A Beginner’s Ultimate Guide To Backlink Acquisition Success (2024)

Are you coming across SEO terms like link acquisition? Link building? Backlinks for websites? Backlink services? Or Domain Authority? Our complete guide to backlink acquisition has all the gossip you need to know to get you started!

If you’re a marketer, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO specialist) or business, I’m sure that the process of link building or “off-site/ off-page SEO” (the third pillar of SEO) can be intimidating.

Not surprising.

As there has been a lot of mixed messages

Including Google itself, claiming that they “need very few links to rank pages… Over the years [they’ve] made links less important,” and that it isn’t in the top three of ranking factors.

Wait.

The good news is that though the practice of obtaining backlinks for websites has significantly changed, in 2024, backlink acquisition remains relevant in SEO. 

And more so now than ever, it’s more about the quality of the backlinks that your website acquires as opposed to the quantity of backlinks,

It’s a bit to digest, but if you are interested interested in how to perform backlink acquisition for websites? This in-depth guide for beginners will get your link-building working towards the path to success!

What is a Link (Or Backlink) In SEO?

In SEO, a link (or backlink) is a signal to a search engine (like Google or Bing) that your website and its content are high-quality resources that people want to reference. The more quality backlinks that a website acquires tells these search engines to rank your content high in search results (SERPs), ultimately leading to increased visibility and traffic to a website. As analysed by Backlinko, website pages with lots of backlinks tend to rank often higher than pages with fewer backlinks.

Domain Authority

Domain authority (DA) is considered a third-party metric as a domain value ranking system examines the probability of a website ranking in search engine result pages. Developed by Moz, it provides an estimate of organic results out of 100 with higher scores.

There are multiple other abbreviations of Domain Authority scoring systems, such as:

• Semrush – AS Score
• Ahrefs – DR Score
• Moz – DA/ PA Score

Note: This is an estimate and isn’t a perfect reflection of Google’s Algorithm and what it considers how a website and its page content will perform in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

Backlink Acquisition And Why Does It Matter In SEO?

Backlink acquisition is an off-site SEO tactic with the sole intention of carefully and tactfully building meaningful relationships with the right people who want to give quality links to your website. These links are often referred to as backlinks. link acquisition can be a vital process in an SEO strategy to raise awareness of your website, with 85% of industry experts in SEO considering this process to dramatically influence a brand’s authority. 

Commonly used Link Acquisition Strategies

There are multiple link acquisition/ link-building strategies that SEO Specialists will use in 2024 to expand their client’s website reach. This includes strategies such as:

• Digital PR (Public Relations) 
• Moving Man
• Skyscraper Technique
• Guest Posting

When considering backlink acquisition as part of your SEO strategy, it is important to keep in mind that the more well-known and respected your website or brand is, the more likely you will be to be able to build backlinks to your content. Furthermore, developing a strong public profile complements your ability to attain links from high-quality websites, increasing your authority, trustworthiness and ability to build relationships. Backlink Acquisition is about “building relationships with people, not websites” (Andy Enfroy), and to build these relationships, site owners, Journalists and content writers want to feel as though there is something of value, with your public profile being a significant part of that. It’s typical marketing stuff.

Whether you are a website or small business owner, blog contributor, SEO Consultant/ Specialist, or Marketing Manager, building a personal brand will greatly benefit your link acquisition efforts, making them much easier as you continue to build your digital reputation. 

This article will serve as an introduction to how to conduct basic backlink acquisition, including what to consider, link-building tools, and outreach. Many elements of this process can apply to the backlink acquisition strategies as mentioned above. However, this technique should give you a head start in your journey, whether you’re new to off-site SEO tactics or experienced SEO specialists keen to improve their techniques when building buildings for websites.

Considering your reputation To Build MeaningFUL relationships

How you plan to make backlink acquisition as part of your SEO strategies or content marketing campaign should align with your website or business’s purpose whilst building positive associates in the public’s eye. Sources like Linkgraph state, “Link Builders must carefully align with the client’s value proposition and accurately reflect the brand’s core values”. 

