Link-building is a crucial part of SEO and can be the difference between page 1 and 5 on Google.
But without the right strategy, you can quickly blow your budget, or even worse, harm your rankings.
In this article, we’ll tell you:
- Why should you be doing link-building
- How to evaluate a backlink’s power
- How to kick-start an impactful link-building campaign
- And more!
Let’s dive in.
Why is Link-building Important for SEO?
Here’s the first thing you need to know about the importance of link-building:
The quality and number of backlinks pointing to your website dictate its Google rankings.
It’s important to realize that on-page SEO is only part of the puzzle.
If you want to rank for high-traffic, high-potential keywords, you need backlinks.
Of course, you can rank for low-competition keywords without backlinks.
But, what about the high-potential keywords that can bring in a lot of business?
In a nutshell, more high-quality backlinks lead to a higher authority.
And a higher authority leads to better organic rankings and traffic.
What Decides the Value of a Link?
Now, there are tons of places on the internet you can get backlinks from.
But, building as many links as possible in the shortest possible time shouldn’t be your goal.
Make sure you’re only building the right kind of links to your site because the wrong ones will have the opposite impact.
Before we delve into the link-building process, let’s take a quick look at what factors decide the value of a backlink.
Authority
The first, and probably the most obvious, factor affecting the value of a backlink is the authority or strength of a domain it’s coming from.
SEO tools like SEMrush and Ahrefs give you a rough estimate in the form of a number out of 100.
The number reflects the quality and quantity of backlinks pointing to the domain in question.
So, the rule of thumb is: Backlinks from high-authority websites are more valuable than backlinks from low-authority websites.
For instance, a backlink from Forbes, a DR-94 website, is considered super valuable.

Traffic
Organic traffic is another relevant metric to look at while evaluating a website for link-building.
SEO software like Ahrefs can give you an estimate.

Now, more traffic is always good, but you also need it to be relevant.
You can check the relevancy by looking at the top-ranking keywords of a website.
Generally, you want to acquire backlinks from a website with a decent number of steady SEO clicks.
Remember that organic traffic of a website that’s linking to you isn’t going to affect your SEO rankings directly.
But, it’s going to bring in more referral traffic, leading to more engagement, which provides an indirect ranking boost.
Power
The power of a domain is dictated by the number and quality of backlinks pointing to it.
But, what matters more is the unique number of referring domains pointing to a web page.
This means more backlinks don’t always mean more SEO power. But, a higher number of high-authority referring domains do.
Relevance
Now, all other SEO metrics are only effective when a backlink is relevant to the subject matter of your website or blog.
So, it’s quite possible to get a better ranking boost from a relevant DR-30 website than an irrelevant DR-80 website.
Imagine a food blog referring an SEO software. The content of both websites needs to be in line for the backlink to make sense and be effective.
Now that you know how to evaluate a backlink, it’s time to take action.
Here’s a step-by-step guide on executing a link-building campaign the right way.
How to Start a Powerful Link-building Campaign

Strategy 1: Guest Blogging
Despite what you may have heard, guest blogging is still one of the most popular and effective link-building strategies.
Of course, there are right and wrong ways to do guest blogging. And whether it works for you depends mainly on how you approach it.
Why guest blog?
- Backlinks (Of course)
- Referral traffic
It’s one of the most effective ways to generate niche-relevant traffic to your website.
The science is simple: You provide the website owner with great content; they reciprocate with a backlink.
However, don’t waste your effort by guest blogging on websites that don’t have enough authority.
Remember to analyze a domain for all the factors we discussed in the previous section.
Here’s what to do.
Despite what you might have heard, it’s pretty straightforward.
Start by looking for websites in your industry that accept guest posts.
Google would be the ideal place to do it.
Type in the name of the blog you want a guest post on and add “Contribute” to the search.
Let’s say you want to publish a guest post on Legiit.

You can always use different variations if you don’t find the relevant page. This could include:
- (Website name + guest blog)
- (Website name + guest post)
- (Website name + guest post guidelines)
- And maybe more
Follow the website’s guest post guidelines and offer a quality piece that’s relevant to their audience and marketing goals.
The best thing about this strategy is that you don’t need to send tons of emails only to get a firm “No” after two weeks.
It’s a simple form submission with a quick acceptance/rejection timeframe.
Strategy 2: Mention Other Sites in Your Post
Mentioning other sites in your posts is an effective way to generate a lot of shares.
This can easily lead to more backlinks to that post.
Plus, you can add links to their web pages and let them know about that.
The urge to reciprocate might make them link back to you.
Strategy 3. Prospect for Broken Links.
Broken link-building still works like a charm.
Why?
Because no website owner likes broken links for two reasons:
- They’re bad for SEO
- They’re bad for user-experience
Fortunately, this also doesn’t have to be complicated.
Start by browsing a blog or website you want a backlink from and scan the pages for any potential broken links.
You can use a free browser extension like “Check My Links” to find broken links on any web page.

