50 Types of Links You Want & How to Build Them

Here are 50 Types of Links you should be getting for your business or clients, together with strategies for doing so.

Link-building tactics have grown and matured over time.

The days of link farms and link exchanges are long gone.

Link building today is more about getting links through outreach and high-quality content than it is about using spammy techniques to fool search engines.

Even so, link building (or, if you prefer, link earning) is still an effective strategy for increasing organic reach and being discovered.

It may, however, be used to increase traffic as well.

Yet, many brands and marketers still struggle to implement a successful link-building strategy.

Link building was simple a decade ago. You paid a link farm a few dollars or set up dozens of your own sites and connected them together. A few hundred dollars or a few hours of work and your site was rolling in top ranks.

Those were the days, right?

Wrong.

The issue was that link building was just too simple.

Everyone would be doing it if link building was still simple. (As did everyone else.)

Link building today is hard.

But with the right tools and knowledge, you can be one of the few utilizing it to its full potential.

You’ll find 50 different types of links to gain for your business or clients, as well as tactics for doing so, below.

Keep in mind that building links isn’t easy, and not every link kind will be suitable for every sort of organization. But I am certain you will find at least a few new link strategies to implement.

Since this is a long list, I am unable to go into great detail for each type of link, so whenever possible I have offered additional resources where you can learn more about the specific strategy.

The tactics listed below are a mix of options for increasing traffic and ranking.

Social, forum-style, and certain PR links, in general, have little direct influence on organic results, but they are great for driving referral traffic.

While.edu links aren’t inherently more powerful,.edu sites have higher domain authority, making these links more valuable.

To earn .edu links, you can allow guest posts from students (ideally those studying your industry) and encourage them to share the post with teachers/classmates.

Consider providing a discount to students or inquiring about an alumni directory at your alma mater.

.gov sites, like.edu sites, have high domain authority.

Focus on how you can help veterans of the armed forces earn.gov links.

Offer discounts, training, or scholarships, and let your local VA or SBA know about your effort.

These links have the same advantages as.gov and.edu links, but they are easier to acquire.

Consider sponsoring a charity event, giving pro bono services/products, or volunteering.

When you write high-quality, engaging content, editorial links appear naturally.

Build a diverse content marketing plan for the best chance of earning these.

Creating a resource or research that journalists would quote is the best way to get links from the press (e.g., newspapers, magazines, radio, and tv).

You can also use HARO to answer reporters’ questions, but it can be time-consuming to sort through the twice-daily emails.

This is a great in-depth article on media link building.

Internal links are some of the easiest to build.

I recommend using a related post plugin if you use WordPress to locate extra internal linking chances on your own site.

Complementary businesses target the same audience as you, but they aren’t competing directly with you.

Offer to trade guest articles, write a review of their product/service, or collaborate on a marketing effort to gain links.

You know you’re doing something good when competitors connect to you.

Consider putting together such a job board or doing in-depth, original research that is so valuable that others will link to it.

The audience, which consists of people who are deeply invested in your sector, adds value to these links.

Search for top niche forums in your industry and start engaging.

First, offer value, and then share links when it makes sense.

Go ahead and add your site to all of your social accounts if you’ve not already.

A simple step, but it sometimes gets overlooked, particularly because there are just so many social platforms.

Check:

1. Facebook
2. Instagram
3. Twitter
4. LinkedIn
5. Snapchat
6. Goodreads
7. Reddit
8. Tumblr
9. Pinterest
10. Flickr
11. Quora
12. Periscope

And any others where you maintain a presence.

You want to update your social media channels with new content.

However, if you want to keep driving traffic, utilize a service like Buffer or Hootsuite to schedule material many times.

This is different from other social media connections in that it requires extreme caution.

Users on Reddit despise being sold to, yet it can be done if done well.

On Reddit, Brent Csutoras has written extensively on marketing.

Another simple yet sometimes overlooked link.

Create a company page and connect to your site if you haven’t already.

No, you should not go out and collect dozens of useless directory links.

But DO look for legit industry directories.

This is a great place to look for niche directories.

You haven’t been able to locate one for your industry or niche. Make one of your own.

Try Yelp, Bing, and other similar sites.

This is particularly important for local brick-and-mortar stores but can help online brands, too.

For a list of local directories, see this thread.

Create a WordPress theme or plugin that people in your sector would find beneficial if you have the dev skills (or someone on your team does).

Alternatively, you might order one and have it white-labeled.

Create an ebook, then provide a link to it.

Simple stuff, right?

Because writing a book takes time, consider hiring an editor to assist you in turning a series of blog entries into a book.

A similar method for getting conventional media links, but with a focus on your locality.

This is a good resource to get started.

That’s right, good ol’ guest blogging.

Pitch a strong, well-written post to an industry news blog or a complementary business blog.

It’s a numbers game, but manual outreach works.

