Backlinks are the nitrous of every successful SEO campaign.
This new guide will teach how to build backlinks in 2019. Every strategy you will read is battle tested.
Through hundreds of successful SEO campaigns, we now know what does and does NOT work.
Ready to get started? Start watching (or reading):
Need more backlinks? Get access to 7 untapped link building techniques.
Table of Contents
What are Backlinks (and How Do They Work)?
A “backlink” is created when an external website links to yours. This why some people refer to them as “external backlinks” or “inbound links”.
Here’s how it looks in action:
what are backlinks
These links are a large piece of the ranking puzzle.
But before we get into the heavy link building strategy…
You need to make sure that your site is ready for backlinks.
When to Build Backlinks
Many people dive into link acquisition before they’ve built a strong foundation. What you must realize is that a strong foundation (a well-optimized website) makes your link building more effective.
When your backlinks are more effective, you don’t need as many to achieve your desired result!
That ultimately saves you time and money.
So, here’s what you need to cover before jumping into link building:
1. Fix All Technical/UX Issues
Technical issues can hurt User Experience (UX) and UX is correlated to SEO performance (or lack of it).
View this as a foundational stage of the process.
That’s because if speed through this process, you backlinks won’t be as effective.
And what happens when your backlinks aren’t as effective?
You have to acquire more, which costs your company more money.
Here are some technical/UX issues you need to look for:
Site loading speed (use Google’s PageSpeed Insights)
Mobile friendliness (use Google’s Mobile Friendly check
Duplicate content (use Siteliner)
Canonical errors
Duplicate META data
Incorrect uses of directives (noindex, nofollow, etc)
Redirect Chains
Sometimes the most obvious solutions are right in front of your face. Redirect chains are another simple problem that can boost your site’s authority once fixed.
This is what a redirect chain looks like:
Redirect Chain
Do you see the problem with this picture?
The problem is that “Page B” is acting as a buffer between “Page A” and the final destination “Page C”.
This technical issue is robbing “Page C” of authority.
To fix this you need to 301 redirect “Page A” to “Page C” like so:
Fix Redirect Chains
By fixing a redirect chain you will send authority/link equity directly to the page.
That is more effective than making the link equity pass through a buffer.
302s
There’s some debate on whether or not PageRank passes through 302 redirects. For many years, SEOs (including myself) have always stated that you should change 302s to 301s. This is still my stance. However, he’s what Gary Illyes said about the topic: “30x redirects don’t lose PageRank anymore.”
Gary Illyes Redirects
Is Gary telling the truth? Probably.
But I still don’t think it’s worth the risk.
Out of the hundreds of SEO audits I’ve conducted, I’ve seen a few websites using 302s for their actual purpose (a temporary redirect).
In most cases 302s are nothing more than accidental.
With that said:
It’s my preference to change 302s to 301s if they aren’t being used for their actual purpose.
Reclaim Lost Link Juice (404 Link Reclamation)
404 link reclamation is at the top of the list because it is the easiest.
You can use Google Search Console to find 404s (Crawl > Crawl Errors > Not Found):
404 errors
You can also use Screaming Frog to find 404 as well (Response Codes > Client Error – 4xx):
Screaming Frog 404s
Then to see what 404 error pages have backlinks, just use Ahrefs’ or Majestic’s bulk analysis tools.
Ahrefs Bulk Analysis
Ahrefs Bulk Analysis Tool
I recommend doing both just in case you miss some links.
When you find pages with link equity, you must 301 redirect them to a relevant page on the site or to your homepage.
Fix Broken External Links
Every external link you place on your site leaks authority.
That’s why it’s important to audit your site (here’s an SEO audit checklist) to find broken external links.
This applies to both external links in your content and in the comment section.
You can easily find these broken external links using Ahrefs.
Go to “Outgoing links” and click “Broken Links”.
Broken External Links
You can use Screaming Frog SEO Spider to find most of these issues such 302 redirects, redirect chains, 404 errors, canonical errors, duplicate META data and incorrect uses of directives.
2. Develop a Strong Site Architecture
Developing an intelligent site architecture is the single best way to get the most “bang for your buck” when it comes to link building.
My favorite site architecture strategy is to use a reverse silo.
Instead of trying to acquire backlinks to non-linkable pages (homepages, category pages, product pages, etc), the reverse silo is built to acquire backlinks to content-rich pages.