Here are some important things to think about When Doing backlink acquisition

Niche Relevancy

Ensure the websites you seek to establish relationships for backlinks are relevant to your website’s area of expertise. A lack of relevant, high-quality backlinks can be detected by Google crawlers, which has been proven to negatively impact a website’s ranking on the SERPS.

For example (as mentioned below), you wouldn’t be a local plumbing business link building with an established food and beverage blog. However, alternatively, it would make more logical sense to acquire links from a known blog that talks about the common plumbing issues in 2024 or similar. 

Don’t Be A Troll

More commonly than not, many website owners and journalists are very time-poor. In Australia, as highlighted by SEO industry expert Harry Sanders (founder of Studiohawk), “There are so few journalists [in Australia] and so many pitches for stories… Australia is bigger than you think, and there are not many outlets”. Again, this illustrates how, most importantly, you should be proud of the content you produce, and negative associations between you and your business can lead to negative connotations with your brand.

Therefore, this might make it more difficult to build future relationships or revive an existing negative relationship. Moreover, it’s essential that you don’t depend on outrage, hate or division to drive people to engage with your brand. It’s not even effective in the long term and will hurt your reputation in the future.

Don’t Use Back Hat SEO Tactics To Spam Or Hire Spammers

We currently live in a digital landscape of many freelance ‘SEO content writers’ job postings and online marketplaces like Upwork and Fiverr offering hundreds of “high DA backlinks and link building services”. If you’re a sole website owner with a limited budget, these options may sound tempting, right?

Despite claims of ‘white-hat practices’ and the ability to ‘rank #1’ cheaply, there is a high chance that the majority of them use black-hat SEO practices like keyword stuffing or other tactics that may be against search engine guidelines. In effect, it may eventually result in your website receiving a manual action. Therefore, you should focus on link-building and backlink acquisition as naturally and ethically as possible.

Relationship Building

When building relationships for backlink acquisition, you should always remember to start by delivering value to the person or business from which you seek to get backlinks. Try not to ask them to do something for you first; you should try to find a way to deliver value to them first.

Leveraging Existing Relationships

It is undoubtedly always worth considering who you already have a relationship with and what value you could offer them. What’s more, there is the potential for an increase in the probability that these people will be more likely to give you a link because of your past relationships. Of course, ensure you don’t ruin these relationships; visit below to learn the basics of relationship management. 

When finding new backlink opportunities for your link acquisition campaign

When doing link acquisition, it is very useful to consider which link targets are the most valuable and relevant to your website or business, then reach out as a part of your strategy.  To achieve this, it is worthwhile creating a list of potential targets that could be of some value. There are numerous services and tools to help you perform your first link outreach. This might include tools like Webscraper and Alltop, to name a few.

Creating your Link Building Table

You can either click this link for an Example Google Sheet Template that is ready for you to use or create your own using the column headings below either on Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel:

Columns to include:

1. URL

This is the website address of a page you will assess.

2. Site Authority

Evaluate the potential authority of a page using third-party metric systems and SEO backlink tools. As a basic guide:

• Excellent = DA (Domain Authority) of 90+
• Good = DA of 50-89
• Fair = DA of 20-49
• Poor = DA below 20

Note: If you are starting out, it is unlikely that you will be able to get links from websites with a high domain authority. Focus on creating great content that is helpful for a reading audience and start acquiring backlinks from websites in the mid-to-upper ‘fair’ range.

3. Subject/ Theme

Consider how relevant a potential backlink is to the overall theme or topic that your website is trying to convey. This can be indicated in your table either on a scale of 1-5 or as a colour coding system. 

4. Trust

Determining whether a website you are looking to qualify as a link-building opportunity is either a high or low-quality link is important. Additionally, you might need to be aware of this if it’s a lower-quality domain. Google might see this as suspicious, unethical, and against Google’s Terms of Service and guidelines. Therefore, it is possible that you could be left with a manual action on your website. 

5. Traffic

Multiple tracking data tools are available to gain a rough estimate of the website traffic of the domain you are trying to target. Record this data in this section of your table. 

