Link building is the cornerstone of SEO. Any good online marketer or SEO needs to know how to build links to their site if they want to rank well in Google.
Many have said they’re less important than they were 10 years ago, and that may be true, but there is no doubt that they are still very valuable. And there’s no sign that it’s likely to change in the future.
So a good link building strategy is an “ongoing practice” that ramps up overtime. You’re continuously working on it, and the more you work on it, and the more links you build, the better your chances of ranking higher in the almighty Google.
My goal in this post is to create something that all marketers with all skill-sets can use. Whether you’re new to link building, or have been building your backlink profile for 10+ years, I think you’ll find some useful nuggets in this post.
Those blogs, to this day, are still great resources to visit when looking for posts on link building. Let’s start with a list of the best link building guides available to you, for free.
Link Building Guides
Want to skip the 500-word articles and go straight into a deep dive on link building? These massive free guides will help.
Link Building Strategies
Let’s look at some posts with a wide variety of link building strategies.
Thought Pieces on Link Building
These links are a little less how-to and have more insightful content on link building. If you’re looking for link building tactics, skip this section. If you want to know about the essence of link building and why so many online marketers and SEOs focus on it, these articles will help provide that background.
Link Building Practices to Avoid
Just as important as the links you should be building, here are some posts on links you shouldn’t be building. Always remember that spammy links pointing to your site is your problem that you need to take care of.
- An In-Depth Guide to Link Quality, Link Penalties and “Bad Links” – Not all links are created equal. This guide covers the differences, and how to recover from any link penalty.
- What is an Unnatural Link? An in-depth Look at the Google Quality Guidelines – Unnatural links can put you in a bad link neighborhood and violate Google’s guidelines. Here’s some background on unnatural links and what you can do if you find yourself having a lot of unnatural links.
- 17 Types of Link Spam to Avoid – The wise SEO would want to take note of the types of link spam to make sure that what they’re doing doesn’t look like a type of link spam. Google’s response to, and attitude toward, each type of link spam varies, but every link building method becomes more and more risky as you begin moving toward the danger zone.
- 10 Types Of Unnatural Link Building Tactics and 10 Quality Alternatives – How can you compete when the competitors are building links that are low quality, paid, or otherwise spammy? Here’s a look at 10 types of link building strategies that are spammy, low quality, or unnatural, plus 10 quality alternatives.
- What are common link building mistakes? – A Quora thread about the link building mistakes you’ll want to avoid.
- 7 Link Building Mistakes You Ought to Avoid – Some significant changes have been made through Google updates that can affect your link-building strategy, so let’s explore those changes and others to help you maintain, if not increase, your rankings.
- How to Use Google’s Disavow Tool – If you do have a lot of spammy links pointing to your site, you can use Google’s disavow tool to ask Google not to count those links pointing to your site. This post from Moz shows you how to do that.
Link Building with Content
Since content is becoming increasingly more important, here are some posts on link building with content:
Link Building Locally
If you have a local business, these link building strategies are made just for you.
Link Building with PR & Social Media
Think PR and social media have nothing to do with link building? Think again.
The Top Link Building Tools
Nothing makes link building more productive and effective than the right tools. Here are posts reviewing some favorite link building tools of 2018:
The Best Blogs Discussing Link Building
Want to keep up with link building news? Here are the top SEO blog’s link building categories.
Want to follow link building on Twitter? Don’t miss the 30 Link Building Experts You Need to Follow list.
Q&A on Link Building
Have questions about link building, or want to demonstrate your link building expertise? Here are some places where you will find lots of people asking about link building.
There you have it! 78 great link building resources to chew on. Did I miss any of your favorite posts or link building blogs? If so, please share them in the comments, and happy linking!
About the Author: Neil Patel is the cofounder of Neil Patel Digital.