These may be blog posts or individual information-driven pages.
Here’s how it works:
Reverse Silo
This is a more effective approach for link acquisition because people are much more willing to link to valuable information than sales-driven pages.
With that said:
The ultimate goal of the reverse silo is to distribute link authority (PageRank) from your content assets to your sales-driven pages (via internal linking).
I believe this content-centric approach is the safest way to grow your site’s authority.
Bringing me to the next point:
3. Create Linkable Assets
Every effective link building campaign should begin with creating linkable assets.
First, what is a linkable asset?
A linkable asset is usually a blog post or page that is informationally-driven.
For example, this blog post you’re currently reading is a linkable asset. It’s designed to educate and add value to my industry.
Lee Odden Quote
Not only is it easier to acquire backlinks to a valuable content asset, but it’s much more scalable in the long run.
That’s because you can continue to earn new backlinks overtime without much additional effort. That is, if you created the content the right way.
Read my guide on how to create SEO content to learn more.
At this stage, your website is on a strong foundation so it’s time to start building backlinks, right?
Wait a second.
You need to have a clear understanding of what a “quality” link opportunity looks like before you dive in.
This will help:
7 Backlink Quality Indicators
Not all backlinks are created equally and that’s why it’s critical that you know what a good backlink look like. Here are some guidelines to follow:
1. Relevance
Your #1 link building objective should be to get backlinks on websites that are relevant to yours.
But don’t take my word for it. Here’s what a former member of Google’s search quality team, Andre Weyher, said back in 2012:
Not only this but take PR for example, getting a link from a high PR page used to always be valuable, today it’s more the relevance of the site’s theme in regards to yours, relevance is the new PR. – Andre Weyher
This quote is stating the obvious:
Your link acquisition efforts should begin with the most relevant opportunities.
But there’s a problem with this approach:
Getting 100% exact relevancy for every single link is unrealistic.
That’s why I develop The Relevancy Pyramid framework for prioritizing your link opportunities.
The Relevancy Pyramid
Here’s a visual representation:
Relevancy Pyramid
The idea is quite simple.
There is a limited supply of 100% relevant link opportunities. However, as you broaden your research, there will be many more opportunities to go after.
The key is prioritize opportunities at the top of the pyramid (since they’re the most relevant) and work your way down the pyramid (towards less relevant opportunities).
Let me show you how it would work with a more practical example.
I’m going to show you how I would prioritize opportunities for a supplement company.
Tier One: 100% Relevancy
I will designate a “1” to any opportunities that are 100% relevant to the supplement company. An example of 100% relevancy would be a website that reviews supplements. Or, a website that focuses on a specific supplement that the client offers like creatine.
As you can imagine, 100% relevant opportunities are few and far between. This is especially true in the “supplement” industry. That’s because supplement companies create micro supplement sites to persuade you. So the chances of landing a link are low.
Tier Two: 75% Relevancy
All opportunities that are 75% relevant get a “2” designation. On this tier you would want to focus on “body building” opportunities.
Tier Three: 50% Relevancy
On tier three, you would focus on all “fitness” opportunities and assign a “3” to them.
The fitness space has unlimited opportunities.
First, you would focus on pure “fitness” blogs. After that, you could move onto any type of sports, CrossFit, or runner blogs.
It would likely take a year to tap into all the opportunities within this relevancy tier.
Tier Four: 25% Relevancy
On tier four, you would focus on “health” opportunities and assign a “4” to them.
There are countless websites about “health” in general. But, you can also tap into nutrition, elderly health, women’s health, and men’s health blogs.
Tier Five: 0% Relevancy
On tier five, you would focus on more “general” opportunities.
For example, if I link to the fall outfits guide on Joyfully Styled, it won’t be as effective a “Tier 1” opportunity. That’s because SEO and fashion aren’t relevant to each other. But, that doesn’t mean the link I injected won’t work.
We classify “general” (Tier 5) opportunities as authoritative news sites, colleges, and unrelated, but high-quality blogs.
You would assign a “5” to these opportunities.
News sites such as Huffington Post, Fox, CNN, or Yahoo would be targets on this tier.
You are likely wondering what “unrelated, but high-quality blogs” are…
Let me explain.
You would want to ask yourself:
Does the supplement company have a CEO who would like to share success secrets?
If the answer is “Yes”, then focus on entrepreneur, business, small business, sales, marketing, and Internet marketing blogs.
