From Zero to Hero: A Start-Up’s Journey Through Effective Link Building

Link building is the hardest aspect of search engine optimization (SEO), but it is also the most important one.

It is even more challenging for start-ups to secure quality backlinks, as getting outreach from reputable sites is difficult without having a solid brand identity.

However, there’s no avoiding this part of your SEO checklist. As a start-up, your success will hugely depend on how successful your link building campaign is.

So, how do you overcome such challenges and ensure that your start-up secures high-quality links?

The answer isn’t simple, and you will need a strategy unique to your brand. For a start, you can have a look at our in-depth link-building guide for start-ups.

Stick around till the end to read our advanced link building strategies!

Understanding Link Building

Before we get into link building, it’s essential to understand what a backlink is. 

Backlink: A link used by a website when it links to a page of another website.

For example, this is a backlink that leads to Ahrefs. The link is considered an inbound link for Ahrefs’ website. 

Link Building: Link building is an SEO technique of getting other websites to link to your website. It is the practice of securing quality backlinks.

Importance of Link Building

Link building is a critical element for your website’s SEO. In fact, links are one of Google’s top two ranking factors. 

Having many reputable sites link to your page signals to search engines that your website is trusted and valuable. 

For example, Search Engine Journal is one of the top SEO websites, which has nearly 5 million backlinks. 

Via Ahref backlink checker

Having quality links results in a higher authority rating, referral traffic from credible websites, and dominating SERP. 

Moreover, links will remain one of the top ranking factors in the future. 

We have established that backlinks are very important, and getting quality links should be one of the first priorities in your SEO campaign.

Unfortunately, link building is the hardest SEO tactic to follow. 94% of the entire world’s content does not have any backlinks. 

As a result, having a solid link building strategy is more than required for any startup looking for success in SEO. 

The Early Stage: Laying the Groundwork

Before starting your link building journey, it’s time to lay the groundwork by conducting website audits and defining clear goals. 

Initial Website Audit

These factors are crucial to analyze as an early measure of link building:

• Site Speed: Use GA4 or third-party plugins to check the loading speed of your website. Slow-loading sites can negatively impact user experience and search engine rankings.
• Mobile Responsiveness: Ensure your website is optimized for mobile devices, as Google prioritizes mobile-friendly sites in its search results.
• URL Structure: Evaluate whether your URLs are clean, concise, and structured logically. Good URL structure improves user experience and is favored by search engines.
• Navigation and Site Architecture: Assess how easy it is for both users and search engine crawlers to navigate your site. A clear hierarchy and simple navigation facilitate better indexing and user experience.
• Crawl Errors: Use tools like Google Search Console to identify and fix crawl errors, such as broken links and 404 pages.
• SSL/TLS Certificate: Ensure your website is secure with HTTPS. Security is a ranking factor for Google and impacts user trust.

On-Page SEO Evaluation

After a technical audit of your website, check your website’s on-page SEO status to ensure you can build on a good foundation. Follow these steps:

• Content Quality and Relevance: Review the quality of your website’s content. Is it relevant, informative, and valuable to your audience? High-quality content is more likely to attract backlinks.
• Keyword Optimization: Analyze whether your content includes relevant keywords without overstuffing. Proper keyword usage helps improve search rankings and visibility.
• Meta Tags and Descriptions: Check if each page has a unique and descriptive title tag and meta description. These elements are crucial for search engine rankings and click-through rates.
• Image Optimization: Ensure that all images have descriptive, keyword-rich file names and alt tags. Optimized images can improve site speed and user experience.

Backlink Profile Assessment

If you have already managed to get some backlinks, it’s crucial to evaluate them before starting your link building strategy.

• Current Backlinks: Review the existing backlinks to your website using tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Moz. Assess the quality and relevance of these links.
• Link Quality: Analyze the authority and trustworthiness of the domains linking to your site. High-quality, relevant backlinks are more beneficial than numerous low-quality links.
• Anchor Text Analysis: Check the anchor texts used in incoming links. Natural, relevant anchor text distribution is essential for SEO.

Developing Link Building Strategy

Assuming that you have conducted a proper audit of your website, it’s time to put together a sound link building strategy. 

An excellent place to start is to check out how your competitors are doing.

1. Analyze Competitors’ Link Profile

To audit the links of your competitors (and even find relevant competitors), you will need tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Moz, among others. 

Identify competitors by using the Keywords Explorer tools of Ahrefs or SEMrush and find relevant websites that are ranking well for those keywords.

For example, a startup company for VR technology can find competitors by analyzing search terms like “VR headset price” with SEO tools. 

