their historical link data and examine their previous links. It includes assessing:

• Top referring pages to see which pages are driving the most referral traffic - view this best in their Google Analytics data or Ahrefs' Top Referring Pages. These are the types of backlinks you need to get more of for your site. 
• Types of content assets that are attracting passive links from publishers who are citing their work as additional references - build more of these assets and create a "flywheel" effect, and expect to have incoming links every month.

2. Set Your Goals and Campaign Objectives

Goal setting is what actually gives direction to your link building campaign.

And the most important goals for a link building campaign in achieving a holistic organic marketing campaign are the following:

• Improve the site's domain authority (DR) to have a competing ability to rank for its target keywords (both for commercial and informational terms)
• Generate more demand for the business by acquiring customers directly from referring pages and landing pages that rank well for their target keywords.
• Enhance brand visibility and recognition by being more visible for non-branded searches and/or increasing branded searches.
• Amplify the reach of specific content assets to gain more visibility, engagement, and opportunities to passively earn links by ranking for queries that publishers search for to find more resources.

Next, set campaign objectives based on these goals and your understanding of the business, its history, and the target audience, as outlined in step 1 of this link building plan guide.

These objectives are more actionable, realistic, and easy to understand, which you can include as the initial section of your document to send to your client or internal stakeholders.

Before I show you how to create these campaign objectives, let me first walk you through where we get data for setting campaign objectives: 

Through Link Gap Analysis

What is link gap analysis? 

Link gap analysis is the process of identifying the differences between your website's backlink profile and those of your competitors. It sets a clear benchmark for the number of links you need to build to specific pages of your site and helps you spot areas where your competitors may have missed or overlooked opportunities. 

Link gap analysis aims to estimate the number of high-quality backlinks to target each month that meet specific metrics, such as sites with an Ahrefs Domain Rating (DR) of 30 or higher. This becomes part of your campaign objectives, focusing on both the volume and value of links you desire to pursue for your site. 

Start your analysis by selecting the page you want to rank for and identifying the top-ranking competitors for the page's target keyword. Ignore big competitors (i.e., big eCom brands like Amazon) and look for ones within your range of site authority. 

Run a quick check using Ahrefs to see how many links your page currently has and those of your competitors.

Filter the links that/are:

• Come from sites with DR30+.
• Has traffic of at least 1K
• Within the specified target country/audience (if you're targeting local/international)
• In-content
• Dofollow

The remaining links from filtering are what you consider, conservatively, to be the number of high-quality backlinks to your page. Do the same for your top-ranking page competitors. 

Then calculate the difference between these two numbers, which will give you the link gap count you should aim for.

For more detailed steps on how to do link gap analysis, check out our guide on competitor link analysis. 

Define Campaign Objectives

Campaign objectives are the more granular part of your link building plan, as they deal specifically with what you want to achieve in your link development campaign that will impact your site's branding, SEO, and conversion. 

Here are examples of campaign objectives:

Site Rankings

Obviously, the goal of link building is to improve target pages for both head terms and long-tail keywords. This is especially true for the key buyer terms your business or client wants to rank for. 

Example of Campaign Objective: The main objective of this link building campaign is to rank for dance socks (and other keyword variants like “contemporary socks”, “ballet socks”, and “dancing socks”) in the UK.

Pro Tip: 

As a link building consultant, I typically suggest achieving quick wins - keywords that are more achievable to rank given the current site's authority and its existing backlink profile. 

And part of the SEO quick wins is utilizing internal linking to help important pages increase their keyword positions by adding internal links from other related pages.

Brand Sentiment and Reputation 

Beyond rankings, you want to acquire links that will help improve your target users' perception of your brand - as this could also positively affect how you appear on AI platforms. 

Example of Campaign Objective: We also want to improve the brand's sentiments and reputation for this website [SiteName] by only getting links from link sources you want your brand to be associated with, and focusing on the type of links and link placement on the page where you're likely to get clicks. 

Link Velocity

One of the common mistakes I've seen SEO specialists make is aggressively building backlinks in the first few months without considering the site's current domain authority and potential risks associated with sudden spikes in link velocity. 

Unnatural link velocity can actually raise red flags in Google's algorithm, putting your site at risk of manual actions or algorithmic penalties, especially for new domains or sites with limited initial authority. 

Example of Campaign Objective: Given the site's authority, DR5, we will focus on acquiring 10-15 contextual backlinks per month that align with the site's existing domain authority. This pace helps us ensure steady, sustainable growth of the site's domain authority while staying within safe thresholds. 

Then, we gradually increase the pace as the site authority and organic traffic continue to grow (potentially from 15 to 25 target links). 

Pro Tip: 

For new sites, we always recommend taking the link building pace at a slower rate, with an average of 5 to 8 links per month (with 8 being the maximum). 

We want to see the impact of these few links on their direct page. If there is a significant effect, we either increase the links pointing to the page until it reaches the highest position possible (the top 3 positions) or consider allocating other links to the site's other essential pages that may need a boost in rankings. 

Link Diversity

The types of pages you point your backlinks to matter, especially in the early stage of the link building campaign - when you are still proving that the links acquired actually improve the page's search performance.

Our link diversity approach depends on the current site authority and its existing backlink profile. 

For new sites, we often recommend building the majority of the links (80%) to the homepage to boost its ranking power, while allocating 20% to the site's main product category or service pages - as it'll be much easier to contest for head terms when the website has a higher domain authority.

Then, as the site's domain authority grows, we will focus on building more links to product and service pages and blog content. 

3. Identifying Potential Link Partners

Prospecting the right link opportunities is often the determining success factor of a link building campaign, as the value of a link depends on the types of people and sites that would link to you. 

Use your link building campaign's objectives to direct your team to the right types of link sources. For instance, if one of your campaign objectives is to increase positive brand sentiment and improve your brand reputation, working only with publishers and entities you want your brand to associate with is essential. 

Examples of these are:

• Potential brand partners (vendors, suppliers, future brand advocates, etc.).
• Trusted and authoritative voices in your space (authors, thought leaders, personalities, and in-house experts).
• Content creators with targeted communities (to absorb their social media followers and turn them into actual visitors or customers for your site).

Here are our best link prospecting methods, regardless of the industry of our clients:

Competitor Link Analysis

I wrote a detailed guide on how to do competitor analysis, but let me give you a couple of tips here:

Always start by reverse engineering competitors you can compete with - this means avoiding trusted brands that Google already favors (e.g., Amazon and Walmart). 

Instead, target ranking competitors within your site's authority range. If you have a DR30 site, focus on competitor link analysis for websites with a domain rating (DR) between 20 and 60.

Another reason for choosing sites you have chances of competing is you want to be realistic as much as possible - the backlinks you get from reverse engineering mid-level competitors are easier to replicate given their existing resources and value proposition - since they aren't too far ahead of you in terms of authority, branding, and SEO budget. 

Filter the links based on scalable link building strategies. 

There are several link building strategies in SEO - both basic and advanced, where you can almost guarantee the conversion rate when doing outreach campaigns using those strategies. 

Focusing on the type of links that a specific strategy targets can make the process easier when picking potential link targets through competitor backlink analysis. 

For example, you can quickly check resource pages on the list by filtering words like "links" or "resources" and see if your competitor has acquired any links from resource pages. Or, if you want to look for "where to buy" pages for eCommerce, you can filter the list by "where to buy", "store list", and "retailer". 

Leverage Link Intersect

You can automate competitor link analysis using Ahrefs' Link Intersect feature - it shows you the links pointing to your competitors but not to your site, giving you quick access to the list (instead of manually reverse-engineering competitors individually). 

Link Search on the Web

Go beyond the usual competitor backlink analysis route and start looking for potential link sources that are relevant to your industry.

At SharpRocket, we're big fans of Ahrefs' Content Explorer. All of our team members are accustomed to using it to explore different advanced search filters, keywords, and variations, which helps us get the best results for potential relevant linking pages.

Target Active Authors 

On top of exclusively prospecting for websites, you can also directly look for the top active authors in your industry.

The best part about this approach is that you can leverage these authors' existing networks and relationships, especially on the websites where they have already contributed content.

With many high-end, authoritative publishers with strict editorial guidelines — where they only accept experts and experienced contributors — you can penetrate these sites by contacting authors who already have published content there.

Brand Partners

Besides the typical link prospecting methods most SEO specialists use, i.e., competitor link analysis and manual or automated link search, spotting brand partners as part of your link prospecting list is still an effective way to build your site's reputation and topical authority.

The best links will come from domains that elevate your site's branding and reputation—these are link partners that target the same audience you want to engage. 