You would also want to consider productivity or self improvement blogs. That’s because both topics could incorporate supplements in one way or another.
Now that you understand the Relevancy Pyramid model, here’s how it would actually look in practice:
Relevancy Pyramid in Practice-min
I wouldn’t normally color code, but I wanted you to see the different tiers.
The cool thing about this process is that you can outsource the entire thing.
So, what I just showed you is how I would leverage the concept of a Relevancy Pyramid for a national SEO campaign.
Now let me show you how you can use this technique on the local level to prioritize link opportunities.
Local Relevancy Pyramid
Geo-targeted backlinks are the Creme de la creme of local SEO. That’s why you must prioritize these opportunities in the Pyramid.
Here’s how our local Relevancy Pyramid looks:
Local Relevancy Pyramid
For this example, I will use a Chicago limo company.
Tier One: 100% Geo-Targeted and Niche Relevant
Your most prized prospects will be assigned here. That’s because they must be both niche-relevant and geo-targeted relevant.
These are rare, but valuable.
An example would be a Chicago limo directory.
Tier Two: 100% Niche Relevant
Tier Two and Tier Three are interchangeable, but we like to focus on niche relevant links first.
Limos blogs, limo directories, and limo associations would fall under this category.
Tier Three: 100% Geo-Targeted
On Tier Three you would focus your efforts on Chicago-targeted opportunities.
Chicago directories and Chicago blogs are all fair game here.
Tier Four: 50% Niche Relevant
At this stage you would focus your efforts on related niches. Wedding blogs and wedding directories would fit into this category.
Tier Five: 25% Niche Relevant
On Tier Five you would focus on travel blogs, transportation blogs, and even dating blogs.
Here’s how the local Relevancy Pyramid would look in practice:
Local Relevancy Pyramid Demonstration-min
I think you get it:
Link relevancy is super important, but how do you know if an opportunity is relevant?
You want to examine:
The general content “theme” of the linking domain. Is it relevant to yours?
The relevancy of the backlinks hitting the domain. The website linking to their website relevant to yours?
I recommend using Majestic’s Topical Trust Flow Topics for this purpose.
Also read-
Know How I make money online through Ysense
How to get Direct referrals for PTC sites
How I got approval for Google adsense in a monthThis new guide will teach how to build backlinks in 2019. Every strategy you will read is battle tested.
Through hundreds of successful SEO campaigns, we now know what does and does NOT work.
Ready to get started? Start watching (or reading):
Need more backlinks? Get access to 7 untapped link building techniques.
Table of Contents
What are Backlinks (and How Do They Work)?
A “backlink” is created when an external website links to yours. This why some people refer to them as “external backlinks” or “inbound links”.
Here’s how it looks in action:
what are backlinks
These links are a large piece of the ranking puzzle.
But before we get into the heavy link building strategy…
You need to make sure that your site is ready for backlinks.
When to Build Backlinks
Many people dive into link acquisition before they’ve built a strong foundation. What you must realize is that a strong foundation (a well-optimized website) makes your link building more effective.
When your backlinks are more effective, you don’t need as many to achieve your desired result!
That ultimately saves you time and money.
So, here’s what you need to cover before jumping into link building:
1. Fix All Technical/UX Issues
Technical issues can hurt User Experience (UX) and UX is correlated to SEO performance (or lack of it).
View this as a foundational stage of the process.
That’s because if speed through this process, you backlinks won’t be as effective.
And what happens when your backlinks aren’t as effective?
You have to acquire more, which costs your company more money.
Here are some technical/UX issues you need to look for:
Site loading speed (use Google’s PageSpeed Insights)
Mobile friendliness (use Google’s Mobile Friendly check
Duplicate content (use Siteliner)
Canonical errors
Duplicate META data
Incorrect uses of directives (noindex, nofollow, etc)
Redirect Chains
Sometimes the most obvious solutions are right in front of your face. Redirect chains are another simple problem that can boost your site’s authority once fixed.
This is what a redirect chain looks like:
Redirect Chain
Do you see the problem with this picture?
The problem is that “Page B” is acting as a buffer between “Page A” and the final destination “Page C”.
This technical issue is robbing “Page C” of authority.
To fix this you need to 301 redirect “Page A” to “Page C” like so:
Fix Redirect Chains
By fixing a redirect chain you will send authority/link equity directly to the page.
That is more effective than making the link equity pass through a buffer.
