How to get backlinks: 12 proven ways

Backlinks remain one of the strongest signals search engines use to decide which pages to trust and rank. Yet most websites have almost none. An Ahrefs study of over a billion pages found that 66.31% of pages have zero backlinks, and 96.55% get no organic search traffic at all. The two facts are connected. If you want consistent traffic from Google, you need other credible sites to point at yours, and you need a repeatable way to make that happen.

This guide explains how to get backlinks that actually move rankings, not links that sit in spam reports waiting to do damage. We cover what a good link looks like, the specific tactics that work in 2026, how to run outreach that gets replies, how many links you realistically need, and how to avoid the mistakes that get sites penalized. If you want the wider strategic picture first, our link building from scratch sets the foundations. Here, the focus is execution.

Why backlinks still matter in 2026

A backlink is a vote of confidence from one website to another. Google has used links as a ranking signal since its founding, and despite years of speculation that links would fade in importance, the data says otherwise. Backlinko’s analysis of ranking factors found that the page ranking first in Google has on average 3.8 times more backlinks than the pages in positions two through ten. Links are not the only factor, but they remain one of the few that reliably separates page one from obscurity.

The reason is straightforward. Anyone can publish a page claiming expertise, but a link from an established, relevant site is hard to fake, so search engines treat it as independent corroboration. This is also why links now feed visibility beyond classic search: when AI answer engines decide which brands to mention, they lean on the same web of citations that links create. A widely cited site gets surfaced.

If you want the full argument with examples, we cover it in detail in the value of backlinks. The short version: links remain the clearest way to prove to a machine that other people already trust you. For a deeper definition of the mechanics, see how backlinks work.

What a good backlink actually looks like

Before chasing links, you need to know which ones are worth having. The biggest mistake businesses make is treating all links as equal and measuring success by raw count. A handful of links from respected, relevant sites will outperform hundreds from low-quality directories and link networks. Worse, the low-quality links can actively harm you.

When we assess a prospect, we look at five things:

• Relevance. Is the linking site about your topic or industry? A link from a marketing blog to a marketing agency carries more weight than a link from an unrelated gambling site.
• Real organic traffic. Does the site rank for anything and attract genuine visitors? A high domain rating means little if the site has no readers. Check estimated traffic, not just authority scores.
• Editorial standards. Does a human editor decide what gets published, or will anyone with a credit card get a link? Editorial control is what gives a link its value.
• Placement and context. A link inside the body of a relevant article beats a link buried in a footer or author bio. The surrounding text tells search engines what the link is about.
• Link attributes. A standard followed link passes ranking signals; a nofollow link generally does not, though it still has value for traffic and brand exposure.

We break these criteria down further in what makes a link strong, and the attribute question specifically in follow and nofollow links. It is also worth understanding the different categories of links so you can tell an editorial placement from a low-value one at a glance. The links that consistently move rankings are earning editorial coverage: placed by a writer because your content genuinely belonged in the article.

The tactics that reliably earn backlinks

There are only a few ways to get a link: you earn it, you ask for it, you add it, or you pay for it. Adding links yourself (forum profiles, comment sections, self-submitted directories) is largely worthless because anyone can do it, so search engines discount it. Cheap private blog networks and link farms are worse than worthless, because those sites have no readers and no editorial standards, and a cluster of links from them can invite a manual action. That leaves earning, asking and quality paid placements on real publications, which is where every serious campaign lives. The tactics below are the ones that produce results in practice.

• Digital PR. Create newsworthy data, surveys or commentary and pitch journalists so your brand is cited in news articles and industry publications. This earns the strongest links available and works because you are giving reporters something genuinely useful. Our approach is covered in earning links through PR.
• Guest posting. Write genuinely useful articles for relevant publications in exchange for a contextual link. Done well it builds relationships and authority; done badly it produces thin, ignored links. See our our guest posting guide and our vetted list of guest posting sites.
• Broken link building. Find dead links on relevant pages, then suggest your working resource as the replacement. You are solving a real problem for the site owner, which is why it converts. The full method is in fixing broken links for links.
• Unlinked mention reclamation. Find places that mention your brand without linking, then ask for the link. These are the easiest wins because the site already knows you. We walk through it in reclaiming dropped links.
• Linkable assets. Build original research, free tools, calculators or definitive guides that people cite naturally. This is the only tactic that compounds: a good asset keeps earning links for years without further outreach.

For relationship-led work at scale, blogger relationships connects you with publishers in your niche. One choice worth understanding early is link insertions vs guest posts, because the two suit different goals and timelines.

Why digital PR earns the best links

If you only had time for one tactic, digital PR would be it. The principle is simple: journalists and editors need a constant supply of credible information, data and expert quotes. Supply that, and they cite you, usually from publications with far more authority than any blog you could pitch directly. A single link from a national newspaper or a respected industry title can outweigh dozens of mid-tier guest posts.

The work breaks into two modes. The first is reactive: monitoring journalist request platforms where reporters ask for sources, then responding fast with a specific, quotable answer. Speed matters here, because the first useful reply usually wins the placement. The second is proactive: producing your own data story, an original survey, an analysis of a dataset you have access to, or a timely piece of commentary, then pitching it to relevant journalists with a clear angle.

The reason this beats other tactics is the exchange of value: you are not asking for a favor, you are handing a reporter something that makes their job easier. That is why generic pitches fail. A press release blasted to a thousand inboxes gets ignored, while a tailored pitch to ten relevant journalists with a genuine story can land several high-authority links. We cover the mechanics in pitching journalists, and how we run campaigns for clients in digital PR.