The common mistake I've seen in-house SEO specialists make is ignoring sites with lower domain authority (i.e., those with an Ahrefs DR 20 or less), even if they are obviously topically or locally relevant to their brands.  

Pro Tip: If you're not in the hustle of delivering guaranteed links every month (i.e., monthly link deliverables for link building agencies), you can go after these weaker brands but with higher brand and niche relevance, seeing that they have the potential to grow in the future in terms of authority and given the legitimacy and sustainability of the business they're in. 

Here are some examples of low-authority but brand-relevant sites: 

• New websites of legitimate vendors and suppliers in your industry 
• Upcoming authors with targeted niche communities
• Social media influencers with unoptimized websites for SEO (but with assets you can leverage for content amplification and more brand discovery through collaboration and other co-marketing opportunities).

Client Block List (or "Do Not Contact" List)

One standard practice we integrate into our link prospecting process is creating a client blocklist, which is basically a list of all the websites we or our client don't want to reach out to. 

Having this initial client blocklist as part of your link prospecting process can help eliminate inefficiencies in outreach. You don't need to spend time reaching out and following up with prospects from whom you don't want to get links. 

A few examples of these websites are:

• Competitors that offer similar products or services.
• Affiliates and existing partners requested by the client for non-contact
• Referring domains already linked to the client's site - as the client wants all new backlinks to come from domains that weren't previously linked to their site.

4. Create Linkable Content Assets 

I've discussed this part extensively in my guide on creating conversion-oriented, linkable assets. 

But here are some actionable tips:

• Tie the linkable asset to the problem you want to solve (i.e., Franchising 101 and 102 guides for my target coffee franchisees).
• Publish first-party data or insights.
• Identify the step before the solution 
• Offer zero-friction tools or techniques that don't require emails to access (e.g., editable templates, checklists, scripts, and visual frameworks)
• Apply unique expertise to sales pages (e.g., use case scenarios, in-house scoring systems, internal testing protocols, etc.).

There are two approaches to leveraging linkable assets: 

• Develop and use them as a direct value proposition for outreach, so that target websites link to these pages. 
• Distribute the exact linkable content asset to selected link partners (i.e., choosing authoritative websites with a larger audience, email list, or social media following).

5. Manage Outreach Campaigns 

Outreach campaigns are still effective in acquiring high-quality backlinks, but the approach has evolved over the years. This is because publishers and webmasters have detected the same patterns and outreach angles that most SEO specialists use to get links from them. 

And since then, they have ignored the majority of pitches that offer the same intent or purpose in emails. 

I've covered different angles and tactics in my guide on link building outreach, but let me repeat a couple of actionable tips here:

• Product-comparison add-on outreach. 
• Content refresh and upgrade.
• Reverse outreach
• Stats-driven outreach 
• Keep initial messages short. Brevity in outreach makes it easier to send semi-personalized mass emails while forcing your outreach team to focus on the value that matters most to your target link prospects (removing fluff and unnecessary introductions in emails).
• Educate publishers by using simple, non-technical terms, persuading them of the value of your content pitch - i.e., it helps increase their search traffic as your content targets a relevant keyword, which can rank and earn organic traffic.
• Stay updated with industry happenings and suggest more unique or highly specialized topics for guest posts not yet covered on their blogs.

6. Monitor Backlinks and Do Quality Assurance

The next step in your link-building plan is to monitor new backlinks to your site. These will come from webmasters you have reached out to using manual outreach or from publishers who cite your content as a reference in their articles.

You can manually check each domain in your outreach list for backlink monitoring or automate the process using link building tools like Ahrefs' Alerts and Mangools. 

Part of good link monitoring is having quality assurance (QA) on the links placed, as one benefit of doing so is making early remedies for recently acquired links that don't meet the necessary criteria.

Review each live backlink based on:

• Target pages - the backlink must point to the target page of your campaign.
• Quality of content - conduct a second quality review of the content distributed to link partners (i.e., check if the guest post is well-optimized for SEO).
• Link placement - verify that the backlink has been placed (does the publisher actually link to you, or do they simply mention you without a link?) and is correctly positioned in the relevant section of the content. 
• Link attribution (dofollow or no-follow attributes)

Checking the quality of backlinks will help you take remedial efforts, such as requesting to add links for unlinked mentions - a much better approach than doing outreach months after your brand has been mentioned. 

7. Prepare a Link Report

Preparing a link report is the final phase of the link building plan, which is part of a monthly SEO strategy for in-house SEO specialists and SEO agencies offering link building services. 

The practice of reporting live backlinks to internal stakeholders or clients has numerous benefits for both parties - SEO practitioners and those receiving the report, including:

• Increases buy-in for stakeholders and clients, as they can see the better value of every link acquired and how these links affect the site's entire SEO performance, branding, and organic revenue. 
• Persuades clients and internal managers/directors to increase their link building budgets to tackle more competitive link building campaigns for high-value keywords.
• Forces in-house SEO teams to innovate by either A/B testing outreach copies or angles to increase link conversions, or trying new link building strategies from other observed industries where those strategies have proven effective. 

Now, let's move on to preparing a link report.

A monthly link-building report isn't as glamorous as what other SEO bloggers try to portray. It is basically a collection of all the critical work you've done and future activities you want to pursue for next month.

Here's our recommended list of things you should definitely include in link building reports:

• URLs of published links
• Date when links were added (could be based on when the page was indexed, whether it's a new page, or the time of notification by the publisher/webmaster in emails).
• Link metrics in columns (Ahrefs' DR, site traffic, etc). - also include average DR for all links acquired
• Anchor text used in backlinks
• URL of backlinks' target pages
• Link building tactics used 
• In-progress notes (i.e., waiting for approval for content created by your team)
• Next steps (i.e., continuous link prospecting and outreach, to publish specific linkable assets, or execute a new link-building strategy)

Plan For Link Building Success

The only way to guarantee success in link building is to plan and execute relentlessly - nothing else beats a well-thought-out link building plan. 

Learn about our link building services and contact our experienced strategists to help build more backlinks to your website. 

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by Venchito Tampon

How to Get Backlinks in 2025 [Leveraging What Works]

Take it from someone who's been building backlinks since 2013.

Getting backlinks today is more about leverage: scaling link building campaigns through the right teams, repeatable processes, and strategies aligned with your business objectives and the realities of your industry or client’s space.

This guide isn't a rehash. It's a deeper look at how to get backlinks today - what's really important, and what's getting backlinks in 2025 that nobody's talking about yet. 

If you're tired of the "same-old" link building tactics and looking for real-world methods that earn links and scale, keep reading: 

Target Pages That Drive Revenue

One of the common mistakes SEO professionals make is diving into the actual execution of link building campaign without having the right strategy.

And when I say strategy, it's not solely about the type of links you want to target and the methods you use (content seeding, product-led link building, listicle outreach, etc.); it's also about choosing the right pages to build backlinks to.

Too often, link builders focus on blog posts or generic guides, as they are easier to pitch, but these don't always align with what actually drives sales or leads. 

One high-impact link building skill is learning how to align link building efforts to business objectives, so you can push rankings where it matters most. 

Here are a couple of ways to pinpoint what pages to build links to:

Ask the client what matters most. 

Start by asking the most direct question: which pages drive your online business? If they don't provide the answer, you simply get access to their Google Analytics and Search Console. 

Get clarity on 

• What offers or services generate the most revenue?
• Are there specific categories or seasonal products to push?
• What pages are being prioritized by internal stakeholders - i.e. top management? 

The answers you get will tell you where your link building needs to support business goals, so you're not just building links to pages for traffic's sake. 

Use Ahrefs to find pages that need a push. 

One of the simplest yet smartest ways to prioritize is to find pages that are already ranking in positions 6-20 for high-intent keywords. These are the pages closest to winning, and they often just need a handful of quality backlinks to break through.

Go to Ahrefs → Site Explorer → Organic Keywords. Filter for positions 6 to 20. Look for keywords with clear buyer intent (e.g., "buy", "services", "top X", "best [product]"). 

 

If you see that top competitors have 25 to 30 referring domains, and your page only has 5 to 10, you can close the gap with focused link building.

Look at conversion-driven pages. 

See which pages consistently generate leads, sign-ups, or purchases, and if there are any high-converting pages stuck beyond page 1. 

The idea is to build a few targeted backlinks to a service or product category page that drives actual revenue. Better building links to blog posts (of course, there are exceptions, but prioritize commercial pages in that matter). 

Benchmark against competitors' top-linked pages.

Reverse engineering your competitors by assessing how they attack their link building campaigns. 