302s
There’s some debate on whether or not PageRank passes through 302 redirects. For many years, SEOs (including myself) have always stated that you should change 302s to 301s. This is still my stance. However, he’s what Gary Illyes said about the topic: “30x redirects don’t lose PageRank anymore.”
Gary Illyes Redirects
Is Gary telling the truth? Probably.
But I still don’t think it’s worth the risk.
Out of the hundreds of SEO audits I’ve conducted, I’ve seen a few websites using 302s for their actual purpose (a temporary redirect).
In most cases 302s are nothing more than accidental.
With that said:
It’s my preference to change 302s to 301s if they aren’t being used for their actual purpose.
Reclaim Lost Link Juice (404 Link Reclamation)
404 link reclamation is at the top of the list because it is the easiest.
You can use Google Search Console to find 404s (Crawl > Crawl Errors > Not Found):
404 errors
You can also use Screaming Frog to find 404 as well (Response Codes > Client Error – 4xx):
Screaming Frog 404s
Then to see what 404 error pages have backlinks, just use Ahrefs’ or Majestic’s bulk analysis tools.
Ahrefs Bulk Analysis
Ahrefs Bulk Analysis Tool
I recommend doing both just in case you miss some links.
When you find pages with link equity, you must 301 redirect them to a relevant page on the site or to your homepage.
Fix Broken External Links
Every external link you place on your site leaks authority.
That’s why it’s important to audit your site (here’s an SEO audit checklist) to find broken external links.
This applies to both external links in your content and in the comment section.
You can easily find these broken external links using Ahrefs.
Go to “Outgoing links” and click “Broken Links”.
Broken External Links
You can use Screaming Frog SEO Spider to find most of these issues such 302 redirects, redirect chains, 404 errors, canonical errors, duplicate META data and incorrect uses of directives.
2. Develop a Strong Site Architecture
Developing an intelligent site architecture is the single best way to get the most “bang for your buck” when it comes to link building.
My favorite site architecture strategy is to use a reverse silo.
Instead of trying to acquire backlinks to non-linkable pages (homepages, category pages, product pages, etc), the reverse silo is built to acquire backlinks to content-rich pages.
These may be blog posts or individual information-driven pages.
Here’s how it works:
Reverse Silo
This is a more effective approach for link acquisition because people are much more willing to link to valuable information than sales-driven pages.
With that said:
The ultimate goal of the reverse silo is to distribute link authority (PageRank) from your content assets to your sales-driven pages (via internal linking).
I believe this content-centric approach is the safest way to grow your site’s authority.
Bringing me to the next point:
3. Create Linkable Assets
Every effective link building campaign should begin with creating linkable assets.
First, what is a linkable asset?
A linkable asset is usually a blog post or page that is informationally-driven.
For example, this blog post you’re currently reading is a linkable asset. It’s designed to educate and add value to my industry.
Lee Odden Quote
Not only is it easier to acquire backlinks to a valuable content asset, but it’s much more scalable in the long run.
That’s because you can continue to earn new backlinks overtime without much additional effort. That is, if you created the content the right way.
Read my guide on how to create SEO content to learn more.
At this stage, your website is on a strong foundation so it’s time to start building backlinks, right?
Wait a second.
You need to have a clear understanding of what a “quality” link opportunity looks like before you dive in.
This will help:
7 Backlink Quality Indicators
Not all backlinks are created equally and that’s why it’s critical that you know what a good backlink look like. Here are some guidelines to follow:
1. Relevance
Your #1 link building objective should be to get backlinks on websites that are relevant to yours.
But don’t take my word for it. Here’s what a former member of Google’s search quality team, Andre Weyher, said back in 2012:
Not only this but take PR for example, getting a link from a high PR page used to always be valuable, today it’s more the relevance of the site’s theme in regards to yours, relevance is the new PR. – Andre Weyher
This quote is stating the obvious:
Your link acquisition efforts should begin with the most relevant opportunities.
But there’s a problem with this approach:
Getting 100% exact relevancy for every single link is unrealistic.
That’s why I develop The Relevancy Pyramid framework for prioritizing your link opportunities.
The Relevancy Pyramid
Here’s a visual representation:
Relevancy Pyramid
The idea is quite simple.
There is a limited supply of 100% relevant link opportunities. However, as you broaden your research, there will be many more opportunities to go after.