How to run outreach that gets replies

Most link building tactics depend on email outreach, and most outreach is ignored. Backlinko and Pitchbox analyzed 12 million outreach emails and found an average reply rate of just 8.5%. That sounds bleak, but the same study showed exactly how to beat the average, and the levers are within anyone’s control.

Three findings matter most. First, follow up. Emailing the same contact again roughly doubles your responses, and even a single follow-up message lifted replies by 65.8%. Most people send one email and give up, which is why persistence pays. Second, personalize the subject line, which lifted reply rates by 30.5%; personalizing the body of the email lifted them by a further 32.7%. Third, reach out to more than one contact at larger organizations, which improved response rates by 93% because you are more likely to reach the person who can actually add the link.

In practice that means a short, specific subject line that references the recipient’s actual work, an opening that proves you read their content, a single clear request, and a planned follow-up a few days later if you hear nothing. Avoid templates that read like templates. The goal is a real message from a real person offering something useful, not a mail merge. The anchor text you request matters too: keep it natural and varied, as we explain in our anchor text.

How many backlinks do you need

There is no universal number, and anyone who quotes you one without looking at your competitors is guessing. The honest answer is that you need enough to compete for the specific keywords you are targeting, which depends entirely on who already ranks. The good news is that the bar is often lower than people fear, because most pages have so few links to begin with.

The practical method is to study the search results you want to rank in. Look at the pages currently ranking on page one for your target keyword and check how many referring domains point at each of those specific pages, not just the sites overall. That gives you a realistic target. If the top results have ten to twenty referring domains each, you need to be in that range, not chase a thousand links. If they have hundreds, you are looking at a far larger investment and should pick easier keywords first.

Two principles hold across every situation. Referring domains, the number of unique sites linking to you, matter more than the total link count, because ten links from ten sites beat ten links from one. And consistency beats bursts: a steady stream of quality links looks natural and compounds, while a sudden spike of cheap links looks manipulative. We go deeper into the calculation in how many backlinks you need.

Matching tactics to your type of business

The right mix of tactics depends on what you sell and who you sell to. A local service business, a national B2B software company and an e-commerce store all need links, but the most efficient route differs for each.

For local businesses, relevance and geography do the heavy lifting. Citations in local directories, sponsorships of local events and organizations, links from regional press, and listings with local chambers or industry bodies all signal that you are an established part of a place. These links are easier to win and disproportionately effective for local rankings. We cover the playbook in links for local businesses.

For B2B companies, the buyers are researching carefully and the sales cycle is long, so authority and credibility matter most. Original research, thought-leadership guest posts on industry publications, podcast appearances and digital PR built on proprietary data tend to work best because they reach decision-makers and earn links from serious sources. The specifics are in links for B2B brands.

For e-commerce, product and category pages are hard to earn links to directly, so the work shifts to linkable content nearby: buying guides, comparison resources and original data, with internal links passing authority through to the pages that convert. Whatever the model, agencies that resell link building need a discreet delivery partner, which is where links under your brand comes in.

What to avoid: links that get you penalized

It is just as important to know which links to avoid. The problem is never that a placement was paid for; it is that some sources have no readers, no editorial judgment and no connection to your topic. Cheap private blog networks, link farms and mass-produced spam are everywhere, and a profile built on them is the kind that attracts a penalty. The maths rarely works either: recovering from a penalty costs far more than those links ever delivered.

The warning signs of a low-quality source are consistent.

• No real audience. The site shows no meaningful organic traffic and no sign that anyone actually reads it, so a link there is read as decoration rather than a recommendation.
• No topical focus. Dozens of unrelated subjects sit side by side because the site exists to host outbound links, not to serve readers.
• Private blog networks and link farms. Sites built purely to pass links, often sharing owners, templates and hosting, carry no editorial judgment and no audience.
• Automated and reciprocal schemes. Mass link exchanges and plugins that fire off links at scale leave obvious footprints and add nothing a reader would value.
• No editorial standards. If anything is published in minutes with no editor, no quality bar and no relevance check, the link is worth exactly what it cost.

If you have inherited a questionable link profile, or worked with the wrong provider in the past, the fix is simple. Run a running a link audit to map what is pointing at you, identify any low-quality backlinks, and where necessary use Google’s disavow tool, which we explain in when to disavow. The aim is a profile that looks earned, because that is the only kind that lasts.

Measuring results and deciding whether to outsource

Link building is a long game, so you need the right metrics and realistic expectations. Vanity counts like total backlinks tell you little. The numbers that matter are referring domains gained from relevant sites, keyword rankings for your target terms, and the organic traffic and revenue those rankings produce. Expect to wait. New links take time to be discovered and credited, and the ranking impact usually shows over months, not days.

Set targets against the things you can control: number of quality prospects identified, outreach sent, and links won per month, then watch how rankings respond over a quarter. We outline the full measurement framework in proving link building works, and you can benchmark your plan against the wider data in our link building statistics.

The build-versus-outsource decision comes down to time and skill. Done properly, link building is labor-intensive: prospecting, writing, pitching and following up all take hours, and results depend on relationships and editorial judgment that take time to develop. Many businesses run the easier tactics in-house, such as reclaiming unlinked mentions and basic guest posting, but find digital PR and consistent outreach at scale are better handled by specialists. If you outsource, choose carefully and ask for examples and references; our guide to the link building agencies explains what to look for and which questions separate a safe partner from a risky one.