22 SEO Link Building Methods for 2022

22 SEO Link Building Methods for 2022

Link building has been dead for years, for those who failed to adapt to the ever-changing rules and increased requirements on skills, tools, details, and perseverance.

The Golden Rules of Link Building are evergreen rules for the right mindset of successful link building. If you have not learnt about Cemper’s Golden Link Building Rules, then do that before you continue here.

There has been much talk about links being a ranking factor. Many SEOs have only focused on content and On-Page SEO and neglected links saying: “We already know everything about links”. But do they know everything about links?

Google confirmed, that Links are important

Google said links are the #1 ranking factor, alongside with great content. Ranking without links is hard, and why would anyone try to rank without links in the first place?

Google cares about links more than anything, and so should you.

Google Penguin changed the way we use Backlinks in SEO forever

Before April 2012, one could rather easily buy his ranking position by adding more and more links. The Google Penguin Spam Filter is now part of Google’s Core Algorithm and works in real time.

Links can possess a risk now, and you should know that risk.

A link is a connection from A to B

A hyperlink is a connection from the referring page to the target page - always has been. To our knowledge, LRT is the only software that takes the link source page and the target page into account when analyzing the value and risk of links.

State of the Art Link Development

Today link building has grown into professional practice. LRT users that weed the good from the chaff are happy to spend 3x more resources on the 10% great links that matter, instead of going bulk like so many.

Read on and learn more about:

Do not let the Google Penguin algorithm intimidate you.

Start building great links today!

What do you mean by backlink?

When we refer to a backlink we mean a reference from another web page to your own web page. This is very different from the “outbound” or outgoing links from your page. A back link is also called an inbound link (IBL) sometimes and these links are very important in determining the popularity (or importance) of your web site for search engines like Google.

Can a website rank without back links?

We are 100% sure that a website cannot rank without inbound links.

Why is link building important?

But don’t take it from us when we say that links are important, take it directly from Google.

Content & Links the Top 2 Google Ranking Factors

In March 2016, in a Q&A between some smart SEOs with Googler Andrey Lipattsev, a Search Quality Senior Strategist, he said the first two Google ranking factors were links and content:

“I can tell you what they are. It is content. And it’s links pointing to your site.” (Andrey Lipattsev, Search Quality Senior Strategist at Google)

We’ve seen Google confirming that links are a very important ranking factor and that ranking without links is nearly impossible on other occasions as well.

Are all back links the same?

“The more, the better” saying doesn’t go for links. At least not as long as “more” means links you buy without checking if they are risky for your backlink profile or not. You’d better aim for fewer high-quality links than for thousands of links that bring no value to your backlink profile.

Also, these factors can be evaluated differently in different cases. A link can also be good or bad depending on the industry, the country, the language and the keywords. Unfortunately, there is no generic rule.

What are Google’s rules when it comes to link building?

Because not all links are equal, you need to be very careful when you start a link building campaign. Build links for your business, for your customers, make them relevant and associate them with great content. Your users will be happy, Google will keep you in the search results and your business will grow.

Bad Link Building Good Link Building
❌ Reciprocal Linking Excessive link exchange will negatively impact a website’s ranking in search results. ✅ Reciprocal Linking As long as you don’t do reciprocal linking excessively and these reciprocal links are on topic and “make sense from a user standpoint”, link exchange is not something bad.
❌Article Marketing or Guest Posting Links with over optimized anchor text in articles or press releases distributed on other sites. ✅ Article Marketing or Guest Posting It’s great that people write about you and link back to your website, but just as long as they create links naturally.
❌ Web Directory Links Adding your site to any web directory just to get a backlink will have a negative effect on your website’s ranking. ✅ Web Directory Links The best directories are the ones that also provide useful information for your potential customers.
❌ Forum and Blogposts Comments Unhelpful forum or blog comments with optimized links in the post or signature. ✅ Forum and Blogposts Comments If you participate in an active discussion on a forum or blog that is relevant to your business and if your comment provides contextual value to the discussion.
❌ Buying Links… or Not! Google considers links as votes and paying for a vote is unethical. ✅ Buying Links… or Not! Instead of buying links, you can invest in creating high quality content and promoting your site in a way that attracts natural backlinks.

Simple link building tips

Although proper link building is not an easy thing to do, there are still many white hat SEO techniques you can start with even today, without considerable efforts or expenses.

1. Ask for backlinks

This is a good way to start, especially if you are a beginner in this job. Think about your friends, relatives, colleagues, partners, clients that have a blog or a site. All you have to do is ask for a backlink.

2. Build relationships

For good link building, you need to build good relationships. There are plenty of opportunities to build new contacts. You should start with niche-related communities: forums, blogs or social groups.

3. Give a testimonial

Testimonial link building is a win-win scenario. Many businesses offer you the chance to say a few words about your experience using their products.

4. Start a blog

Don’t make a blog with one post and one backlink to your site. If you want to have your own blog, you need to keep it alive. Write posts on a regular basis.

5. List your site in trustworthy directories

But not all online directories are bad. A directory that not only gives you the chance to post a link to your website, but also provides useful information for your potential customers is a directory you want to be listed on.

6. Write a good guest post

There are many sites and blogs that will accept to publish your article. Before you write an article somewhere, make sure that the website or blog is relevant to your topic.

Advanced link building tips

Link building has become a very hard and tricky job, and because of that you need professional tools to help you with that.

7. Discover competitors’ common backlinks

If you research your competitors, you will probably notice that they have some backlinks in common which you don’t have yet. The Common Backlinks Tool (CBLT) is a tool made for this.

8. Get an indirect backlink from your competitor

The Link Juice Thief (LJT) finds places where your competitors commonly link to. These sites are usually big authorities in your industry.

9. Recover your dead backlinks

Sometimes you might find broken links to your website. In both cases, these backlinks will return a 404 error.

10. Turn your mentions into backlinks

This is probably one of the easiest ways to gain some new backlinks.

11. Find the strongest competitors healthy backlinks

You can use Competitive Link Detox (CDTOX) to compare your site against 10 of your competitors.

12. Find the most relevant link building opportunities

After you get your results, you can sort them by strength, theme or any other metric you want.

13. Be aware of your competitor’s new links

Link Alerts (LA) is a tool made to inform you about your new backlinks.

14. Launch a “Scholarship” contest or a giveaway campaign

.gov and .edu links pass a lot of Trust, but they are also very hard to get.

Link Earning Tips - earn your links!

Building links is one thing, but you can also earn links if you put out great content.

15. Infographics

Many people use Infographics to attract links. And it works.

16. Lists

You know what?

  1. Lists
  2. Are
  3. Cool

17. Research reports and case studies

Your personal opinion can be interesting and valuable, especially if you have been in a specific field for a long time.

18. Newsletter subscriptions

If it is used properly, the benefits can be great.

19. Extra material

You can also try and get the most value from every piece of content you create by reusing your content in different formats: guides, infographics, videos, webinar recordings, transcripts.

20. Learn from others

There is nothing as sad as people who spend days and weeks writing about something and then… nothing.

Link Building Tools

Here’s a list of all the tools we used to create this article:

We encourage you to start building links. But before you do that, make sure to do a detailed link audit and disavow all the spammy links you bought in the past.