The Complete Guide To Link Building: How To Get More Backlinks And Why They Matter

Building links to your website, landing pages, and social media profiles is key to your SEO efforts and overall success as an online business owner. But how do you build links? Which types of links should you be going after? What do they even look like?

How many links are enough? In this guide to link building, we’ll discuss the different types of link-building strategies out there, as well as how to calculate what type of external links you need in order to rank high in search engines. Finally, we’ll discuss why links are important and how they affect your online presence as a whole

When it comes to link building, there are mainly 3 strategies which include the ones that are against Google webmaster guideline and the one which is accepted by Google. So in this blog post, I’m going to talk about the 3 link-building strategies and then leave the ball in your court for you to choose which method to go with.

Here are the 3 main link-building strategies;

1. White Hat Link Building Strategy
2. Grey Hat Link Building Strategy
3. Black Hat Link Building Strategy

Before we begin, is important you know the POWER OF LINKS.

Power of Links

The Magical Google Juice That Makes Or Breaks Your SEO Campaigns – The idea behind a link-building campaign is simple. You want to create as many external links (Backlinks) to your website as possible. These can come from directories, social media platforms, press releases, or anywhere else you can think of.

The theory behind getting links is that Google takes notice of these powerful web properties and raises your site’s rank in search engine results. However, there’s more than meets the eye when it comes to backlinks and how they affect your site’s rankings. There are several factors involved in determining search engine rank positions and several additional factors that affect link-building efforts.

Now let’s begin.

1.  White Hat Link Building Techniques

So, what is white hat link building and does it even exist? Well, this is a really heavily debated topic and there’s actually a fine line between white hat and black hat link-building.

Plus, you need to get this right, because if you don’t, you could be de-indexed from Google, or even face a harsh algorithmic penalty. So, if you wanna protect your website, build links that actually increase your rankings and generate that sweet Google love.

What is white hat link building? – Well, the short answer is it’s any type of link building that complies with Google’s webmaster guidelines.

So Google really cares about its users and any backlinks you build should benefit them. So, you’re actually trying to build links that are ethical and you’re not trying to game or manipulate the system.

And a really quick way to answer this is to ask yourself, okay, if you’re building links, would you feel comfortable explaining how you build links to an employee of Google, or even to one of your competitors? Because if the answer is no, you’re probably doing something wrong. 

But how does Google define white hat link building? Well, if you check their Google webmaster guidelines, you can see that they’ve left this open to interpretation. So you can see keywords like may or could be penalized, so it’s very subjective and it’s not a hard and fast rule.

And also, some people say, okay, if you’re building links, then surely you’re trying to manipulate your rankings, and therefore there’s no such thing as white hat link building. But, I’d say, personally, you have to conform to Google’s webmaster guidelines.

 If you’re building links that conform to those, then you’re building white hat links. So, Google specifically said that if you’re paying for links or you’re building links with automated software, then what you’re doing is a black hat and it goes against Google’s webmaster guidelines.

So, what are some examples of white hat link building? Well, basically, Google really cares about its users, so this is about creating great content that people want to link to, okay? So, you should be building links that improve the usability and the user experience of Google, rather than trying to game or manipulate the system. 

So, examples of white hat link building could include creating infographics, guides, creating amazing resources, and basically, your content should be so good that people want to link to it and therefore, it gets discovered through Google. So, now we’ve looked at what white hat link building is. 

white hat link building, in conclusion, is any type of link building that aligns with Google’s webmaster guidelines, and you need to focus on this because it’s a long-term sustainable strategy. Now, it’s always crucial to focus on ethics, so are you building links to manipulate or cheat the system, or are you building links to promote amazing content that Google’s users are gonna love it?

And one quick way to figure this out, is to ask yourself, okay, the way that I’m building links, is that something I’d feel comfortable explaining to an employee of Google or to one of my competitors? Or am I just building links to manipulate the system? And if you’re building great links and high-quality links that you’re proud of and that you’d be comfortable explaining, then you’re probably building white hat backlinks, and that’s something you should focus on.

How to gain backlinks organically

• Create high-quality (Great ) Content you know people will love and link to.
• Reach out to bloggers in your niche and guest post on their sites ( You can still reach out to directories and become a publisher).
• Create products or tools you know people will link to use. ( When you create a good and quality tool, people who use the tool or product will surely write about and link back to your site.)

You can watch the video below which shows how I made over 21,000 backlinks in under 1 month with a white hat strategy.

2. Grey Hat Techniques For Link Building

People often say “this method is 50/50 due to the fact that, is missed with both the White and Black hat method, but I’m totally against this strategy. Use these only if you’re willing to risk your site being penalized or removed from search engine results. Note that some of these techniques are quite risky, so caution is highly advised. 

One of the easiest methods of generating backlinks with the grey hat techniques is by leaving comments that include a link to your website on blogs related to your niche.

 Comment Spamming – comment spam is a low-quality, high-quantity form of backlinking. It works by posting links in comments to blogs or sites that allow user comments. Many blogs and forum sites will approve links in comments so long as they are relevant and of good quality, so building up a large number of natural links by commenting on popular sites is an easy way to grow your backlink profile quickly.

The challenge with comment spamming is generating content for each comment you leave. There are services that allow you to use natural-looking dummy text that you can copy and paste into comment boxes, however, these are generally frowned upon as well as monitored by Google, which has also penalized many people for using them.

Related: Grey Hat Link Building Guide

3. Black Hat Techniques for backlinks

These are techniques that search engines do not appreciate and will have an adverse effect on your rankings. Most of these techniques do, however, help you acquire backlinks in a hurry – but there’s a good chance it’ll come at a price.

I only recommend using these if you’re an experienced SEO and know what to watch out for. Some of the ways of Generating Backlinks through Black Hat Techniques are;

• Exchanging link for link
• Comment spamming
• Buying of links
• Using automation software
• Hacking websites to insert links

 Scraping, comment spamming and exchanging links with link wheels are a big no-no in SEO. All three essentially amount to artificially creating backlinks that search engines view as unnatural and manipulative (and they’re right!).

The best thing you can do is stay away from them altogether. At worst, if you don’t you could end up having your site banned from Google (and good luck getting it reinstated!) or putting your business in jeopardy. Remember – links take time to build naturally; there’s no shortcut to quality backlinks, despite what some ‘gurus’ may promise.

Related: How To Drive Organic Traffic To Your Website – A Simple Guide

Conclusion

This guide should have provided you with a decent understanding of link building from start to finish. You should now be familiar with how search engines work, why links are important and what’s required to get them. Of course, getting links is only half of the equation.

Once you have those in place it’s time to evaluate them, keeping in mind that it can take anywhere from 3-12 months for changes in your rankings and traffic to materialize after building new links. Finally, remember that there are many different ways to acquire quality backlinks—it’s not just about getting as many as possible. Check out our Free SEO Kit and Real-Time Website Analyzer