The key is prioritize opportunities at the top of the pyramid (since they’re the most relevant) and work your way down the pyramid (towards less relevant opportunities).
Let me show you how it would work with a more practical example.
I’m going to show you how I would prioritize opportunities for a supplement company.
Tier One: 100% Relevancy
I will designate a “1” to any opportunities that are 100% relevant to the supplement company. An example of 100% relevancy would be a website that reviews supplements. Or, a website that focuses on a specific supplement that the client offers like creatine.
As you can imagine, 100% relevant opportunities are few and far between. This is especially true in the “supplement” industry. That’s because supplement companies create micro supplement sites to persuade you. So the chances of landing a link are low.
Tier Two: 75% Relevancy
All opportunities that are 75% relevant get a “2” designation. On this tier you would want to focus on “body building” opportunities.
Tier Three: 50% Relevancy
On tier three, you would focus on all “fitness” opportunities and assign a “3” to them.
The fitness space has unlimited opportunities.
First, you would focus on pure “fitness” blogs. After that, you could move onto any type of sports, CrossFit, or runner blogs.
It would likely take a year to tap into all the opportunities within this relevancy tier.
Tier Four: 25% Relevancy
On tier four, you would focus on “health” opportunities and assign a “4” to them.
There are countless websites about “health” in general. But, you can also tap into nutrition, elderly health, women’s health, and men’s health blogs.
Tier Five: 0% Relevancy
On tier five, you would focus on more “general” opportunities.
For example, if I link to the fall outfits guide on Joyfully Styled, it won’t be as effective a “Tier 1” opportunity. That’s because SEO and fashion aren’t relevant to each other. But, that doesn’t mean the link I injected won’t work.
We classify “general” (Tier 5) opportunities as authoritative news sites, colleges, and unrelated, but high-quality blogs.
You would assign a “5” to these opportunities.
News sites such as Huffington Post, Fox, CNN, or Yahoo would be targets on this tier.
You are likely wondering what “unrelated, but high-quality blogs” are…
Let me explain.
You would want to ask yourself:
Does the supplement company have a CEO who would like to share success secrets?
If the answer is “Yes”, then focus on entrepreneur, business, small business, sales, marketing, and Internet marketing blogs.
You would also want to consider productivity or self improvement blogs. That’s because both topics could incorporate supplements in one way or another.
Now that you understand the Relevancy Pyramid model, here’s how it would actually look in practice:
Relevancy Pyramid in Practice-min
I wouldn’t normally color code, but I wanted you to see the different tiers.
The cool thing about this process is that you can outsource the entire thing.
So, what I just showed you is how I would leverage the concept of a Relevancy Pyramid for a national SEO campaign.
Now let me show you how you can use this technique on the local level to prioritize link opportunities.
Local Relevancy Pyramid
Geo-targeted backlinks are the Creme de la creme of local SEO. That’s why you must prioritize these opportunities in the Pyramid.
Here’s how our local Relevancy Pyramid looks:
Local Relevancy Pyramid
For this example, I will use a Chicago limo company.
Tier One: 100% Geo-Targeted and Niche Relevant
Your most prized prospects will be assigned here. That’s because they must be both niche-relevant and geo-targeted relevant.
These are rare, but valuable.
An example would be a Chicago limo directory.
Tier Two: 100% Niche Relevant
Tier Two and Tier Three are interchangeable, but we like to focus on niche relevant links first.
Limos blogs, limo directories, and limo associations would fall under this category.
Tier Three: 100% Geo-Targeted
On Tier Three you would focus your efforts on Chicago-targeted opportunities.
Chicago directories and Chicago blogs are all fair game here.
Tier Four: 50% Niche Relevant
At this stage you would focus your efforts on related niches. Wedding blogs and wedding directories would fit into this category.
Tier Five: 25% Niche Relevant
On Tier Five you would focus on travel blogs, transportation blogs, and even dating blogs.
Here’s how the local Relevancy Pyramid would look in practice:
Local Relevancy Pyramid Demonstration-min
I think you get it:
Link relevancy is super important, but how do you know if an opportunity is relevant?
You want to examine:
The general content “theme” of the linking domain. Is it relevant to yours?
The relevancy of the backlinks hitting the domain. The website linking to their website relevant to yours?
I recommend using Majestic’s Topical Trust Flow Topics for this purpose.
Also read-
How to get Direct referrals for PTC sites
How to qualify Ysense Clixsense surveys
