Even though SEO is a field that develops very swiftly and keeping up with it requires a significant skill, some foundational things about it remain the same. One of them is the importance of backlinks in your Google rankings.
Despite the fact that Google is continuously making their rank calculation algorithm more sophisticated, practical observations show that backlinks still play a crucial role in it. The general consensus among SEO specialists also shows this:
Thus, it’s safe to say, link building as a SEO strategy is still with us and will be around for quite some time. But it doesn’t mean that link building strategies don’t evolve. On the contrary.
In this article, we will look into what link building strategies are most likely to succeed in the coming year.
1. Guest Posting (Evergreen Classic)
One of the most important trends in link building of late is evergreen content and backlinks. Evergreen means the type of links and content that don’t lose their relevance and significance over time.
Guest posts are the best type of content fitting evergreen requirements. You are largely in charge of content and placing and can control how your guest post works.
Why it works?
- Provides authoritative backlinks.
- Builds relationships with influencers in your niche and brings you to new audiences.
- Generates traffic through referral links.
How to Get Links and Best Practices:
- Use platforms like Serpzilla to automate outreach, prospecting and placement.
- Identify authoritative blogs in your industry.
- Pitch unique, engaging content ideas.
2. Rented Links (Link Leasing)
Although evergreen content is highly desirable, content that’s trending but goes out of relevance quickly can reap huge traffic momentarily. We’re speaking of viral content, seasonal content and all other types that have time-limited qualities.
Rented backlinks are the best solution in this case. You can get a link for a limited amount of time and disavow or remove it when it’s no longer necessary.
Why it works?
- Can be highly effective for boosting rankings in the short term.
- You only pay for the time the link is active.
- Offers great management flexibility: keep it for as long as it’s effective.
How to Get Links:
- Use platforms like Serpzilla to find and acquire rented links from authoritative domains.
- Employ Serpzilla’s extensive database search and filters to create a highly relevant prospect list.
- Use automated outreach and placement options Serpzilla offers.
- Configure link duration settings.
- Monitor and modify your link settings when necessary.
3. Resource Link Building
This strategy focuses on getting links from ‘resource’ or ‘links’ pages associated with a particular website. Usually, this page features a list of links that the website owners recommend, condone or otherwise find useful for their audience.
Statistics show that such pages are among the top-visited for reference queries and informational search intent queries. There’s also an additional recommendation factor which for donor sites with a loyal and engaged following can mean great promotional value for you.
Why it works?
- Resource pages tend to have high domain authority and trust.
- Links from such pages can stay up for a long time and are considered evergreen
- They’re seen as “natural” links by Google, improving your site’s overall authority.
How to Get Links and Best Practices:
- Find resource pages related to your niche through Google search or tools like Ahrefs which has a specific feature for locating resource pages.
- Reach out to webmasters and offer your site as a valuable addition.
4. Broken Link Building
This technique involves finding broken links on websites and offering your own content as a replacement. It’s a helpful strategy not just for you, but for website owners, as it improves their site’s user experience by fixing broken links.
Why It Works:
- Helps you gain high-quality backlinks while providing value to website owners.
- Such links are pretty straight-forward to look for.
- Negotiations usually are short and links can be free in many cases.
- Google rewards websites that focus on fixing broken links, benefiting both parties.
- Often results in evergreen links that won’t disappear easily.
How to Get Links:
- Use tools like Ahrefs or Check My Links to find broken links in your niche.
- Reach out to the site owner with a friendly email offering your content as a replacement.
5. Skyscraper Technique
Skyscraper technique’s name reflects an unofficial competition that is evident in many large cities. Companies try to build higher than their competitors to dominate the skyline or to get more publicity and demonstrate their prosperity.
In a similar way, SEO specialists find well-ranking content for particular keywords and try to do better.
Why It Will Work:
- Increases your chances of getting links because you’re offering something superior.
- Helps you attract high-quality backlinks from sites that are already linking to similar content.
- Capitalizes on existing interest in a topic and proven backlink success.
How to Get Links:
- Find top-performing content in your niche.
- Create a more comprehensive or updated version, expand it with other media formats or offer an additional POV.
- Reach out to the backlink host with a request to replace the linking content with yours as it is superior.
6. Do Statistics Complications
People love statistics and numbers. Showing a topic in numbers is one of the most impressive and illustrative ways to elaborate it. It gives an objective, hard-to-argue-with point of view. Many people view statistics as a reliable source of information and use it to counter or confirm their own takes.
That is why statistics are usually one of the higher-quoted linkable assets.
Why It Will Work:
- Statistics tend to have a very high citation flow and number of quotes.
- Most of the backlinks you’ll be getting will be natural, organic backlinks with a natural diversity. Google really appreciates this type of link building.
- Statistics are a great way to underline acute and popular topics, adding value to your content and thus generating traffic.
