By learning how to get backlinks for free, you can grow your brand without having to invest any money.

The idea is super simple: just ask a website owner for a backlink.

You have to create a backlink request that cannot be ignored or rejected.

The fact is, backlinks are still one of Google’s top 3 ranking factors and it’s not likely to change anytime soon.

When Google crawls the web, it looks for your website’s backlinks, to determine how your pages are related to one another. There are undoubtedly hundreds of ranking factors. However, backlinks are among the most important metrics for SEO.

As a result, many marketers and business owners wonder how to create quality backlinks to their websites. Links from one website to another are viewed as votes of expertise, trust, and authority.

An increased authority can lead to higher rankings on SERPs, which means greater visibility and organic traffic for your site. However, not all links are treated equally by Google, and if you are using the wrong type (toxic links), you could hurt your website ranking.

HOW TO GET BACKLINKS FOR FREE

Basically, backlinks should:

• Be editorially acclaimed
• Sourced from authoritative, relevant websites
• Not sponsored nor paid for

Backlinks can help turbocharge your SEO strategy, and there are numerous ways to earn superb and high-quality backlinks. 

12 Tips To Create Backlinks For Free

This is the time to get strategic and craft a backlink request plan that sticks in other site owners’ minds. 

Below are some effective ways to get more backlinks for your website:

1. Use H.A.R.O.

When it comes to high-quality backlinks, getting links from news websites and journalistic blogs is like winning a jackpot.

This is because these websites have a high domain authority, which can improve your SEO efforts in a quick way.

Fortunately, this isn’t as hard as it sounds.

All you need to do is use a free service called Help A Reporter Out (HARO).

A service like HARO (Help A Reporter Out) is an excellent way to achieve links from high authority publications, which benefit your SEO strategy greatly.

HARO connects people who need sources (bloggers and journalists) with those who want links and exposure (you).

There is no doubt that this strategy takes time and effort. It also isn’t always straightforward.

However, in my experience, it is one of the best ways to build high-quality backlinks efficiently.

2. Spy on Your Competitors

How do your competitors get backlinks? What type of content do they post and how do they get backlinks? If you want to stay up to date on what’s going on in the industry, you need to know what others are doing.

You can spy on your competitors to discover their most popular content, where they get their backlinks from, and more.

If you want to find backlinks, you can use SEO tools like SEMrush. Using it, you can look at the backlink profile of any website. 

Alternatively, you can also use Ubersuggest’s free version, which displays everything you need to know about your competitors’ backlinks.

Using these sources, you can obtain a backlink for your website as well. As an example, if your competitor has a link from a guest post, you can also publish content on the guest posting website.

Similarly, if your competitor has a backlink from a forum, you can create a profile in that forum in order to earn a backlink.

To stay one step ahead of your competitors, you can sign up for their newsletters and set up Google Alerts. In this way, you are notified automatically whenever they publish new content or are mentioned on another website.

Let’s move on to the next strategy …

3. Use Broken Link Strategy

If you’re analyzing your competitors, you also need to check their broken links. Broken link building is a quick and effective strategy to capture backlinks.

Broken links are links that no longer exist or are not working on a website. 

These errors occur for a variety of reasons, including when a source website removes links (404 error), when a URL is incorrect, or when a destination website has closed or moved.

Whatever the reason, this is an outstanding opportunity for you to get a backlink.

All you have to do is find broken links, contact the website for replacement, and pitch your site as an alternative. Very simple & straightforward!

To find broken links, you can first look at your competitors and then search for more websites in your niche. 

With the Ahrefs Broken link Checker in free mode, you can enter your domain name and click on ‘Check Broken Links’ to learn what is broken.

After you have compiled a list of broken links, you need to contact the owner of the websites and pitch yourself.

Be humble and introduce yourself when writing your pitch. Please include the exact location of the broken link, as you want to assist them in the first place.

Then you can offer different solutions, including your own website, for the broken link. Most likely, the owner will use your website as a replacement, and you’ll get a backlink in return.

4. Publish High-Quality Content

In this area, you should focus on creating high-quality content that is link-worthy.

Creating top-notch content is one of the best ways to get backlinks. You should aim to create content that other bloggers and industry experts can use and link back to your site.

It may be a time-consuming strategy, but if done well, it is worth it. 

There are various types of content you can produce. You can write how-to articles, post guides, make lists, and conduct quizzes.

For example, if you have a travel blog you can create an article about how to have a memorable tour with Rs1000. In addition, you can create a list post listing 20 cheap travel spots.

BuzzSumo can help you find out which content is most shared across the internet for a particular keyword. Additionally, you will see the headline, the type of content, and where it receives the most traction.

Once you have decided on your concept, you should go ahead and start optimizing every aspect of it.

5. Publish Skyscraper Content

Skyscraper content is a type of article that covers any topic in great detail and could be up to 5000+ words in length.

The purpose of skyscraper content is to write a post that explains the topic in super detail and is better than the rest. As a result, other sites will link to your post and you will receive a good number of high-quality backlinks.

On Google, search for a topic in your niche. 

Now take a closer look at the results because these are the pages that have many backlinks from other domains and have made it to page one of Google.

Next, visit each of the links and create an original post that is 5X better and has all the information in detail.

After your skyscraper content is finished, it’s time to promote it. You can do this in a variety of ways.

You can start by reaching out to all the companies, influencers, tools, and sources you mentioned in your content. If that article was helpful to them, tell them to share it with their audience if they liked it.

The more people learn about your skyscraper guide, the more people will pick up your content and you will get backlinks.

A second method for promoting your post is to find sites that have already backlinked to existing posts and then pitch your content as an improvement.