You can use link intelligence tools like Ahrefs to see which pages they build more links to (i.e., tools, data posts, etc.). This would give you insights and help you decide whether you need to:

• Build direct backlinks to your own target page
• Create a supporting asset to pass link equity through internal links
• Build domain authority first to compete against their top-ranking pages by creating more backlinks to your homepage or top-level content. 

If you're working with a site under DR30, start with homepage or top-level page links to build overall authority so that you can rank for more competitive keywords down the line. 

However, for more established domains, you need to focus on revenue-driving pages, such as product category pages, high-intent service pages, or core solution hubs.

Audit Content Library to Find Link-Worthy Pages

Replicating what works already on your site in terms of earning links is the best way to get more quick wins (double down on what works).

The advantage is that you already have resources in place, such as your internal team, subject matter experts, and knowledge base that helped produce those initial assets. Instead of starting from scratch, you can double down on what's proven to work and get more links with less friction.

You can also strengthen relationships with publishers who've linked to you in the past. By offering updated or future-related content (that you will then publish), you create opportunities for recurring links (not just to the original asset, but to other linkable pages within your site that also deserve visibility). 

In our link building agency, we first identify which content assets from the client's site can be effectively used for the link acquisition campaign, typically for content-led link building, product-led outreach, and link reclamation. 

Start by reviewing all indexed pages and use tools like Ahrefs or SEMRush to extract performance data. Then, assess:

• Which URLs already have referring domains?
• Which content types earned links before (e.g., guides, templates, stat roundups)?
• Are any of these pages still relevant, or can they be refreshed and relaunched? 

This creates a clear map of what content to push again for backlinks. 

Here's how to tie scalable link building strategies to the existing assets of your site: 

• Content-led link building: Use evergreen blog posts, data roundups, industry guides, templates, or tools to create resource pages for outreach and contextual placements. 
• Product-led outreach: Repurpose product pages, feature updates, or comparison assets to secure links from reviewers, bloggers, or roundup articles in your niche. 
• Link reclamation: Identify pages with outdated URLs, past press mentions, or unlinked brand citations, and recover lost opportunities through targeted outreach and cleanup.

Auditing the content library and replicating what works is strategically sound, as you link the right asset to the right link building tactic, creating a stronger semantic relationship between the content type and its intended backlink. 

» Not all backlinks are created equal. Learn the different types of backlinks and which ones actually move your rankings.

Systematize Link Building Strategies You Use Often

Random tactics don't sustain results; repeatable systems do. That's why one of the most valuable steps to scale link building is to build internal processes around the link building strategies you rely on most.

At SharpRocket, we’ve built robust, battle-tested processes for product-led outreach, content-led link building, and brand link reclamation. 

We've created process maps that guide how our team operates on a daily basis. And by having the team fully own the tactical execution, it frees us (executives and the strategy team) to focus on the more strategic elements of link building, such as competitive analysis, campaign ideation, and client-specific customizations. 

In terms of systematizing strategies, automation can dramatically speed up the tactical side of the process, especially in prospecting, data gathering, and link building outreach.

Here’s how we streamline our workflow:

Ahrefs for Prospecting and Research

We use Ahrefs' Site Explorer to analyze competitor backlinks and identify high-authority referring domains worth pursuing. Another Ahrefs feature, its Content Explorer helps us find topically relevant articles and linkable pages that align with our assets.

Hunter.io for Contact Discovery

Using Hunter.io (with its Chrome extension), we collect and validate email addresses directly in our prospecting spreadsheet, allowing the team to skip manual email digging.

Gmass or Smartlead for Outreach Automation

These tools enable us to send bulk, personalized outreach emails, schedule follow-ups, and monitor open and reply rates, all while managing campaigns within Gmail or a dedicated outreach platform like SmartLead. 

Internal Prospecting Workflow

We manage everything using Google Spreadsheets, equipped with a duplicate checker to ensure no overlapping outreach. We also use monthly master tabs for historical tracking and role-based assignments based on each team member's niche or outreach strength. 

Having a robust system like this makes it easy for us to assign link prospects, avoid collisions, and delegate tasks clearly, all while keeping the campaign agile and accountable. 

» Tired of basic link tactics? Discover advanced link building strategies that focus on quality, context, and long-term SEO results.

Use Co-Authoring to Get Strategic Content Placements

Co-authoring content is a strategic way to earn high-authority backlinks while leveraging another person's distribution reach. It creates a mutually beneficial exchange: you produce a content asset worth sharing, and your co-author uses their platform, relationships, or publication access to distribute it. 

 

The best way to initiate this is to produce high-utility, original content on your site first, which will serve as solid proof of your expertise's caliber, before engaging in outreach efforts to ask publishers to co-author with you. 

The key is positioning the collaboration as a value-first exchange. 

Here are a couple of ways to succeed with this approach:

Offer a Complete Draft or Framework.

Do the hard work for your co-author to make collaboration easy for them. Reach out with a nearly finished piece or a clear outline that aligns with their target audience. 

Leverage Interview-based Contributions.

Send targeted authors a few insightful questions (not a full list of questions most SEO bloggers did in the past for long round-up articles). 

Then, incorporate specific responses to relevant sections in the content. This makes the content more comprehensive and collaborative, giving co-authors a reason to co-promote or publish.

Co-own Distribution

Structure the deal so that they receive distribution through their network (e.g., social media followings, newsletters, client blogs, partner newsrooms), and you retain authorship or co-authorship credit, along with the backlink. 

Target Authors, Not Just Publications

Focus on building relationships with individual authors or editors who frequently contribute to your target outlets. It is much easier to do co-authorship than a cold editorial pitch to the publication itself. 

» Want to earn links by building your personal brand? Learn how to use authorship to improve link building and grow trust with publishers.

Analyze How Writers Actually Link To Sources

If you want to earn backlinks that last (either from creating linkable assets that passively earn links or through manual outreach), you need to understand how real writers reference content. 

 

Spend time reviewing how top-tier publications and trusted blogs link to external sources. Pay attention to:

• Where the links appear within the article 
• Preference of linking (reason for linking - e.g. how I chose the brands for this list). 
• What kind of content do they link to (guides, original data, statistics, thought leadership)
• How the link is framed (look at the sentence, not just the anchor)
• What type of anchor text is used (descriptive, partial match, branded)

Writers often use descriptive anchor texts, not just exact match keywords, because they read more naturally and fit the editorial tone.  For instance, instead of simply using "link building agency," you'll see publishers using descriptive anchor texts, such as "this case study by a leading outreach firm" or a "comprehensive breakdown of scalable link tactics."

Understanding how editorial links work can help you craft content to become more linkable, as it aligns with real-world citation patterns. 

Think and write as if you're writing for top-tier publications. Match the content to how publishers could cite your work.

You can also use it to inspire your outreach campaigns with better angles, as your outreach suggestions mirror how writers structure references. 

» Want backlinks from high-authority sites? Learn how to get DA 90+ backlinks with practical, white-hat strategies that actually work.

Build Strategic Alliances. 

One of the sustainable methods to get hard-to-replicate links is by building genuine relationships with like-minded entities (people, brands, or organizations that share your values, audience, or goals).

The central premise is to form strategic content alliances with emerging voices and influential players in your space. 

Look for people or brands with these attributes:

• Share similar goals or serve a common mission (e.g., ethical brands, open-source communities, educators).
• Target the same audience, but aren't direct competitors.
• Hungry for growth, visibility, collaborations, and amplification, as they are still emerging influencers in your industry.
• Publishing regularly and investing in their website or content marketing.

Relationships take a long way in accumulating multiple link opportunities, often without the need for formal outreach. 

Here are a few examples you can gain from relationship-based link acquisition:

• Content syndication: One party amplifies others' content, and other publishers share yours, including a contextual backlink in their article.
• Cross-promotion: Mutual link exchange, where you link to their relevant article as a reference, and they reciprocate in future content.
• Co-created content (mentioned earlier): Roundups, webinars, or shared research pieces often include backlinks to both parties.
• Earned mentions: As they reference case studies or success stories, you're more likely to be cited naturally.

By doing what's unscalable (building relationships), you scale link building as you increase your trustworthiness and respect in the industry. This passively attracts links from other like-minded publishers, leading to better semantic proximity and more editorial trust for your site.

» Struggling to build links in a small niche? Here’s how to build backlinks in very small niches without relying on big content or outreach lists.

Use AI to Deepen Research, Then Humanize for Link-Worthy Content

If you rely on what other SEO publishers teach about AI-written content to pass AI detector tools and could rank well in Google's SERPs without human editing, think again.

Instead of using it to generate entire articles that may lead to generic, lifeless content, you can use AI to go deeper into research and insight discovery. 

By augmenting your content creation strategy without fully automating it, you create a significant edge in your content-led link-building campaigns. 