Here’s what you need to do after installing the extension:
- Pin it at the top
- Go to your favorite blog (The one you want a backlink from)
- Click on the extension icon
It’ll start scanning the page for valid, redirected, and invalid links.

Once you find an invalid link (broken link), reach out to the website owner.
Let them know there’s a broken link on their web page.
And then, you can say something like, “I have a great post on the same topic. It’d be a perfect replacement”.
Try to be as natural and real as possible and keep your link-building outreach message short and concise.
Strategy 4. Use Infographics as Link Bait.
No matter who you’re trying to reach and connect with online, 65% of them are visual learners.
So, it’s obvious why people love infographics. They get the message across in a visual, easy-to-consume format.
Importantly, infographics get shares!
And when other content creators share your infographic or a part of it with their audience, they have to cite the source.
This means you can get tons of backlinks with this simple strategy.
Thankfully, you don’t need to be a designer to create eye-catching infographics for your blog.
You can hire an infographics expert on Legiit for a mere $10.
Here’s an example:

Alternatively, you can use a tool like Canva or Venngage and customize everything yourself.
In addition to creating infographics for new blog posts, consider creating them for already published posts as well.
Have any posts that are generating decent traffic but not enough links?
Start adding infographics to them!
It’ll improve their shareability, helping you get more links.
Strategy 5: Let the Experts Do the Work for You
Now, you can try to handle every aspect of your link-building campaign, but it’ll consume your time.
The time you’re better off spending on other more important aspects of your business.
Plus, the reality is that link-building is tricky; it can even do more harm than good if you don’t know what you’re doing.
Experienced link-builders know how to side-step a Google Penalty landmine effectively.
We have plenty of experienced freelancers that can take care of link-building for you, at affordable prices.
For instance, here’s one.

You can explore all link-building campaign services here.
By hiring someone on Legiit, you won’t have to worry about off-page SEO and can focus better on other aspects of your website.
Other Link-building Campaign Tips
Here are a few more link-building campaign tips you won’t find in other link-building articles.
Asking for Links
There are multiple ways to ask someone to link to your site.
One way is to simply reach out to website owners via email.
However, offering something of value first tends to work better.
You can offer a backlink as well. Or, maybe offer a service or product in return.
Earning Links
This is more of a passive way of building links to your web pages.
And it’s the only strategy Google likes, too.
How do you earn links? By focusing all your resources on producing high-quality content.
The type of content that people would want to share and link to.
While this is a good long-term approach, you can’t fully rely on it.
Nofollow vs Follow
Backlinks are generally assigned one of two attributes:
- Follow (or dofollow)
- Nofollow
Dofollow links are links that search engines can crawl and index. Assigning a dofollow attribute to a link means you want search engines to pass the page rank or authority to the destination web page.
Too many dofollow links can make Google suspicious. And nofollow links don’t add much SEO value. So, from an SEO perspective, you want a good mix of both.
Anchor Text
The right way to insert a link on a web page is through optimized anchor text.
Anchor text should be descriptive and relevant to the page it’s linking to.
However, using your target keyword in anchor text too many times is never a good SEO practice.
Adding Links
Adding your website’s link to different platforms is an easy way to diversify your link profile.
But, because it’s easy, everybody can do it, which tends to make this strategy less effective.
Quick Wins
Some link-building quick wins you should know:
- Check your existing backlinks and focus on similar websites
- Use foundation links and social bookmarking sites
- And of course, outsource your link-building campaign to an expert
Link-building Campaign: Frequently Asked Questions

What is a Link-building Campaign?
A link-building campaign refers to the strategies you use to build backlinks to your website in order to improve its authority. A typical campaign includes reaching out to industry blogs and websites for relevant, high-quality backlinks.
What is Link-building Campaign in SEO?
An SEO link-building campaign is all about building authoritative, relevant backlinks. The long-term goal here is to rank your website above your competitors on the first page of Google.
How Do I Create a Link-building Campaign?
Creating a link-building campaign is simple. You’ll need to implement a few tried and tested strategies and be patient. These strategies include guest posting, broken link-building, creating link-worthy content (e.g., infographics), and more.
What are Some Link-building Strategies 2022?
While you can start by using the tried-and-true link-building strategies, there’s always room for creativity. Some of the most common link-building strategies include guest blogging, niche edits, HARO link-building, broken link-building, and more.
Final Thoughts
Now that you know how to run a link-building campaign, it’s time to take action.
Implementing a link-building campaign doesn’t have to be hard.
You don’t have to reinvent the wheel here; focus on link-building strategies that work and discard the ones that don’t.
Link-building is a long-term game, so patience is one of the skills you’ll need.
Again, outsourcing something as tricky as link-building is always the right option.
You want the experts to take care of the technical aspects of your business so that you can focus on the strategic ones.