After identifying relevant competitors, check out their backlinks by analyzing each website with the mentioned SEO tools. The following tools are our favorites:

• Ahrefs Site Explorer
• Moz’s Open Site Explorer

With the information on your competitor’s backlink profiles, you can get valuable insights such as –

• Identify benchmarks for the types, quality, and number of backlinks you need
• Learn effective strategies for link-building
• Find relevant and high-quality websites that are likely to link to you
• Find opportunities by identifying where your competitors are strong and where they are not

The idea here is that the websites that are linking to your competitors will likely also link to you. This is a great place to start if you do not know which websites to identify for building your backlinks.

2. Find Relevant Keywords

You need excellent content on your website to attract backlinks.

It’s simple! If your site does not have relevant content, you will have to pay for most of your backlinks. 

In contrast, having quality content will help you organically gather more links. 

Therefore, after a detailed competitor backlink analysis, it’s time to do keyword research. 

Use keyword research tools from Google, Ahrefs or SEMrush to find relevant keywords to write content on. When creating a list of keywords, focus on these things:

• Focus on keywords that have a high search volume and low competition
• Secure long-tail keywords that are specific to your niche
• Ensure your content on a specific keyword will fulfill the search intent behind it

3. Create a Content Plan

You cannot ignore the importance of content as a successful strategy for attracting links.

Well-made content results in quality backlinks and backlinks increase the content’s visibility. 

However, creating link-worthy content is a challenge in itself. 

Content as a Link Magnet: High-quality, valuable content is the cornerstone of effective link building. Content that provides value naturally attracts backlinks.

These types of content attract links:

• Content including original research or surveys
• Content that has well-designed infographics and visual data representations
• Content with comprehensive and authoritative articles or guides on specific topics
• How-to guides, tutorials, and educational posts

Create a content calendar and publish regularly using your researched keywords. Constantly update your content to ensure trustworthiness.

Tactics for Effective Link Building

Analyzing competitors and creating helpful content are some of the primary steps of your startup’s link-building strategy.

After you complete these basic tasks, it’s time to utilize some effective tactics that will help you get links with little to no costs.

Here are a few tactics that we use over here at Rankpa: 

Guest Blogging

Guest blogging is when you write and publish content on someone else’s website to secure backlinks.

If a website in your niche has high authority, you can offer to write a blog for them and include links that point to your website. 

This will funnel a great deal of traffic and get you a valuable link from a trusted source.

Let’s look at a simplified version of the steps you need to take for guest blogging:

1. Look for blogs that are relevant to your niche and have a good following and domain authority (Tools like Moz’s Domain Authority Checker can help assess the quality of potential blogs).
2. Before pitching or writing a post, understand the target blog’s audience. Tailor your content to match their interests and needs to ensure it resonates with them.
3. Reach out to the target website. When pitching a guest post, personalize your email, explain why your content is a good fit for their blog, and how it will add value to their readers. A pitch for guest blogging could look like this.

Examples of a pitch for guest posting

4. Create informative, engaging, and well-written content. It should provide value to the host blog’s audience and encourage them to engage with your brand.
5. Include links back to your site naturally within the content. These should be relevant and add value to the reader. Avoid overstuffing your post with links to your site.
6. Aim for long-term relationships with host blogs for ongoing guest blogging opportunities. Regular contributions can solidify your authority and lead to more consistent link-building success.

Skyscraper Technique

Created by Brian Dean of Backlinko, the skyscraper technique is a super-effective trick to secure backlinks through content. 

Here’s how it works:

Step #1: Find popular, link-worthy content.

Step #2: Create even better content.

Step #3: Reach out to authoritative sources to secure links.

Let’s break it down as briefly as we can:

1. IdentifyPopular Content:

Find existing content in your niche that has attracted a significant number of backlinks.

Use tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, or BuzzSumo to analyze which pieces of content have been most successful in terms of social shares, engagement, and backlinks.

2. Create Superior Content:

Create something that is considerably better. This could mean:

• Making it more comprehensive
• Updating outdated information
• Improving the design and readability
• Including original research 
• Including more multimedia elements like images and videos

3. Outreach: 

After creating your superior content, the next step is to promote it and get it in front of the right audience

Reach out to websites and individuals who linked to the original piece of content, informing them about your new and improved version.

Websites will naturally want to link to something valuable to their readers, and that’s why the skyscraper method works so well!

Networking with Influencers

Influencers or people with incredible reach in your niche have a large audience.

Having a backlink from their website or social media will drive a massive amount of traffic to their website. 

This is seen as a strong endorsement by search engines, thus enhancing your website’s authority.

You can use tools like BuzzSumo, Followerwonk, or HypeAuditor to find influencers in your field.

Directory Submissions

In 2024, links from web directories are not as substantial as links from high-authority sites. 

However, it is still a small ranking factor, especially for local businesses. 

Screenshot from BOTW.org

Web directories are databases that categorize and provide links to various websites.

Directory submissions can help in building a basic foundation of backlinks, especially for new websites. It can give you a small boost to start your link-building journey.