As a content publisher for a decade now, I've seen how AI today gives you instant access to diverse perspectives, alternative phrasings, and emerging subtopics, all of which will help you build deeper, more comprehensive content that resonates well with writers, editors, and readers. 

Marie Haynes, in her recent article, explains how she uses AI as a research assistant, not as a ghostwriter. Her best content writing tip is to input complex industry topics and let AI surface fresh questions, find patterns, and offer varied perspectives that might have been missed. 

The output from here are refined topics that you can use to make the final content richer, more nuanced, and closer to the intent behind user searches.

Kevin Indig makes the AI-assistant writing process even more actionable. He breaks the editing process into four rounds that turn AI output into link-worthy editorial content.

 

The elements that matter:

• Structure: Rearrange sections to create a logical flow and clarity, and remove redundancy to ensure the content directly addresses search intent. 
• Language: Eliminate robotic phrasing. Vary sentence lengths. Use plain, human language.
• Humanization: Add personal opinions, stories, metaphors, cultural context, and emotional cues - things AI can’t replicate.
• Polish: Check for SEO alignment (headings, internal links, CTAs), fact accuracy, and final readability.

Helpful content assisted with AI's deeper research helps you create a connection with your target audience, making it even more attractive for link building, as the content:

• Shows original thinking
• Demonstrates deep and real expertise
• Provides depth and clarity (easy to read, easy to skim)
• Feels authentically human (in other words, engaging)

The best content today comes from creators who know how to steer the algorithmic output with human judgment, insight, and originality, resulting in content assets that get cited by other publishers in their space. 

Exclusive Directories

Creating your exclusive directories that feature other businesses in your industry can be a lever to develop relationships with other publishers. And it’s also a way to increase trust and visibility for your site, being the host of the directory.

 

Choose a segmented audience you want to include in your directories. Examples could be:

• Vendors, service providers, or platforms that your audience actively seeks
• Indirect competitors: companies that serve your target market, but offer solutions you don’t
• Influencers, creators, or niche-specific brands are gaining traction in your vertical
• Thought leaders and educators, especially those who are underrated and don’t have an active social following, have significantly contributed to the community through their expertise.

The real power of exclusive directories lies in their shareability and ego appeal. When people are mentioned in a top list or featured as a trusted vendor, they are often proud of the recognition and naturally want to share or link back to that page.

You’ve given them third-party validation, which motivates them to share it on their blog, social media, or press page and add a backlink to their “As Featured In” or “Awards' section. 

Position your directory to target a particular segment of vendors. Instead of competing with G2 or Capterra, you can:

• Curate a trusted resource list for a narrow vertical
• Highlight complementary services or tools your audience uses 
• Feature local or niche-based providers

For instance, Cyrus Shepard recently launched his agency directory featuring SEO and digital marketing agencies he trusts to deliver results.

What makes this asset powerful isn’t just the curated list, it’s the implicit endorsement. Being included in a list curated by a trusted industry voice like Cyrus carries authority, credibility, and immediate shareability.

» Need quick wins for your SEO campaign? Try these easy link building strategies that are simple to execute but still effective.

Build a Learning Center

Creating a learning center is one of the most effective long-term, linkable asset investments you can make, benefiting far beyond just SEO. By publishing a structured hub of educational and evergreen content, you establish your website as a go-to source of information in your niche, where visitors would go directly to your learning center to digest more of your content.

 

In many ways, your learning center becomes a solid linkable asset that generates continuous backlinks, given that: 

• The content is informational, evergreen, and high-utility
• It can rank for question-based informational queries, such as “What is [industry term]”, “How to [solve problem]”, or “Why use [solution]”.
• Writers, editors, and publishers frequently cite these pages when they need to explain terms, link to definitions, or reference how-to guides.

By investing resources in a learning center, you compound your benefits into more passive link earning, from which you can maximize and reinforce link equity across your landing pages through internal linking. 

Another way learning centers can help your website beyond just SEO is that they reduce the support load by acting as a self-service help desk (think FAQs, tutorials, and troubleshooting guides). This way, it supports your sales team by educating and attracting the right types of customers. 

» Running complex outreach campaigns? Learn how to manage advanced link building campaigns with better systems, tools, and team workflows.

Align Link Building Efforts to Business Objectives 

The best link building campaigns are the ones that support the broader business goals behind those rankings. Your link building efforts should be directly tied to what matters most to the business.

In the recent 2025 Link Building Survey by Citation Labs and BuzzStream, more SEOs are shifting their focus from raw link volume to strategic alignment (building links to pages that serve a specific purpose in the customer journey) - a link building approach I've been an advocate for years.

When your link building becomes a business growth lever, it supports your broader objectives, such as:

• Your reporting improves (you can measure business impact, not just link count).
• Your content prioritization becomes clearer (what to promote, what pages to get most inbound links)
• Your internal buy-in strengthens, especially when discussing link building campaigns with sales, product, brand teams, CMOs, and other key internal stakeholders.
• You retain agency/client relationships as you're driving more meaningful results. 

Have an end in mind when executing your link building campaigns, incorporating important pages for the business, which include:

• Revenue-generating product and category pages
• Resource hubs that boost topical authority
• Long-form content that powers discovery and brand awareness. 

I've covered this on how tools like Link Launch can make your link building investment more justifiable. Check out this guide on our best link building tools for SEO. 

Remember that the best links are the ones that move both rankings and revenue. 

One Mention to Many

Showing up in many product listicles can help you earn compounding, passive backlinks from other product listicles within your niche, often without doing outreach.

 

Aim to have your brand included in many product and content listicles by manually pushing direct link requests. Given that publishers who build these lists often use existing listicles as their search base, if your brand or content consistently appears in trusted lists (your roundup, others' listicles, directories), future creators are more likely to assume you're trusted because others have already cited you.

It puts your brand, product, or content in front of more eyes, creating a network effect where your backlink inclusion becomes self-sustaining. That's where the real backlink compounding happens. 

Scalable Reverse Engineering. 

Reverse engineering competitors and even your own brand is an old link-building tactic, but few implement it systematically at scale and take full advantage of it.

By tracking brand mentions using Ahrefs' Alerts, Google Alerts, or Mentions, you strike while the page is fresh.

Pitches sent just a few days after a page gets published (or indexed) have a much higher success rate than cold pitches sent weeks or months later (similar to how reactive digital PR campaigns work - you react immediately on breaking stories to take advantage of the hype/virality effect).

Given that the content is still top of mind for the author or editor, it is also easier to edit (especially before it's widely shared) and actively monitored (since writers often review early feedback on the content) - this window gives you a key advantage. 

Instead of pitching something out of context, you're offering a small, relevant addition to a just-published piece. So, whether it's a quick request to add a link to your own brand (link reclamation) or a subtle suggestion of an alternative to a competitor, editors are far more receptive when the content is fresh. 

Another advantage of scaling reverse engineering is that you can turn mentions into relationships. 

When someone mentions your brand (linked or not), it's an opportunity to build long-term relationships. By appreciating their kindness, you position yourself as helpful and more human, and when scaled, it could lead to more contextual backlinks and future content collaborations.

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» Looking for links that actually improve rankings? Explore our link building services designed to achieve your organic growth. 

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by Venchito Tampon

Value-Driven Link Building Outreach [Unique Angles You Can Use]

Link building outreach comprises most of the work we do in our link building agency. We still find it effective in landing link opportunities that our clients' competitors can't easily replicate. 

However, the resources, efforts, and time it takes for outreach accounts to grow and produce backlinks for clients are the bottleneck that most SEO specialists and agencies find challenging to overcome.

Links should be a byproduct of helping people achieve their goals: visibility, rankings, and promotion of their offers. It means helping people. The offer, approach, and objective may change, but the primary purpose of link building remains the same: adding value.

As the typical "guest post" pitch no longer works, it's time to find new angles and innovative ways to increase the value of your link building outreach campaigns. 

Value-Driven Link Building Outreach Tips

In this guide, I'll show you unique outreach angles we've tested that are way more effective than requesting straight-up links. 

1. Brevity in Initial Pitch 

The first email in link building outreach sets the tone. One of the most effective tactics is keeping initial messages short. There are a few advantages to this.

 

Long, overly detailed pitches create fiction and mental fatigue for busy publishers. Asking too much of the reader too early increases their resistance towards your pitch. When you open your pitch with a long email, you assume the recipient is willing to invest time in something they haven't asked for (reality: most won't). 

Instead, keep your opening message tight and to the point.