How to Get Links:
- Create a comprehensive, interesting compilation for a particular topic, preferably, the topic should coincide with a keyword or a phrase you’re trying to rank for.
- Use reliable sources and always quote them.
- Use standard content marketing strategies to promote your compilation.
7. Create and Distribute a Free Tool
Though this method may not be applicable to all niches, most of existing mainstream niches can still be digitized in the form of a simple mobile app at least. For example, a free calorie counter, a mood tracker, a genetic calculator for cat breeds or a shopping planner.
This opens a whole new venue for promotion of your products and services. First up, you can include a link to your resource in the app or tool itself. Then, you have a whole new distribution venue which doesn’t have to be directly connected with your niche, like various application review and download websites and official app stores.
Why It Will Work:
- People love freebies. If your app truly provides at least some value for free, your chances of turning a freebie user into a paying customer increase greatly
- You can include a backlink in the description of your product for various app review and download sites. Some of them, like CNet, have immense rankings, which makes a backlink from them extremely valuable.
- Most of the link donors, including highly ranking ones, will link to you for free.
- An excellent way to generate organic backlinks
For example, here’s a NYT review of the best free meditation apps. Each includes a link to the app provider, aside from AppStore or GooglePlay.
How to Get Links:
- Add your Free App to Apple’s AppStore and GooglePlay. You can most times add a link to your website in a description or link from the app directly.
- Reach out to various review and download aggregators with a download link, or a link to your online app and a description which also includes a backlink to you.
8. Link Roundups
Link roundups are weekly or monthly articles that curate the best content in a particular niche. These types of pages are often looking for high-quality content to include. A lot of media do monthly, quarterly and yearly roundups for all sorts of topics. 5 best websites with home planning collections, 10 top indie games of February 2024, best cooking how-to’s for March, etc.
Why It Will Work:
- Roundups typically have a high rate of editorial approval, especially if the content you submit is valuable and relevant.
- Links from roundup articles can drive significant referral traffic.
- Links have a great chance of staying evergreen.
- The roundup pages themselves are usually well-linked to as well, which brings additional traffic over time.
How to Get Links:
- Find active roundups in your industry (use Google or tools like BuzzSumo).
- Submit your best content for consideration.
9. Social Media Link Building
Although links from social media are nofollow, they still drive traffic and influence ranking indirectly. Sharing your content on social platforms usually results in a hefty number of natural backlinks. It also helps you to develop and increase your follower number and community, which in turn results in even more active backlinking. A vicious circle, but in a very positive way.
Why It Will Work:
- Social media boosts visibility, potentially leading to links from other websites.
- More social shares = more opportunities for backlinks from blog posts, news sites, and influencers.
How to Get Links:
- Regularly share your blog posts, case studies, and resources on social media platforms.
- Engage with industry influencers and encourage them to share your content.
10. Podcasts and Interviews
Appearing on podcasts and interviews in your industry can help you earn valuable backlinks. When podcast hosts publish the episode, they typically link to the guest’s website. This way, you can get backlinks from huge websites like YouTube or Apple Podcasts, which can boost you significantly.
Why It Will Work:
- Podcasts are gaining traction as a valuable content type and are becoming increasingly popular.
- Podcasts tend to have very loyal and continuous followings. The mere invitation to a well-received podcast in your niche is a nod of approval already.
- It’s a great way to promote you among ‘non-reading’ audiences – people whose main perception channel is audial and they don’t do well with visual information.
- Backlinks from podcasts come from highly trusted and relevant websites.
How to Get Links:
- Reach out to podcast hosts in your industry and offer to be a guest.
- Provide valuable insights or stories that will resonate with their audience.
11. Data-Driven Link Building (Original Research)
Original research or data-driven content is one of the best ways to attract natural backlinks. If you can gather unique data, insights, or case studies that no one else has, you’ll organically draw attention from other websites, bloggers, and journalists. Pick topics that are acute and interesting for your audience, substantiate your takes with data and wrap it in an easy to navigate form such as a White Paper.
Why It Will Work:
- Original data often gets picked up by news sites, bloggers, and content creators.
- Research-based content is highly linkable because it offers fresh insights.
- Google values content with original data, which can improve your rankings.
- It provides you a great content source to elaborate and capitalize on: you can use it in a series of shorter articles and posts, publish excerpts, create landing pages and pitch it as a newsworthy event for multiple media.
How to Get Links:
- Conduct surveys, use industry-specific tools, or gather data from public sources.
- Present the findings in a visually appealing, user-friendly format (e.g., infographics, charts, and graphs).
- Reach out to relevant publications, bloggers, and industry experts who might find the research useful.
12. Reverse Engineering Competitor Backlinks
Reverse engineering the backlink profiles of your competitors is an effective way to identify link-building opportunities. When you find where your competitors are getting their backlinks, you can target similar sites for your own outreach. The fact is, no matter how all-encompassing you think your SEO and link building campaign is, there’s always websites you haven’t targeted yet. This is a way to find them.