This is a task you can accomplish using SEO tools like SEMrush and Ahrefs. You only need to input the URL of each of the top 10 results in the tool in order to retrieve a list of websites that are linked to the original article.

Then, contact these sites and introduce your skyscraper content. Tell them how your post is better and ask them to give you a backlink.

The process is super simple !!

6. Prove Your Website is Legitimate

If you want to appear legitimate, you do not need a premium theme or anything like that. But you should make sure the sites you want to pitch believe you are legit.

Connecting your social profiles can help.

Initially, your site will not have much popularity. You’ll have to be even more convincing. Don’t underestimate the power of creating top-tier content. You might very well be rewarded for your efforts.

7. Guest Posting or Guest Blogging

An excellent method for getting backlinks for your website is guest posting, which has been tried and tested for several years. There are a number of sites that accept guest posts, so you can submit a post to them.

There are a lot of websites that have a contributor account or a write for us section where anyone can submit an article and get featured. In addition, you can link to your site within the content and get a backlink from them.

You can find guest blogging websites by doing a simple Google search.

Write the topic keyword you want to target and add “guest article” or “guest post” or “write for us” in the end. 

Google will then filter the results and show only guest-posting-friendly websites.

After that, make a pitch for your topic and outline what you will discuss in the article. Be sure to emphasize the benefits and how it helps their readers.

8. Create Infographic

Readers love infographics because they’re visual and easy to learn. Hence, content marketers share them a lot.

When you create an infographic for your website, and others share it, your website must be linked to it. 

Using tools like Canva, you can create an infographic for free. 

When you create your own infographic and publish it, you can reach out to other bloggers in your niche and ask them to share it if it’s relevant to their audience.

9. Write Reviews for Others

The act of writing reviews or testimonials for others may seem bizarre, but it could be beneficial to your SEO and backlink strategy.

If you do so, the website may include a backlink to your website.

Even though you may feel you are helping the business to generate sales, you are also improving the ranking of your own website. So the contribution is well worth it.

10. Take Part in Interviews

As with guest posts, interviews also provide you with backlinks opportunities. Look for interview sites that run interviews regularly on the Internet if you want to land an interview.

A good place to start is Quora. Basically, it’s a site where you can answer questions in real-time. In your profile, you can share a link to your website.

Through HARO, you can also secure an interview. Look for queries that are relevant to your industry and request an interview to get a backlink.

11. Take Part in Forums

Forums are excellent places to get backlinks to your site. You can also become an industry expert and drive traffic to your website by participating in forums.

If you are unsure of which forums to participate in, search Google for suggestions. 

Use any of these keywords for your niche:

• [your niche] + forums
• Forums + [your niche]
• [your niche] + discussion

Quora is an excellent place to begin. It’s a question and answer platform that covers a broad range of topics. You can search Quora for any topic and you’ll be presented with all the questions related to it.

Another way to find forums is to look at your competitors. It’s possible to see what forums they used to get backlinks using SEO tools, and then do the same thing yourself.

12. List your site on Resources sites

Resource pages are where the author curates a long list of useful resources and links different products and services.

Resource pages are the dream of any link builder.

Why? These are pages that exist purely to link out to other sites.

Possibly you are wondering,

“OK, that’s fantastic. Then how do I get links from the resource pages?”

First of all, you have to find resource pages.

It is sometimes hard to locate this kind of website. Most people don’t call their resource page a “resource page”. Instead of using the term, people often refer to their pages as:

“useful resources”

“helpful resources”

“additional resources”

Therefore, you can find these pages by using your topic keyword plus a term like these.

Imagine you wrote an article about Python programming.

Then you have to search for :

Once you’ve found a resource page, reach out to the author and request a link.

You can use this template to pitch the webmaster :

Hi [Name],

Today, I was looking for some articles I could read about [Your Topic], when I came across your [Resource Page Title].

That’s really awesome.

However, I noticed that you have a section dedicated to [Your Topic] on your resource page.

Interestingly, I wrote a comprehensive guide on that topic recently. Perhaps it will be helpful for your page.

Here’s the link to my article : [Your Article URL]

I look forward to hearing from you soon,

Thanks and happy day to you!

Regards,

[Your First Name]

Templates are merely starting points. The more personalized your outreach emails are, the more links you’re going to get.

You can start with this proven script and afterward, you can start upgrading your pitch.

Make sure your emails are personalized and include links to your site. Explain how your site or tool benefits the readers of their resource page and adds value to it.

How To Write a Pitch To Get Backlinks

First, think about the subject line. Your subject line should be given more importance than any other part of your request because it could determine whether or not someone clicks on it. 

Next, you’ll need to draft the pitch itself. Make sure you are friendly and approachable and don’t forget to mention what you can offer the recipient.

Contact other sites that are linking to that resource and let them know you have a better version. Link building with this method works flawlessly and establishes your site as an authority.

This is a simple concept: make suggestions on someone’s site and politely request that they reciprocate.

The powerful aspect of this is that it plays on a social trigger called reciprocity. By sending this template to someone, they would likely be ready to assist you.

Conclusion

So now you know how to get backlinks for free and you can improve your search engine ranking by increasing the number of high-quality backlinks.

There is no need for a lot of money or celebrity status to learn how to create backlinks for SEO. Backlinks are an important part of any SEO strategy, but they don’t just happen by themselves. It’s always better to ask for them rather than wait for them to happen.

You can boost your backlink game and start seeing real improvements in your SEO rankings by creating content that others want to link to and developing relationships with the real people who own other websites.

Now it’s your turn.

Which strategy from today’s post will you use first?

Is Skyscraper content exciting for you?

Or you want to try the Broken Link strategy?

Feel free to leave a comment below right now.