Why brevity works in outreach:

• Leverage skimming: Content publishers or those in editorial roles scan emails fast, so short messages are easier to process this way.
• Increase response rate: A clear, focused ask is more likely to get a reply.
• Maximizes outreach time: You avoid spending too much effort on unresponsive contacts.

Brevity in link-building outreach is efficient, as it tests interest first. If they reply, you can then follow up with more detailed or tailored information. 

In value-driven outreach, earning attention comes before earning a link. 

2. Educate Publishers

Truly helpful content on the web educates. It is also why people link to pages in the first place: they find something useful that solves their problems or addresses their concerns.

In link building outreach, the same mindset can be applied to help people get more visibility.

One of the best types of linkers is legit brands and business owners. Google sees their websites as credible and more likely to be searched by its target users (branded and non-branded searches). As such, getting links from their business sites has higher link value compared to niche bloggers who don't have their built-in brand power. 

In value-driven link outreach, education becomes your edge. Instead of requesting straight-up links, you can explain how reworking their current content that's been declining in traffic can be optimized for search and recover their traffic. 

The plain reason is that most legit small brands aren't really knowledgeable about SEO. So sharing what you offer with them helps them gain more visibility and potential inquiries from ranking commercial keywords. 

Use simple, non-technical explanations. Frame your "content improvements" angle as a favor to them, adding value to the conversations. 

By actually giving them a reason to link, which is grounded in practical SEO benefit, you shift from a random stranger asking for a backlink to a helpful expert improving their content. 

3. Content Refresh and Upgrade

Outreach is more effective when your offer improves what already exists. 

Many websites have old blog posts, how-to guides, or listicles that still rank, but haven't been updated in months or years (which could position these pages higher in Google's SERPs once re-optimized). That's where content refresh outreach comes in.

Instead of pitching your link as just another resource, position it as a content upgrade (something that helps improve the page's quality, depth, and accuracy). 

The outreach angle you're pursuing for this is the fresh update, that search engines reward and have been using as a ranking factor for years, to rank websites producing new, helpful content for their audience.

A few content refreshes or upgrades you can offer:

• New stats or data to replace outdated ones. It is also a good way to link to your larger data-driven content if it's thematically relevant. 
• Missing section that covers a recent development. By getting immersed in the industry, you'll get updated with what's happening (more on this later).
• Visual (chart, infographic, flowchart) to enrich the reader's experience
• Deep guide that supports or extends an existing point. 

Do the work for them. Rewrite the content with internal links to their site's other relevant pages (helping them get more visits on other content pieces). 

» Want to take your outreach beyond templates? Explore advanced link building strategies in SEO that focus on relevance, value, and long-term results.

4. Be Updated with Industry Happenings 

Immersion (as Jason Acidre coined it) is a strong factor differentiating your email outreach pitches from others.

Given that most SEO specialists and publishers will try to persuade blogs with generic topics. It would be an advantage if you knew the industry well and showed them what they're missing in the content. It adds more value to their audience and helps them differentiate their brand in the industry.

 

Create a swipe file of the best content publishers in your space. You can automate getting the latest trends, tips, and news by subscribing to their newsletters.

Here are a couple of ways to stay informed in your industry (even if you're not a subject matter expert):

• Be your own brand ambassador. Use your own experience if you're pitching for your brand. Get insights from customers' questions, sales feedback, and product updates (you know your business better than anyone else).
• Talk to people who know the space. If you're doing link building outreach for clients (or other teams), interview in-house experts, or sit in on internal training onboarding calls (just do whatever you can to get a real look at what's happening). 
• Use actual information sources. Follow niche communities, LinkedIn creators, or industry Slack groups. 

Once immersed in the industry, you can bring the knowledge into outreach. 

The best thing about this approach is that when you reach out to publishers, most website owners won't spot content gaps unless they're fully involved in the topic. 

This way, you can have so many outreach angles, including:

• Suggest updates to old posts that mention outdated tools or methods (share what tools have been highly reviewed in the industry).
• Recommended new angles based on emerging trends (rework their content)
• Offer data-backed resources based on recent studies. 

Be like a consultant when pitching publishers, especially for new sites in the industry. You can help them by exploring new approaches to their content library.

5. Product Comparison Add-on

For eCommerce link building campaigns, this is one of the most high-impact link building outreach angles.

Given that getting links from posts that attract people who are actively searching, comparing, and making purchase decisions (i.e., Top X tools/products), especially those that rank well on Google's SERPs.

This outreach angle works because most round-up-style articles don't stay static. Publishers often (or want to) update them regularly, as they have the SEO benefit of driving consistent search traffic via rankings.

Help them with:

• Filling a gap in their current product listicle content.
• Adding new angles (e.g., best for beginners, best eco-friendly option)
• Reflects an emerging trend (e.g., AI features, sustainability, portability)

If your product has a unique POV, getting link placements from straight-up link requests would be easier. Provide more context on your product's unique value, which is suitable enough to be included in the list. 

Create a list of product listicles. You can start by reverse engineering pages linked to your competitors' products (avoid the ones linked to big retailers or brands, as their websites naturally get links in the first place).

Find product list pages that are:

• Already ranking on page 1 or 2 for "best product" or "top product".
• Recently updated (check the date) or actively maintained (see "Last Updated").
• Missing your product or similar alternatives that your product improves on. 

When doing link outreach using this angle, make your pitch stand out by:

• Positioning your product clearly (i.e. we're the best for XYZ feature").
• Frame it to benefit their content (i.e.," including us helps cover a broader segment of your readers").
• Make it easy for them to include your product (provide a quick smmary or suggested blurb they can copy and paste). 

It's unlikely that your product beats others on everything. So, frame your angle to be best on a specific product feature or target customers. This would make specific relevance helpful to publishers trying to serve different audience segments. 

» Looking for tools to streamline your outreach? Check out the best link building tools for SEO to scale and manage your campaigns efficiently.

6. Reverse Outreach 

Outreach isn't enough to land more quality link placements. Especially if you're in a narrow niche, with limited publishers you can reach out to. 

The best way is actually to create link opportunities yourself. That's where reverse outreach comes in. 

Reverse outreach is a link building strategy where publishers initiate contact with you, not the other way around. 

 

By ranking for keywords at the stage where they're writing their content or looking for references to add to their page, you would be found among the top-ranking pages in Google's SERPs. 

The upside with reverse outreach is that you can control the value exchange, where you can:

• Choose quality link prospects you only want to work with.
• Have low resistance to link placement (leverage their desire for linking or content collaboration)
• Reduce outreach fatigue as you invest more in assets that do the prospecting for you.
• Scalable and sustainable (as it ranks and gets more visibility, the content can attract more passive link opportunities). 

Create content that other people would cite as their resources, including:

• Original data or studies 
• Free tools or templates
• In-depth evergreen guides
• "Write for us" or "Partner with us" pages

Another tip is to track publishers who recently linked to your linkable assets. Build relationships with them and offer other content opportunities, like collaborating on content, as both parties will certainly benefit from exposure. 

» Need assets worth linking to? Learn how to create linkable assets that add real value and attract links naturally.

7. Stats-Driven Outreach

Data is one of the best reasons to update content, as it strengthens the page's credibility, makes it more current, and improves its chances of ranking higher in search results.

Stats add value to link building outreach, given that it or it has:

• Content freshness: Offering stats helps them refresh content without doing the research themselves.
• Fills missing context: You help them turn vague claims into precise, backed-up insights by inserting real numbers.
• Authoritativeness (E-E-A-T approach): When they cite credible sources or original data, it makes the publisher's page more authoritative. 
• Do the work for them: Make it easy by writing the actual update or paragraph they can copy-paste with zero edits (offer that help upfront). 

Don't have stats? You can curate stats using public government data and third-party data sources. 

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» Looking to get featured on real blogs? Check out our blogger outreach services that connect your brand with trusted publishers in your niche.

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by Venchito Tampon

Link Metrics in SEO You Probably Don't Use Often

Vetting the right link opportunities and earning links from domains that truly matter starts with tracking the right link metrics. These metrics are actually what separate a successful campaign from a mediocre one.

If you purely rely on DR, which the majority of SEO agencies and in-house SEO teams use, you won't capture the full picture. A backlink from a high-DR site with zero traffic and irrelevant content often adds little value. Conversely, a link from a topically relevant website with focused content and real organic traffic, even if it has substantially lower DR, can move the needle in rankings and traffic. 

Why Ahrefs’ DR Alone Is Not a Reliable Metric for Outreach?

In the early years of SEO, many SEO specialists (including me) relied on Google's PageRank. This algorithm, developed by Google's founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, was one of the original algorithms used to rank web pages. It assigned a numerical value to each page based on the quantity and quality of backlinks, with the idea that a page is important if many other important pages link to it. 