Why It Will Work:
- Competitor backlinks often come from trusted and authoritative sites in your industry.
- This technique helps you find quick wins and opportunities that you might have missed otherwise.
- You can replicate successful strategies and outperform competitors in the same spaces.
How to Get Links:
- Use tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Majestic to analyze your competitors’ backlinks.
- Target high-authority domains that have links to similar content.
- Reach out with personalized pitches offering your content as an alternative or improved resource.
13. Linkable Assets (Creating High-Value Content)
Linkable assets are a cornerstone of all content marketing, which most SEO professionals recognize as one of the most powerful natural link building strategies. A linkable asset is content that is designed to naturally attract backlinks because it offers tremendous unique value. These assets are often in the form of ultimate guides, comprehensive case studies, interactive tools, video tutorials, minigames, entertainment content with a viral potential, etc.
Why It Will Work:
- High-quality, evergreen content can continue to attract links over time.
- Linkable assets are often shared widely across blogs, social media, and resource pages.
- Such content provides a clear benefit to users, making it a natural choice for others to link to.
How to Get Links:
- Create content that solves a significant problem in your niche (e.g., data-driven studies, guides, or calculators). Alternatively, it could be content with viral potential (capitalize on a trend, participate in TikTok or Instagram challenges, etc.)
- Promote your asset to industry influencers, webmasters, and via social media to kickstart link acquisition.
- Ensure it’s easy to reference (i.e., provide shareable quotes or embed options).
14. Wikipedia Backlinks
Wikipedia is one of the most authoritative sites on the web, and earning a backlink from it can be a powerful SEO strategy. Wikipedia backlinks typically come from citations in articles that are relevant to your industry, products, or services. Unlike many other links, these are often “no-follow,” but they still provide significant value due to Wikipedia’s domain authority and trustworthiness.
Why It Will Work:
- Wikipedia is one of the most trusted domains in the world. A backlink from there can boost your site’s authority and credibility, even if it’s no-follow.
- Since Wikipedia pages rank highly in search results, your link may get organic traffic from users who click through to your site after reading the article.
- A Wikipedia backlink can enhance your brand’s visibility across the web with more organic backlinks to follow.
How to Get Links:
- Contribute to relevant articles. Look for articles related to your niche or industry that have incomplete references or lack authoritative sources. You can then add a link to your website as a citation, provided it adds value to the article.
- Create high-quality, relevant content. Before you can earn a link from Wikipedia, you need to have a well-established web presence. Create content that’s widely recognized and authoritative, which can be cited in Wikipedia entries.
- Be careful with self-promotion. Wikipedia has strict guidelines against self-promotion, and links added purely for marketing purposes are often removed. Your link should always be relevant, factual, and add value to the article.
- Build a presence on Wikipedia by contributing to other articles and creating a positive reputation within the community. Having a credible Wikipedia account increases the chances of your links being accepted.
15. Do Complementary Brand Collabs.
A complementary brand collaboration is a mutually profitable promotion method. Partnering with brands that provide complementary products or services to yours helps you to tap into an adjacent niche’s audience. For example, if you have a catering service, you can partner with a wedding agency or an event planning influencer. You don’t directly compete against each other, but your products or services can be marketed as a bundle, this way, being both boosted.
Why It Will Work:
- Your co-brand partners have established authority and trust in their niches, boosting your credibility, but your audiences are still largely unique
- The content can be shared with their audience, bringing traffic and valuable backlinks.
- It builds long-term relationships with key figures in your industry and adjacent niches.
How to Get Links:
- Identify influencers and complementary brands in your niche.
- Offer collaboration ideas such as guest blog posts, interviews, co-branded products and content, or joint webinars.
- Negotiate a backlink as part of the partnership.
16. Content Repurposing for Backlinks
Repurposing existing content into new formats (like videos, infographics, or slide decks) gives you the chance to attract backlinks from different types of media. For instance, you could turn a popular blog post into a video or infographic and share it on various platforms. It is also a great opportunity to capitalize on proven working content ideas without having to invent something new.
Why It Will Work:
- Different formats appeal to different audiences and this is a great opportunity to reach out to various target groups without a lot of content effort.
- Repurposing content saves time and resources.
- Visual content like infographics and videos are highly shareable, which increases link-building potential.
How to Get Links:
- Convert your blog posts or articles into other formats like infographics, videos, or podcasts.
- Share these new formats on relevant platforms like YouTube, SlideShare, and infographic directories.
- Reach out to bloggers and website owners who have linked to similar content and ask them to link to your newly repurposed asset.
Conclusion:
In 2025, link building remains a pivotal SEO strategy, however, doing it right involves a systemic, holistic approach. To create a working backlink strategy, you will need to employ multiple different link-building methods that are described in this article. They work most effectively when done together, as this is the best way to make your backlink profile diverse, organic-passing, and effective.
