Link building strategies: how to choose and combine tactics for your site

At a glance

• A link building strategy decides which pages need links, where the links come from, which anchors they use and how fast you add them.
• Tactics differ most on control, cost, speed, scale and risk, and the right mix depends on your type of site.
• “White hat” isn’t a safety label: Google’s spam policies cover any link built mainly to manipulate rankings, outreach and guest posts included.
• Most sites do best with a mix of earned links for credibility and links they control for the pages that need to rank.
• A private blog network gives you the most control over anchors, relevance and timing, at the cost of time and money up front.

What a link building strategy is

The tactics, scored

Every guide on this topic lists ten or more tactics as if they were equal. They aren’t. Here is how the main ones compare on the five things that decide whether a tactic fits your situation.

Tactic	Control over anchor and placement	Cost	Time to first link	Scale	Risk
Competitor backlink mining	Low to some	Tool subscription, your time	Weeks	Moderate	Low
Broken link building	Low	Your time, maybe new content	Weeks to months	Limited	Low
Resource pages	Low	Your time	Weeks	Limited	Low
Guest posts and contributor columns	Some	Time, often fees	Weeks	Moderate	Moderate if paid
Digital PR and journalist requests	None	Moderate to high	Months	Unpredictable	Low
Reciprocal links	Some	Your time	Days	Limited	Moderate in excess
Low-tier links (directories, citations, profiles)	Full	Low	Days	High	Low value, low risk in small doses
Buying links	Low	Per link or retainer	Days	High	High on sites that sell to anyone
Your own PBN	Full	Domains, hosting, content	Weeks to set up	As large as you build	Depends on how well it is built

Competitor backlink mining

Look at who links to the sites outranking you, and target the sites that link to several of them but not to you. Ahrefs’ Link Intersect and Semrush’s Backlink Gap do this in a few clicks. If a competitor appears in a “best of” list and you don’t, ask to be added. This is the best starting point for almost any site, because it shows which links are realistic in your niche. Our roundup of link building tools covers the options.

Broken link building

Find links on other sites that point to pages that no longer exist, then offer your page as the replacement. It works best when you already have a page that covers the same subject. If you have to write one first, the effort goes up and there is still no guarantee of a reply.

Resource pages

Many sites keep pages that list useful links on a topic. If you have a guide or tool that belongs on the list, ask. It is slow, but the links are real and relevant.

Guest posts and contributor columns

Writing for other sites in your niche gets you a link and some control over the topic and anchor. One-off guest posts take a lot of effort per link. A regular contributor slot on two or three good sites is better: once the editor trusts you, each new article is easier to place, and the column becomes a long-term source of links. Our guide to outreach templates covers the pitch.

Digital PR and journalist requests

Create something worth reporting, such as original data or a strong opinion backed by experience, and pitch it to journalists. A good campaign can earn links from news sites no other tactic can reach. HARO, the best-known journalist-request service, no longer operates. Other platforms do the same job, but a quote doesn’t guarantee a link, and many publications use nofollow.

Reciprocal links

You link to a relevant site and it links back. A few between genuinely related sites are normal. Google’s spam policies list “Excessive link exchanges (“Link to me and I’ll link to you”)” as link spam (developers.google.com, fetched 2026-10-28), so keep them occasional and relevant.

Low-tier links

Directory listings, business citations, social profiles and similar links are easy to get and pass little value on their own. They make a link profile look normal, and for local businesses, citations are part of the basics. Build a modest set, then move on.

Buying links

It is the fastest way to get links, and the riskiest when the seller’s sites sell to everyone. If you consider it, read what link building services deliver and our guide to link building cost first.

Your own PBN

A private blog network is a group of sites you own, usually built on expired domains with existing backlinks, that link to your money sites. It is the only tactic where you control every part of the link. We cover it in more detail below.

”White hat” link building and the hat labels

Most strategy guides sort tactics into white hat (safe) and black hat (risky). That sorting doesn’t match what Google itself says.

Google’s spam policies define link spam as “the practice of creating links to or from a site primarily for the purpose of manipulating search rankings.” The examples include buying links, excessive link exchanges, automated link creation, “Sending someone a product in exchange for them writing about it and including a link”, and links “with optimized anchor text in articles, guest posts, or press releases distributed on other sites” (developers.google.com, fetched 2026-10-28). A guest post written to get a keyword-rich link is on that list, just like a bought one.

Our PBN guide puts it plainly. Black hat means “hacking and/or exploiting other people’s websites.” A PBN is your own property. PBNs are against Google’s guidelines, “but so are any other types of link-building efforts, like buying links, and even popular ‘white hat’ options like outreach and guest posts.” The guide is equally clear about whose rules these are: “If you’re a small business, Google is not your friend.”

So don’t pick tactics by hat color. Pick them by how much control you get, what they cost, and how detectable they are. For the tactics that do exploit other people’s sites, see black hat link building.

Strategy by site type

Local business

Start with the basics that only local businesses can get: a complete Google Business Profile, consistent citations in the main directories, and links from local organizations you already deal with, such as suppliers, associations, sponsorships and local news. Then add a small private network of blogs relevant to your trade and area. Our guide to local SEO backlinks lists the sources. Our PBN guide notes that backlinks to a plumber’s website are hard to come by, which is exactly why local businesses benefit from links they control.