However, there was a time when PageRank stopped being publicly updated, so the SEO industry shifted to alternatives. Around 2010, Moz's Domain Authority (DA) became the popular benchmark. It provided a single number to estimate a site's authority, which was easy to report and track.

Today, the industry standard has shifted again. Ahrefs' Domain Rating (DR) is now the most commonly used metric by SEO specialists and trusted agencies. DR measures the strength of a site's backlink profile on a scale from 0 to 100, based on the quantity and quality of referring domains.

To balance it out, using Ahrefs' DR for outreach still has its advantages, and that's why most SEO agencies use it:

• It creates a fundamental level of domain reputation (e.g., aiming for DR25 or DR30+ links)
• It's visible at a glance with the Ahrefs toolbar (makes it easy to prospect for multiple link opportunities manually) 
• It simplifies most performance tracking and team reporting (especially when working with in-house enterprise SEO teams).

Setting DR-based targets for link prospects is still the best approach. The only issue is relying on them alone while ignoring more accurate indicators of link value.

Here's why that's risky:

• DR reflects domain-wide strength, not page-level value. 
• Google evaluates links based on context, relevance, and placement (factors not captured by DR alone)
• High-DR doesn't guarantee SEO impact (most of which, overused high-DR domains often have minimal effect).

We take metrics further as one of the best UK link building agencies. 

When reviewing our list of link prospects, here are the link building tips and link metrics we consider (and you probably don't use often): 

1. Check the Keywords They Get Traffic From

As you consider Ahrefs' DR of the website, review what keywords it ranks for. Use tools like Ahrefs or SEMRush to pull its top pages and top organic keywords. Both will show you whether the site attracts meaningful traffic from search terms relevant to your industry.

 

For example, if a marketing blog ranks for terms like "CRM tools for small business" or "email automation strategies, it's a strong signal that the site has topical authority (or at least has indexed pages with relevant topics). 

However, if the top keywords are completely unrelated (or I may say, "spammy"), such as "online betting", or "essay writing services" (which by the way, I still see up to this date with some websites), that indicates the site is eiter overly commercialized, or part of a link scheme.

Checking keyword traffic can help you avoid websites that inflate traffic through unrelated or clickbait content (which is very easy to do). A site may appear active in terms of traffic and content publishing rate, but if its visibility is tied to irrelevant topics, the link carries little SEO value. 

» Wondering how your competitors earn their links? Learn how to run an advanced competitor backlink analysis and find link opportunities they’re missing.

2. Contextual Relevance

Contextual relevance measures how well the linking page aligns with your topic, language, and intent content. 

It's not enough for a site to have a high Ahrefs DR or strong traffic. If the content surrounding your link is off-topic, generic, or inconsistent with your industry, the link will have limited SEO value. 

Here's what we look for in contextual relevance: 

• Topical alignment: The linking page should cover a subject related to your content. For instance, if your page concerns project management tools, the link should come from a page discussing productivity, software, or workflow, not cooking tips or lifestyle hacks.
• Anchor text fit: The preferred anchor text should be natural and relevant to your target keyword (avoid forced placements or off-topic phrases).
• Surrounding content: The paragraph around the link should support and explain the linked page's topic. 
• Minimal link dilution: Pages with fewer outbound links and a focused message provide stronger signals than link-heavy, general-purpose content. 

The impact of contextually relevant links on your site compounds and benefits more than visibility. It helps Google better understand your website through contextual understanding of pages that link to your webpages. 

» Want to go beyond basic outreach? Explore advanced link building strategies in SEO to earn high-quality links that actually move rankings.

3. Estimated Traffic of the Linking Page (URL-Level)

One of the main limitations of relying on Ahrefs' Domain Rating alone is that it scores the domain as a whole, but not the specific URL giving you the backlink. To better understand the link value (even by estimate), you need to check the estimated monthly traffic of the page that will link to you.

 

Here are a couple of benefits of using page-level traffic:

Identifies high-value pages on low-DR sites. 

A low-DR website might publish one page that ranks exceptionally well, but is often dismissed by traditional link prospecting methods, given its average DR. Tracking URL-level traffic allows you to catch these hidden opportunities.

Rewards outreach to high-traffic pages.

A page-level traffic metric encourages outreaches to target a site's top-performing pages, which is a smarter move for SEO agencies to maximize the value from every link.

Compensates for recently launched or fast-growing sites

One of the overlooked parts of link prospecting is maximizing websites that are new or under-reviewed by Ahrefs, and have low DR, for that matter. But if its pages already rank and are driving organic traffic, those links are more likely to be valuable than DR suggests. 

When vetting link prospects, use Ahrefs or SEMRush to check the traffic of the specific page where the link will go. You can also use Ahrefs' Top Pages report to find high-traffic URLs within the domain. 

» Want to strengthen your existing backlinks? Explore modern approaches to tiered link building that boost link equity without using spammy tactics.

4. Aim to Get Dofollow Links (But Recognize Strategic Exceptions)

Even though Google has stated that nofollow links can be treated as hints (and are actual recommendations to the page/website), you can't rely on your link building campaigns on getting the majority to be no-follow links.

Especially if you're working for an SEO agency where clients are particular about the type of links you get, many SEO specialists don't count nofollow links as part of outreach KPIs. They only pay for do-follow links, as no-follow links are sometimes a by-product of an excellent digital PR campaign or other link building strategies. 

Our best bet to be the default outreach strategy is prioritizing dofollow link placements. 

The only exception is that many high-DR media outlets and authoritative news sites (DR70+) only offer nofollow links unless you pay steep fees. By also considering no-follow links, you get two key advantages:

• Builds relationships with top-tier publishers (intangible benefit, but can't easily measure) that can lead to future dofollow link placements, co-branded content, or digital PR features.
• Gain more branded exposure on high-traffic, trusted websites, where visibility can drive referral traffic, credibility, and long-term authority.

At best, aim for dofollow links by default, but don't ignore strategic nofollow link placements when they offer long-term brand and relationship value. 

5. Link Placement Factors

As a link building consultant, I'm heavy on link placements, which is knowing where a link is actually placed on a page. 

Given that Google gives more weight to links placed in the main content area, especially those that appear early in the content and are contextually relevant, it's one of the top link metrics every SEO specialist must consider. 

Four important link placement factors we consider as a link building company:

• Position within the content: Links placed higher on the page or within the opening paragraphs tend to carry more weight—they are more likely to be crawled, seen, and clicked. 
• Main body vs sidebar or footer: Links embedded in the main body text are far more valuable than those placed in sidebars, footers, author bios, or boilerplate sections. 
• Surrounding content quality: The link should appear in a paragraph discussing the topic of your page (see our tip earlier on contextual relevance).
• Number of other outbound links: If the page has too many outbound links, the value is reduced to each one (fewer, more selective links indicate higher editorial standards). 

Make it a standard practice to inspect where your link appears on the page. A higher likelihood of visibility helps attract more clicks and referral traffic to your destination page. 

6. Outbound Link Profile Health

Outbound link profile health is the quality and relevance of the external links on a webpage, evaluating where a page is linking to, not just how many links it has. 

Check where their external links go ("destination webpages"). 

Assess if the website links to quality, reputable sources or spammy, irrelevant, or suspicious domains (i.e., payday loans, crypto schemes, or thin-affiliated pages). 

Outbound link profile health matters as it affects the credibility of your webpage. When your backlink sites include links to low-trust or manipulative websites, it sends signals that weaken your link's value (even if your own content on the page is strong and credible). 

» Looking for tools to scale your outreach? See our list of the best link building tools for SEO that can help you build better links, faster.

7. Referring Domain Growth Trend

Check how fast or steady the linking website gains referring domains over time. If a site grows naturally, it suggests (probably seeing) that it's producing linkable assets and is seen as a credible source of information (its content assets are getting citations). 

 

It's important to watch out for:

• Steady, upward trend: Indicates consistent publishing, link earning activity, and ongoing visibility in the niche.
• Sudden spike in referring domains Could be a sign of a robust digital PR campaign, aggressive link-building campaigns, or manipulative link-building tactics (see the site's backlink profile for deeper analysis).
• Flat or declining trend: Suggests the site may no longer be active in content publishing, lose its relevance in content, or not attract new organic links. 

Use tools like Ahrefs' Referring Domains graph to review historical link data. Pay attention to the rate of new domain acquisition, patterns that look unnatural (i.e., 200+ new domains in one week, then none the next), and long periods with zero growth. 

Sustainable link growth (or link velocity) signals algorithmic trust and domain health. Given that a website that earns organic links over time is being perceived as a highly credible source of information (vouched for by other niche publishers through their external linking efforts). While one website that grows too fast or stagnates may trigger a spam filter or lose ranking power. 