For local startups, having your business listed on websites like Yelp or Yellow Pages can help improve visibility.

Local Partnerships and Sponsorships

If your startup is looking to improve local SEO, collaborating with local businesses, organizations, or events can be an effective link building tactic.

Collaborate with other local businesses for joint promotions, events, or offers. These partnerships can result in reciprocal linking, which benefits both parties.

Sponsoring local events, sports teams, or charities can help you secure links from these organizations’ websites and social media platforms.

Monitoring Link Building Progress 

Let’s say you have secured some backlinks using outreach, guest blogging, and paid methods. Now, it’s time to see how the acquired links are affecting your startup’s website.

To analyze the quality of a link, you need to measure the following factors:

• Whether the linking site is relevant to your industry or niche
• The authority score of the domain referring to your site
• Referral traffic
• If the link is dofollow or nofollow
• The anchor text used in backlinks
• Link Placement

SEO tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush help you analyze your backlinks, the growth of your backlink profile over time, the anchor text used, and the geographic location of linking domains. 

Overcoming Common Challenges 

Link building is already a challenging process. 

On top of that, you will have to deal with even more issues as a startup.

The #1 challenge that comes into our mind is budget. 

As a startup, you have to do a lot with very little. While other businesses are spending $1,000 to $15,000 per month for their link-building campaign, you may not have the luxury to do so.

In this section, we will discuss how you can overcome such difficulties.

Dealing with Link Rejections

You will face way more rejections than approvals. Why?

As a startup, your website won’t have a high authority score or traffic. As a result, other websites will not be very excited to collaborate. 

It’s part of the process, and the start of the journey is the hardest. 

Here are a few tips on dealing with link rejection:

• Sometimes, the rejection provides an insight into what the site is looking for. Use this feedback to refine your approach.
• Rejection is part of the process. Stay professional and courteous in your responses, leaving the door open for future opportunities.
• If your initial proposal is rejected, consider offering alternative pieces of content that might be more aligned with the site’s interests.
• Use rejections as a cue to enhance the quality of your content. Make sure it’s informative, well-researched, and engaging.
• Don’t rely on a handful of sites for links. Continuously expand your list of prospects to increase your chances of successful placements.
• Sometimes, building a rapport with the site owner or editor over time is the key to turning a rejection into an acceptance.

Avoiding and Recovering from Penalties

Google penalizes websites that use black-hat SEO techniques like link schemes.

For example, you can get hundreds of links from several irrelevant and low-authority websites at a cheap cost. This will do more harm than good. 

As a result, it’s always better to focus on quality over quantity. Avoid schemes that promise quick links in large numbers.

If you identify harmful backlinks, use Google’s Disavow Tool to distance your site from these links.

If penalized, identify the reason, clean up your backlink profile, and submit a reconsideration request to Google. Be transparent about the steps taken to rectify the issue.

Resource Constraints

Now comes the question of limiting your cost. 

As a startup, you can save on your link-building budget through numerous methods:

• Leverage Free Tools: Use free versions of tools like Moz, Ahrefs, or Ubersuggest for basic link tracking and analysis. These won’t be as in-depth as paid tools, but they are a place to start.
• Content Collaboration: Engage in guest blogging, interviews, or content collaborations, which can be more resource-efficient than creating content independently.
• Focus on Local SEO: For startups, local link building can be more feasible and impactful. Engage with local communities, directories, and events for relevant links.
• Prioritize High-Impact Activities: Concentrate on link building strategies that require less investment but can yield significant results, like creating high-quality cornerstone content.
• Outsource Strategically: If budget allows, consider outsourcing certain SEO tasks to freelancers or agencies. This can be more cost-effective than hiring full-time specialists.

Advanced Link Building Strategies

It’s time to go beyond basic tactics. These advanced strategies are not the easiest, but they do bring excellent results:

Broken Link Building

Broken links are links that point to a page that does not exist.

According to Ahrefs study on link rot, over 60% of links from 2019 are dead.

Broken link building is when you find broken links on other websites and offer a page of your own site as a replacement. 

This is a win-win for both parties. You can secure a quality backlink, and the other website owner improves their site’s user experience by fixing a broken link.

Content Reclamation

Sometimes, your brand, content, or products can be mentioned without any links. 

Content reclamation is the process of finding such instances and contacting the webmaster for links.

Creating Linkable Assets

Create content that other websites cannot help but use and link to you. 

Such linkable assets can be:

• Infographics
• Original research
• Online tools
• Well-crafted guides

Final Words

The journey to securing high-quality backlinks is a long and complicated one.

Success, in this case, lies in finding strategies that work and eliminating those that don’t.

As a startup, your best bet is content!

Musfiqur Memo

Hey, I'm Musfiqur Memo, founder of RankPa.com. I've been dedicated to boosting businesses through specialized SEO and link building services, propelling your online success.