Look for broken links to pitch resources for, contact out to webmasters when necessary, and most importantly, make sure you’re providing value.

This Moz video on manual link building is an excellent resource.

Ensure to claim your listing and provide a link to your website.

People will often view this information before visiting your site.

See your brand listed or talked about somewhere? Enquire about just a link.

Set up a Google Alert for brand mentions and get in touch with everyone who mentions your company.

Branded anchor tags are helpful, but keyword anchor tags are also beneficial.

Any website’s sales and conversion statistics, as well as which marketing brought that traffic, may be seen in real-time. Start your free trial today.

Use key term anchor tags internally, and ask for them when you are comfortable doing so.

Is there anything you’ve spent a lot of time researching or perfecting?

Create a resource or a how-to guide for people in similar situations.

Consider this: if you’re seeking a resource, there’s a strong probability that others are looking for one as well.

Make a list of resources or ideas that people in your field could find useful.

For example, a list of 50 links you’d want to earn or places to find free stock photography.

You will earn links if you provide value.

You may make these using your own research or curate stats from other websites.

Create in-house using a tool like Canva (they have a specific infographic creator) or outsource.

I mention performing and publishing your own research a few times in this post.

That’s because original research did great for attracting links, including from infographics.

Make sure you send out your research results and state they can be used in infographics.

Offer helpful answers to inquiries on sites like Quora.

The goal is to provide value instead of searching for places to drop your link.

Use your newsletter list if you have one.

Also, think about sponsoring a newsletter for a related business.

Request that your logo is made a clickable graphic with a link to your website when it shows online.

Because YouTube is often referred to as the second largest search engine, make sure you add a clickable link in each video you record.

Don’t overthink the video.

You may use a smartphone and decent lighting to go live on Facebook, then post the video to YouTube.

Have you ever given a speech, taught a class, or presented a webinar?

Upload the slides to SlideShare to repurpose the content.

Make sure to add KTs and a link to optimize your slides.

Ask that bloggers or industry influencers try your product/service and write a review.

Some will do this for free, whilst others charge.

There’s a lot more to the internet than Wikipedia.

Contribute to a Wiki relating to your industry.

This can be done by publishing industry-related research.

A list of hundreds of wikis may be found here.

In all of these strategies, ask for the following links wherever available.

Don’t forget about no follows, though.

Although followed links are preferable, nofollow links are preferable to no links at all, so don’t dismiss them.

Plus, ill-placed links can be penalized by Google, while nofollows won’t and may drive a good bit of traffic.

Ask your friends and colleagues if you may link with them and if they will link with you.

It never hurts to inquire, but go with care.

Make sure the link has some value.

It’s a stretch to connect a concrete company with a bakery, but a cupcake company with a bouncy house rental company makes sense.

Ask a few questions of an industry friend or expert through email or phone, and then publish the results.

Send a link to your interviewee; they’ll most likely post it on social media, increasing your reach.

Keep an eye out for queries for interviews on social media from people in your network, and react with an interview of your own.

Make a pitch to be a guest on one of the industry’s podcasts (or start your own podcast).

This is a good guide for pitching podcasts.

Because pitching may be time-consuming, you may also want to explore outsourcing it.

Just be careful to only pitch podcasts that make sense for your brand.

It only takes a few minutes to add your thoughts to a quote post, and you’ll often get a connection to your social profile, if not your site.

Aim to share valuable advice, not just earn a vanity link.

Write your own crowdsourced post by reversing the script.

Make sure to send the final link to all who contributed and tag them on social media.

Set up a Google alert to send you an email when industry news is hot, and then create a blog post on it.

The idea is to publish quickly and ride the wave of trending topics, thus news posts may be short and sweet.

Monsterinsights headline analyzer is a perfect example of driving links through tool creation.

HubSpot’s blog topic generator is the same way.

If you don’t have the resources to create a tool, create a template that others in your industry can use.

For instance, an email template for link outreach, an infographic template, or an editorial calendar template.

These can be hosted on Google Drive or you can ask people to exchange their email for access.

Either sponsor or host a webinar with another company.

After that, be sure you post your slides to SlideShare.

Doing original research is just about guaranteed to draw links.

The most simple way is to conduct an annual industry poll and publish the findings.

For more link opportunities, create an infographic.

Make a list of important industry terms and a glossary of definitions.

If done well, competitors, journalists, and bloggers will connect to you.

First and first, you’ll need to develop a case study.

Consider partnering with a complementary business to divide the workload, or outsource if doing it yourself isn’t feasible.

Find out what links your rivals have used a service like Ahrefs and target those sites through manual outreach, guest blogging, or interviews.

While the practice’s image has suffered over time as a result of risky tactics that have shown to be ineffective, link building isn’t a dirty word.

Link building is a value exchange — how can you and the site owner assist one another?

In return for a link, what can you offer?

If you approach link building from this viewpoint, you will be more successful and get higher-quality links, which will help you improve your SEO value.

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