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» Looking for a trusted SEO partner to build high-quality links that pass the above link metrics? Check out our link building services designed to earn real, white-hat backlinks that drive results.

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by Venchito Tampon

How to Create Conversion-Oriented Linkable Assets [+Examples]

Linkable assets no longer serve as pages "just to earn" links. 

With our experience working with enterprise in-house SEO clients, we've seen the shift in the purpose of creating linkable assets. Beyond just attracting links to increase the site's authority (and improve rankings), they must also help move users through the customer journey and support the site's overall business goals. 

A Shift in Purpose

Before, linkable assets were built with one goal: to get links from other websites. SEO specialists were focused on creating content that would go viral, get picked up by journalists, or be featured in link roundups. Once the links were earned, the job was considered done.

The challenge is that many of these pages had no clear place on the website. They were often tucked away in corners where they wouldn't interfere with other content (which means they add little long-term value). 

They were isolated. That approach no longer works. 

Let me give you my new definition of linkable assets. 

What are linkable assets?

Linkable assets are pieces of content created to earn backlinks while guiding users through key customer journey stages. They deliver practical value, such as templates, tools, data, checklists, or expert tips, and are built around specific user needs or early-stage problems. More than just informational, they’re structured to lead naturally toward a product, service, or next action.

Conversion-Oriented Linkable Assets

Conversion-oriented linkable assets target link acquisition efforts and assist conversions through the buyer journey.

Here are a couple of tactics you can test and implement for your brand:

1. Tie The Asset to a Problem Your Product Solves

For a linkable asset to drive traffic and conversions, it must address a problem that matters to your target audience and one that your product or service is built to solve. 

When your content doesn't connect to the actual problems your audience faces (or the solutions you offer), it becomes isolated. It may earn a few links, but won't support your broader content strategy and brand authority. 

Topping it off is the kind of traffic you want to attract from ranking with your linkable assets. It must be qualified traffic (people who are more likely to convert).

For instance, I've been heavily publishing franchising guides for my target audience - aspiring entrepreneurs- attracting passive links from other business bloggers and helping move visitors into the buyer journey (of inquiring about our franchise packages).

Start with real friction points. 

Dig into support tickets, customer complaints, sales call transcripts, or onboarding surveys. These are all goldmines for uncovering the exact wording and issues your audience is already struggling with.

Solve one problem, not a category.

One citable element topic you can add to your landing page is content pieces that target one sharp pain point. These pieces are easier to share and connect to a product feature. 

For example, instead of tackling "Remote Work Challenges", you can zero in on one like "missed deadlines due to unclear ownership", a quick section guide on "Why project deadlines slip in remote teams?").

Support claims with contextual proof.

Proofs are better than promises. Instead of just listing stats, show how the problem affects outcomes. Combine data with before-and-after scenarios, customer quotes, or use case breakdowns. One tip here is to use visuals like “problem → solution” timelines or annotated screenshots that can make technical solutions easier to grasp.

Optimize for internal link flow. 

Do smart internal linking to pass link equity to your site's important pages. Link to supporting blog posts for depth (or next steps of resources) and link in from related product or resource pages. 

2. Publish First-Party Data or Insights

Linkable assets that include first-party data stand out. You collect these insights directly from your audience, customers, or internal stakeholders. Given they're original and reliable, they can earn links that are hard to replicate by your competitors.

Most websites repeat the same statistics from popular blogs and reports, but when your asset shares data no one else has, you position your brand as a source instead of a mere distributor of information. This helps you draw attention and potential links from journalists writing industry stories, bloggers looking for original stats, and educators referencing niche topics. 

How first-party data attracts links: 

• Become the original source. Publishing unique data makes your site the primary reference point.
• Get cited in link roundups and other industry reports. Writers constantly search for new stats for listicles, "top trends," or "industry reports" (your original data gives them exactly what they need).
• Attract organic shares without manual outreach. When your insights are genuinely helpful, surprising, or time-sensitive, they provide a reason for people to share them naturally.
• Builds initial trust that earns links—the idea of having "statistics" itself initiates trust, as it is not something you can easily create without putting in enough work. 
• Earn natural links from your brand's network. Customers, partners, and vendors may use your data in their business presentations, decks, and offline resources.
• Automate link building via ranking for stat-based search queries. Make sure you properly optimize your content for target stat keywords. 

3. Identify the Step Before Your Solution

While the first tip of aligning your asset with a problem your product directly solves, another powerful approach is to go one step earlier: 

Create content around the steps before someone needs your product. 

These are research-driven, early-stage actions before they're ready to buy, subscribe, or engage.

Meeting them at the stage makes your content more than link-worthy. It becomes a bridge that connects their current challenge to your solution. 

Why "before-the-solution" linkable assets work:

• It targets top-of-funnel search intent (helps you capture more search traffic).
• It attracts backlinks from educational and industry resources in your space.
• It positions your product as the natural next step 
• It builds trust by adding value and genuinely helping people before selling

In creating linkable assets based on the steps before your solution, you need to understand your audience's decision-making process, not just what they need from you, but what they must go through before they realize your product is the answer. 

Start by asking these questions. 

1. What does someone need to understand, research, or prepare before they can use our product?

Think about the learning curve or awareness stage that your customers go through.

• Are they researching how to fix a specific issue?
• Are they comparing methods, tools, or strategies?
• Do they need to build a case internally before buying?

For instance, if you're doing a cybersecurity SEO campaign, you might identify that buyers first research "how to perform a security audit?" before looking for software, so a great linkable asset: "Step-by-Step Guide to Running Your First Cybersecurity Audit".

2. What issue or blocker do they typically face before they convert?

Identify the friction point that causes hesitation or slows the path to purchase:

• Are they unsure of what solution fits their situation?
• Are they missing resources, clarity, or approval?
• Do they fear making the wrong choice?

A good example of this is analytic tools (link building for SaaS), where you might discover potential buyers struggling to understand what metrics they actually need to track (creating a content asset on “10 Key Marketing Metrics Every Growing Business Should Watch and Why They Matter"). 

3. What content would help them at that point, and naturally lead to our solution?

Create content that meets them at that point with practical help. Shift from analyzing user intent to building a resource that solves their immediate need, without pushing your product too hard.

You earn links this way and create a moment of clarity where the reader thinks it is exactly what they need and sees if your website (brand) offers any solution. 

4. Offer Zero-Friction Tools or Templates

Getting easy and early access to tools or templates people can use without barriers, signups, or complex instructions makes an asset linkable.

These linkable assets work because they deliver instant value, resulting in a resource that solves a specific, clearly defined problem.

 

Why zero-friction tools are solid linkable assets:

• Solves real, immediate tasks (increases the page's usefulness)
• Easy to share or embed (content creators and publishers love linking to practical tools)
• Naturally leads to your product (once users rely on your free resource, they're more open to using your full platform or solution). 

Here are a couple of formats of zero-friction tools or templates:

• Editable templates - Google Sheets, Notion, or Canva files that users can customize (e.g., 30-Day Social Media Planner Template)
• Checklists and worksheets - step-by-step guides, printable PDFs, or fillable forms (e.g., Product Launch Readiness Checklist)
• Mini tools and calculators - quick-use tools that help estimate or compare something (e.g., Email List Cost Calculator)
• Scripts and prompts - ready-to-use messages for outreach, sales, or communication (e.g., 5 Sales Email Templates That Get Replies)
• One pager and visual frameworks - simple visuals like flowcharts or decision-trees (e.g. Marketing Funnel Fix-it Flowchart)

You can optimize pages to include these zero-friction tools and rank for problem-solving queries, increasing your chances of earning more passive links through high rankings. 

5. Apply Unique Expertise to Sales Pages

Use your team's specialized knowledge (research, process insights, etc.) directly on your product or sales pages. This will transform your standard transactional content into link-worthy referential material that adds value beyond the sale (and publishers will link to it, even if it is commercial in nature).

What to include based on your expertise:

• Proprietary scoring or rating systems
• Common mistakes your product helps prevent
• Internal benchmarks or quality thresholds
• Use-case scenarios from support or onboarding logs
• In-house tips, techniques, or shortcuts
• Chronology or iteration history of product development
• Decision-making frameworks used by your team
• Internal testing protocols or standards
• Product-specific troubleshooting insights
• Expert-recommended usage routines or best practices

One good example, if you're doing eCommerce SEO, is publishing a best practice angle: 

“Our in-house ergonomics team recommends adjusting the chair height so your elbows form a 90-degree angle while typing. This position reduces shoulder tension and improves long-term posture. That’s why our chair includes a guided adjustment checklist under the seat.”

