Future of Link Building – Which Strategies and Backlinks Are Effective

Building backlinks for effective link building – necessary, redundant, or even dangerous? Ever since the first domains received warnings from Google years ago due to questionable links, the topic of backlink building has been controversial. Experts are divided, and novices are uncertain. Each year poses the same question: Which strategies are suitable for building backlinks, and which ones still comply with Google's quality guidelines for generating backlinks?

Fig.1 Link exchange programs

Basics of Backlink Building: What is a Backlink?

To understand what a backlink is and how backlink building works, it's important to clarify the question, "What is a link?" A link or hyperlink is simply a cross-reference in a text that functionally allows a jump to another page or document. These cross-references can also be used within your own website.

A backlink, then, is understood to be a reference from one website to the URL of another. This can be placed for various reasons and at different positions on a page, such as in the footer or within the content. Either text or an image can be linked.

Additionally, there is the option to mask links with “nofollow.” This indicates to search engines not to follow these links. Such “nofollow” links have a lower value from an SEO perspective than “dofollow” links, yet they are part of a natural backlink profile and shouldn't be neglected when generating backlinks, especially when they are from trusted sites with high authority and, ideally, even click-throughs from visitors leading to referral traffic.

When evaluating the quality of a backlink in backlink building, the topical relevance of the linking page and its trust are particularly important. The goal is to have topic-relevant backlinks, whether as “nofollow” or “dofollow” links, from websites that hold high authority in Google's evaluation. For a balanced mix in the link profile, links from less-known sites in the same topical environment are also important.
Additionally, internal linking plays an important role in search engine optimization, but that is not the subject of this article.

Reminder: What Google's Webmaster Guidelines Say About Backlink Building

Google's stance is clear: Any form of buying or selling backlinks that are not marked as paid links constitutes a violation of the Webmaster Guidelines. Frequent guest posts with optimized link texts and sitewide footer links on other domains are also discouraged.

The extensive list of unacceptable backlinking techniques gives link builders little leeway, leading one to believe that active backlink building might not be allowed. Nonetheless, common practices often tell a different story.

The Reality: Buying Backlinks Still Works

A quick Google search for the term “buy backlinks” reveals: the “money for backlinks” business model still exists, including some highly dubious offers that seasoned SEOs avoid entirely. Furthermore, a backlink analysis across various industries uncovers many backlinks that clearly do not comply with Google's guidelines.

Fig.2 Buying links in SEO today

Why do these domains still rank with questionable link profiles? For one, even a continuously evolving algorithm doesn't identify every dubious link. Secondly, it often seems that domains maintain their visibility in spite of their spam links, not because of them. Established domains, in particular, can generally “get away with” more than newer or smaller domains with less trust.

Furthermore, it is evident that there are numerous ways to buy backlinks without this being apparent to search engines and users. Although the days of purchasing massive link packages are long gone, link purchasing is far from dead.

A violation of Google’s guidelines isn’t necessarily given just because money changes hands. A paid case study in a major industry magazine or an advertorial, for instance, falls under paid links. If these links are appropriately masked as “nofollow” as Google desires, and if the article is perhaps even flagged as advertising, the guidelines are met.

Is this link useless from an SEO perspective? As mentioned earlier, “nofollow” links are a natural part of a link profile. Furthermore, mentions of the brand or company can help strengthen a website and boost its trust. This is especially true for locally active businesses and regional brands. Those who want to protect themselves from penalties should regularly check their backlinks using various tools.

Free Backlinks with Content Marketing

Following the great uncertainty about backlink building, content marketing seemed to be the new solution – “link earning” instead of “link building.” However, in practice, while this approach is fundamentally correct and sensible, it is by no means easy to implement. The creation of high-quality content alone does not generate links.

There is still an effort required for the strategic promotion of these contents on audience-relevant platforms. Given the content flood and the multitude of requests to share, link, or promote that every website owner with certain visibility receives, the “outreach” strategy is not easy. It's important to stand out positively by offering high quality and added value, which is easier said than done.

The demands on the content itself are growing. Differentiating one's content from the competition is becoming more challenging and often requires significant effort and strategic planning. A promising yet labor-intensive approach is:

What already exists on the topic and how can your content be better than everything already available online? This should be the minimum standard because otherwise, content does not qualify to win “voluntary” links and generate attention.

