In this article, we will map out every type of backlink that’s worth building, teach you how to build them, and even what order they should be built in for maximum SEO impact. Everything we discuss here is practiced daily in our agency and fuels our website rankings (and our clients’ website rankings) Note: Read this article on Link Building before you go through this. It provides a very clear, conceptual and high-level look at how this all works from a 30,000-foot bird’s eye view. This guide on backlinks will discuss, in detail, all the different types of backlinks and how to get them – but without the context of what & why from our link building article, it may be less clear what you should do. What are backlinks? Backlinks (aka “back links”, “back-links”, “links”, “inbound links”, etc.) are hyperlinks that point to your website but come from other websites. When a Website A hyperlinks to Website B, you can say that Website B just acquired a “backlink” from Website A. Simple enough, right? Why Are Backlinks Important? Search engines (especially Google) use backlinks as a ranking factor. Backlinks are analogous to “votes”, “referrals”, a “vouch” or “recommendation” about your website and its content. Very similar real life, when multiple people recommend a movie, or restaurant, or music artist, you tend to become interested & develop a sense of trust for that thing. Google works the same way. The more (quality + relevant) backlinks your website acquires, the higher your content & keywords will rank, and the more relevant traffic will come to your website. It’s awesome. How to Get Backlinks Backlinks fall into 2 main types: Built Earned This means that some links you can go out and build yourself. This would include things like: Social profile links Blog comments Forum signature links Business directory listings etc. Other links you have to earn. This would include things like: Getting a link on another bloggers website Getting a link from a story written in Techcrunch etc. Although there are only two real types of links, there are 3 ways to get backlinks. Build Earn (Naturally or Unnaturally) Buy We will try to break up & organize this guide by backlinks you can “Build” vs. backlinks, you must “Earn”. And, if there is a place to buy them (ex: from a trusted link building service provider) we will mention that in each link write-up. A quick note on link builders & link building services There is a seemingly endless amount of link building service providers on the internet. Really, you can find everything from Citations to SAPE if you know where to look. Buying links from the wrong person can get you into serious SEO trouble. Be careful who you get links from. We only recommend getting links from very trusted providers, and we will never recommend someone we have not worked with before – at least not without a gigantic disclaimer. Make sure you fully trust & vet any person or company before purchasing links from them. What Makes a Link Good? There are some properties that make a link good, and knowing how to evaluate link opportunities is a crucial skill to develop for conducting a successful SEO campaign. We cover this in detail in our Link Building Intro Guide, but it’s worth re-capping a few of the main points here as well. Things that make backlinks good: Authority Relevance Traffic Backlinks to Avoid Up to this point, we have talked a lot about back links you should acquire, which kind to get and how to do it. But, equally important to the backlinks you GET is the ones to AVOID getting. The key to mastering this (without having to memorize a bunch of stuff) is to learn how to identify a “bad neighborhood” – and avoid being associated with it. In general, you want to avoid getting links from: Irrelevant websites (unless they are very high DR) Domains in questionable geographies Domains that have been hacked/spammed Domains with toxic or over-optimized anchor text Public Blog Networks Software built backlinks Fiverr Public Blog Networks A public blog network is really just a PBN (private blog network) that isn’t actually private. Building and maintaining a private blog network is very time consuming, expensive, technically difficult, and overall just one giant P.I.T.A. However, if done well and kept secret they are extremely powerful. The problem is there are many providers that publicly sell links on their “Private” Blog Networking – thus making it a “Public Blog Network”. They usually don’t have your best interests in mind they just want some money for a link. Do not get these links. Software built backlinks There are a lot of software that builds backlinks these days. They are cheap, fast & can build links in huge quantities. This used to work many years ago, but now it is really just a recipe for disaster. Unless you really know what you are doing, stay away from using software to build links. Fiverr A lot of SEOs go to Fiverr for link building work. Terrible idea. Although there may be the occasional quality link provider on Fiverr – for the most part these people are spammers who are trying to make some easy money. They don’t care about you, or your client, or your website or anything other than selling garbage. Do you really think this is worth this dude’s time to build you 500,000 links for $5? And do you really think it would be natural for Google to see 500,000 links come to your site all of a sudden? Why Manufacturing industry needs Digital marketing The answer is Duck No. Avoid Fiverr for backlinks. Evaluating a Potential Backlink Opportunity Here is a video talking about a guest post opportunity I was presented with, but that I ultimately deemed to be a bad idea. In the video, I