Ecommerce store

Ecommerce sites have a specific problem: product and category pages are what need to rank, and few sites link to them on their own. Our plan:

• Mine competitors’ broken links. Use Ahrefs or Semrush to find dead pages on competitor sites that still have links, and offer the site owners your equivalent page.
• Reach out to bloggers and creators in your niche who review products. Be aware that sending a free product in exchange for a review with a link is on Google’s link spam list, so treat a review link as a bonus and the exposure as the goal.
• Publish buying guides and comparisons that other sites can cite, and link from them to your category pages.
• Use your own network to send links straight to the category pages that matter most, with anchors you choose.

Affiliate or niche site

Affiliate sites have the hardest time earning links naturally, because their pages exist to send readers to a merchant. Few site owners will link to that. A private network is the backbone for most affiliate sites that rank in competitive niches, with resource-page and broken-link outreach for the informational pages that can earn links.

B2B and SaaS

B2B and software companies have more natural link sources than most: integration partners, customer case studies, original data from their own product, and founders who can write contributor columns or give expert quotes. Lead with digital PR and contributor content. Use competitor mining to find the review and comparison sites in your category.

Agencies managing client sites

Agencies need a process that scales across clients without every client’s links coming from the same places. Use competitor mining per client to set realistic targets. For the links you control, a private network of your own, segmented by niche, means you aren’t renting the same placements every other agency buys. Keep client networks separate so one client’s sites never link to another’s.

Build the backbone: your own network

A link building network, in SEO, usually means a private blog network: a set of sites you own that link to your main sites. Our PBN guide makes the case in one line: “The ultimate goal is to have control over link-building efforts for your money sites.” You choose the anchor text, the topical relevance of the linking page and when the link goes live, and nobody removes it later.

The guide breaks the build into three steps:

1. Buy expired, closeout or auction domains with existing links and authority. The guide’s floor is at least 10 Ahrefs Domain Rating and 10 or more referring domains, with a clean anchor text profile.
2. Host the blogs on hosting that gives each one real IP diversity.
3. Restore the old content, add new content, then link to your money site.

Test each blog before you rely on it. The guide says to wait at least 30 days after registering the domain, link from the blog to a low-competition page you track, and watch it for three to four weeks. If the page drops, the domain is toxic. The guide’s advice on pace is to treat it as “a marathon, not a sprint.” For the full process, see how to build a PBN and how to choose an expired domain.

Running the network with Easy Blog Networks

A network is many WordPress blogs, and each needs to be hosted separately from the others and kept updated. Easy Blog Networks puts each blog on a unique IP at a large hosting provider with that provider’s own nameservers, keeps WordPress, themes and plugins updated automatically, takes daily backups, and can post AI-written articles on a schedule with your own OpenAI API key. Plans start at US$39/month for 10 blogs, with a 7-day free trial. See pricing for larger networks.

Pace, anchors and measurement

There is no safe number of links per month. What matters is that your pace looks plausible for a site of your size and age, and that it doesn’t stop and start in sharp spikes. Add links steadily, and build up the pages you link to with your own content at the same time.

For anchor text, vary it. Use your brand name, the plain URL, natural phrases and only occasionally the exact keyword you want to rank for. A profile where most anchors are the same commercial keyword is one of the easiest patterns to spot.

Measure two things: whether the links exist and whether the target pages move. Google Search Console’s Links report shows a sample of the links Google knows about. Ahrefs or Semrush show new and lost links in more detail, and our guide on how to check backlinks covers the method. Track rankings for each target page, and give a round of links several weeks before you judge it. If harmful links appear, see whether backlinks can hurt your site before you act.

Is link building worth it?

For most sites that want search traffic, yes. Google states that link analysis, including PageRank, remains part of its core ranking systems. In competitive niches, our PBN guide’s point holds: when everyone publishes similar, well-optimized content, “in the end, links are what’s ranking you on the first page.” Links also keep working after you stop paying for them, unlike ads.

Two cautions. First, the scores tools put on sites (Ahrefs’ Domain Rating, Moz’s Domain Authority) are those vendors’ own estimates of link strength. They aren’t Google’s, so raising them isn’t the goal. Rankings and traffic are. Second, link building takes months to pay off, so judge it on a timescale of quarters.

FAQ

What is the best link building strategy?

For most sites: competitor backlink mining to find realistic targets, a few earned links from content or contributor columns, and your own network for the pages that need to rank. The exact mix depends on your site type, as above.

Is white hat link building safe?

It is safer from detection because the links sit on real sites, but it isn’t outside Google’s policies. Google’s spam policies cover guest posts with optimized anchors and free products given in exchange for links, as well as paid links.

What is a link building network?

Usually a private blog network: a group of sites one person or company controls and uses to link to their main sites. A network that sells links to anyone is a public network, which our guide advises never to buy from.

How long does link building take to work?

Weeks for a single link to be found and counted, and months for a strategy to show in rankings. Plan in quarters.