Our Tip: Build Sustainable Backlinks

Years ago, links were often built from websites or blogs in such a way that they could be read and valued by search engines but barely noticed by human visitors. The current approach should be different: Where can your content (with company or brand mention and backlink) be positioned to be seen by a relevant target group, thus having the chance to actually be clicked on and maybe even generate conversions?

When building links, the traffic they generate is almost as important as the value the link has for search engine optimization.
The fact is that placing links becomes slightly more difficult every year and cannot be automated. The path to success often involves building personal relationships with other companies and influencers, known as multipliers.

The goal is to stand out from the multitude of requests through personalized communication and hopefully form a partnership that benefits both sides, extending far beyond mere link placement. Brands that have already acquired a certain level of trust and recognition sometimes find it easier to obtain backlinks.

So, which measures are still suitable for building backlinks? The following list shows a selection of different possibilities, including many variants for generating free backlinks (excluding labor cost):

• Classic (online) press work: Primarily for brand building, with the fringe benefit of setting backlinks

• Resource lists: Articles that collect links on a specific topic offer great potential to add another link to a high-quality resource. Examples include white papers, studies, tutorial blog posts, or video tutorials.

• Partnerships: Which companies are connected to your products and services? Suppliers, users, other collaborations?

• Relevant communities and portals: For most industries, there are specialist portals that often offer various ways to get involved: directories of all companies, expert contributions, interviews, product news, trade fair reports, etc.

• Case studies: Companies pioneering aspects in their industry, collecting market figures, or otherwise compiling relevant data or experiences are often interesting for specialist magazines or business journals.

• Testimonials: Customer feedback for products, services, software, etc. is sometimes “rewarded” with a link. Where does your company successfully use third-party products or benefit from services?

• Interviews: Interviews with other experts on your page (which might set backlinks on their pages), but more importantly, positioning an expert from your company as an interview partner in a relevant magazine can generate topic-relevant backlinks.

• Expert panels: Sometimes magazines publish articles where various experts are queried about a specific topic. Again, it pays off to build contacts in advance, to be considered for similar occasions in the future.

• Broken links: Backlink tools, as well as the Google Search Console, help find links that point to nonexistent pages. It can be worthwhile to regularly check your backlinks. The approach with broken links is to contact and request a correction, as the site operator also benefits from functioning links.

• Turning mentions into links: Which blog posts or news articles report about the company? Where could it be worthwhile to ask for a link, possibly to a relevant subpage, that offers additional value to the readers?

Generating Mentions and Local Backlinks

Not only for companies with stores and local services, it's worth considering local sources to supplement backlink building or link building. The possibilities to create links with a local reference are diverse:

• Local networking: Local business groups, associations, or other business communities help establish contacts and often provide a backlink in the company profile on the website.

• Universities: Whether through offering jobs or internships at the company, special offers for students, or company tours about which students might report, engaging with local university students can pay off.

• Events: If you can't or don't want to host your own local event, you have the option to sponsor an event or be listed as a speaker and thereby obtain a backlink. This also aids in backlink building.

• Local business relationships with other companies on site: Building personal connections can lead not only to new strategic partnerships but also increase the circle of multipliers and build backlinks. The basis here should always be how both sides can benefit from the business relationship.

• Local directories: Besides industry-specific directories, the relevant local directories that collect all businesses in a region, city, or district and usually set backlinks should not be neglected.

• Local blogs and other media: Blogs, local newspapers, local journals, and other regional or local media are happy to report on businesses on site that are engaged, have a special success story to tell, or are otherwise in the spotlight.

• Sponsorship of local sports teams: Not only a meaningful engagement, for instance in youth development or supporting a small local club, but also a way to be mentioned and linked as a sponsor on the website and to achieve mentions in the local press through competitions.

Important: With all proposed approaches, it is not always just about building backlinks. Mentions can also improve local visibility.

As a conclusion around the topic of backlink building, it can be said that backlinks remain an important part of the algorithm and should therefore not be ignored. The era of automated link buying is long over, instead creative individual strategies are needed, along with the active building of personal relationships and a focus on real added value that clearly stands out from the already available content.

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