This example draws from expert-recommended usage routines, which address a common user challenge - a value-add to your product page, reinforcing your brand authority. 

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Need help with your link building campaigns? See our link building services and let's have a free strategy call. 

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by Venchito Tampon

Modern-Day Tiered Link Building: Link Stacking (and Smarter Alternatives)

Traditional tiered link building no longer works. Creating backlinks to levels of linking pages to your website was once a way to improve site rankings through layered authority. 

In the past, SEOs built links not just to their website but also to the pages that linked to them, referring to Tier 2 and Tier 3 links, in which the goal was to increase the power of Tier 1 backlinks and pass that strength down the chain. 

How search engines like Google perceive and recognize backlinks today has evolved.

Why Traditional Tiered Link Building Doesn't Work? 

While it's a systematic approach to link building, traditional tiered link building no longer works for many reasons. 

1. Link Decay and 404 Errors Break the Chain

Backlinks are not permanent, as the web is constantly changing. Pages get updated, deleted, or moved, particularly during this time when the rate of content publishing has accelerated. This means that your Tier 1 backlinks (the ones linking directly to your site) can eventually disappear. When that happens, the entire link chain breaks.

If you've invested time or money building Tier 2 links to boost a Tier 1 page, and that Tier 1 page goes offline (returns a 404 error or gets redirected), all the value from those Tier 2 links is lost. Google can't crawl through a broken link to reach your site. As a result, the link equity stops flowing.

The challenge with this scenario is that it becomes worse over time. As websites restructure or remove content, the likelihood of link decay increases. Even high-authority sites can remove pages without notice. So, if your entire strategy depends on supporting a Tier 1 page that's no longer active, you risk highly of your backlink profile. 

2. Direct Links Pass More Value

In today's SEO landscape, Google gives more weight to backlinks that point directly to your website, especially when those links come from authoritative, relevant sources.

When a site links to your page, Google views that link as a clear signal of trust, relevance, and endorsement. It's direct, easy to crawl, and tied to content that users can immediately access. These links carry more ranking power and help improve your site's visibility in a more predictable way. 

Conversely, indirect links (those that are buried in a tiered structure (Tier 2 to Tier 1 to your site), lose their strength as they pass through multiple layers. Every jump from one page to another dilutes the potential link equity. If the Tier 1 page isn't indexed, lacks authority, or is poorly optimized, even a strong Tier 2 link won't help you. The benefit of layered link building stops before it reaches you. 

A direct backlink embedded in meaningful content will outperform a tiered link structure built on low-value pages. 

3. Contextual Relevance Matters More Than Structure

Google focuses heavily on contextual relevance. With hundreds of backlinks we build every single day with our link building agency, we've observed quite well how powerful relevant backlinks are to the website. 

A backlink placed within content that matches your topics or industry will pass more value than one that's technical "part of a tiered system." 

Google is better at understanding what content is about, so it expects backlinks to come from content that's thematically aligned with the target page. For instance, if your site is about dental software, a link from a healthcare IT blog will be more valuable than one from a fitness receipt site (even if both pages technically point to your content).

Traditional tiered link building fails here because it often prioritizes link quantity over contextual quality. The end result is a chain of weak signals instead of a strong, relevant recommendation.

4. Harder to Track ROI and Value

When the strategy involves creating multiple layers of backlinks (Tier 2 to Tier 1 to your site), it becomes challenging to identify which links are actually making a difference. 

Let's say you build 10 tier 2 links to a blog post (Tier 1) that links to your site. Your rankings slightly improved, but where did the lift come from? Was it the Tier 1 link itself? Did one of the Tier 2 links influence it? Was it due to another backlink if Google found it elsewhere? There are no clear, direct signals to measure. 

The more layers involved, the harder it is to isolate what's working, making it extremely difficult to assess the return on investment on link building. 

You need to know where your gains are coming from so you can focus on what works and eliminate what doesn't. Tiered link-building strategies blur the bigger picture and create too many unknowns. 

Link Stacking: Modern-Day Tiered Link Building (and Smarter Alternatives)

While traditional tiered link building is outdated, the core idea of strengthening your most valuable backlinks is essential for link development; we call it "link stacking". 

What is Link Stacking? 

Link stacking is the strategic practice of amplifying the value of your strongest backlinks and replicating them more often by increasing their visibility, authority, and contextual relevance, without relying too much on artificial link structures. 

Link Stacking Strategies That Work

Here are proven link-stacking strategies that work in 2025. 

1. Identify and Replicate High-Impact Backlinks

The best way to start is to know which backlinks are worth amplifying and replicating. Run a backlink audit using link intelligence tools like Ahrefs, SEMRush, and MajesticSEO (see our hand-picked link building tools for SEO). 

See backlinks from authority domains, driving real referral traffic and pointing to the most important pages (or your blog content, acquiring search traffic via ranking for informational queries). 

Replicate these high-impact backlinks that have been driving significant value to your site (as doing more of them can help improve more of the metrics you're looking at—referral traffic, rankings, brand visibility, etc.). 

Study the content that earned the highest-impact links. Is it a how-to guide, a case study, a list of tools, a data-driven piece of content, or a citable element on a landing page? 

Once you've identified the format and topic that attracted backlinks, create more content using the same structure and angle but more focused on new subtopics, updated trends, or related industry keywords.

For instance, if a list of "Top CRM Tools for 2025" earned strong backlinks, follow up with "Best CRM Tools for Startups"—these are pieces of content tailored to your target persona and aligned with the user's buyer journey. 

2. Do Smart Internal Linking 

The authority on the page where you get the most links doesn't have to stay confined to that page. You can use smart internal linking to direct some of that value to other important pages on your site.

Revisit your blog posts with the highest number of referring domains, resource pages with backlinks from authority sites, and landing pages that earned natural citations or mentions. 

Add contextual internal links to the most important product/service pages, newer blog posts that need ranking support, and categories (or hub pages) that build topical depth. 

You can add sections such as "related sources" at the bottom, embedded videos or downloadable tools, and internal navigation to deeper subtopics. Doing so increases the number of pages per visit, improves your site's crawlability, and efficiently spreads SEO value across your content ecosystem.

3. Distribute Content Targeting Keyword Variations of Your Core Topic

One way to scale your link stacking strategy is to create and distribute content that targets keyword variations related to your primary topics. Instead of repeating the same angle or keyword focus, this approach allows you to cover more ground and reinforce your site's authority on a subject.

 

Google rewards topical depth, so as you consistently publish and earn links for content around a central theme, you start building your site's topical authority (off-page). 

Identify keyword variations with potential. Start by researching related keyword opportunities using Ahrefs or SEMRush to discover:

• Long-tail keywords tied to your core topic
• Variations with decent search volume and manageable competition
• Subtopics that address specific segments, pain points, or use cases

For instance, if your primary keyword is "project management tools," variations might include "project management tools for remote teams" or "free tools for agile project workflows." 

Do value-driven outreach. 

Instead of simply soliciting backlinks, take a smarter route of offering to publish content on their site that targets keyword variations of your shared niche. The upside is that it's geared towards the value it could bring to the table, benefiting your target publisher. 

Mid-level publishers need more search traffic and quality content that ranks for new long-tail keywords optimized for underserved but high-potential queries. 

You provide all that by offering content that targets specific keyword variations, ones with clear search intent and volume that may not be covered yet. 

By positioning your outreach strategy that adds value to prospective publishers to rank for high-intent keyword variants, you increase the likelihood of higher responses and link placements that directly improve your site's ability to rank for your primary keyword (as distributed content is topically relevant to what you're trying to rank for).

4. Turn High-Performing Content Into Multi-Format Linkable Assets

When a piece of content earns strong backlinks, it clearly signals that it holds value for both users and publishers. You can multiply its link potential by turning it into various formats that attract different types of audiences, learners, and content creators.

Repurposing content pieces is a strategic link-stacking move to get more backlinks from more platforms using content that's already proven to work. 

A few formats you can consider:

• Infographics - visual summaries of stats or steps from your post
• PDF guide or downloadable - useful for resource pages or B2B listicles
• Slide decks - add more visual depth
• Short-form video - condense the content into explainer or how-to videos (which you can also upload to YouTube and earn organic social traffic).

By turning high-performing content into multi-format assets, you also increase the surface area of discovery through LLM's AI models. The more accessible and multi-platform your content is, the higher the chance it gets referenced in AI-generated answers, included in citation stacks from AI tools, and more often suggested by Google's AI Overviews. 

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Schedule a free strategy call if you're looking for the best link building agency in the UK. 

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by Venchito Tampon