6. Notes (or Comments)

This column is for any additional information you have regarding a website and its content.

7. Link Quality Score

This column will allow you to manage which link-building prospects will be best to target after considering all factors. It can vary depending on your website’s topic relevancy and your current domain authority, whether you are just starting out or have existed in search results for a considerable period of time. The main objective you should be seeking are domains/ pages from high-quality websites relevant to your website’s niche.

8. Contact (Optional)

If using outreach tools like hunter.io or Buzzstream, include the contact information of the website owner, journalist, or author (e.g., social media handle, email, LinkedIn). 

9. Updates (Optional)

This column can help you know the progress of your outreach efforts. In this column, you might note stages such as “Email Sent”, “Follow-up”, “Declined”, etc.

By developing your link-building table for backlink acquisition, you filter your data to highlight opportunities with the highest overall link quality. You can use my link building template to make your report look more presentable and organized.

What matters the most when doing backlink acquisition? (YOUR TIME)

Of course, there are tools to help you scale your backlink acquisition processes. Nonetheless, it is worth knowing that regardless of how exciting a potential target might seem, sometimes you must pick your battles and be realistic about whether you can actually get a link for that person or business. Nothing is worse than wasting your time than reaching out to website prospects with little success. As best summarised by Patrick Reinhart in Search Engine Journal, “People are burning calories on these campaigns, but they aren’t burning them in a smart way”.

Writing a basic pitch email For Your Link Acquisition Campaign

This is the most critical part of your link acquisition process. You must remember to recognise that you are most likely not the only one pitching emails to these websites, and you will often be left disappointed. According to a survey by Gael Breton, 52.3% of Marketers and SEO Specialists believe that link-building is the most difficult task in the field of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

Here are some basic tips to keep in mind when crafting compelling pitch emails in SEO:

• Pick your Battles: Attempt to obtain links from those you believe are likely to link to your website, knowing the current competition.
• Manage your inbox: Check this often, as the opportunity to acquire links may quickly come and go. Check your emails 2-3 times a day.
• Contact the right person: It might require some additional research, but it is worth finding out who will most likely be responsible for the written website content and articles related to your specialised niche. 
• Be persistent: If unsuccessful the first time, you can try contacting the person you are seeking again a second time as a follow-up message. Try not to follow up with them more than three times. You should not be considered as spammy.
• Offer an incentive: NEVER directly ask for a backlink. It will decrease your chances of actually obtaining backlinks for your website. Instead, offer them a valuable and interesting incentive for the website you are trying to get a link from. Be helpful to them.
• User your personal name: This will add authenticity to your email. combined with an email signature.
• Avoid overuse of email templates: Although email templates for link acquisition might be great for crafting emails more efficiently, this can get old quickly and harm your reputation if your emails look overly generic. 

Crafting your Email Subject Line

Start by creating a personalised subject line that is engaging but not spammy. It is recommended that you should keep your subject line between 35-50 characters. You can either get straight to the point or use questions in your subject line. 

Some example subject lines:

• Something worth considering RE: Successful SEO Strategies that Work in 2024
• Guest Post | Let’s create something awesome together
• Quick check-in: Our guest posting idea
• Your post about creating SEO content that ranks
• Quick question about Resources on ‘Link Building in 2024’
• A few things to think about in your next article on content marketing
• Broken Link on [URL] – Maybe we can help?
• Great content idea for ‘Getting Links in 2024’

(Bold = where to add your own text)

These are just a few examples of some subject lines you can use for your next email for your SEO backlink acquisition campaign!

COLD Email Templates For SEO Backlink Acquisition

Unquestionably, it is fair to say that writing cold emails and pitching to people you don’t know can be confronting and challenging for any business, website, or industry. In fact, it’s tough to know whether your outreach efforts are worth it, as roughly only 8.5% of outreach emails receive a response.

In order to give your email the best chance of being opened by a busy recipient, let’s remember these five key pointers that can help us understand what makes a fantastic cold email.

1. Take a second to learn about your recipient’s website content, industry or author bio.
2. Research the challenges and struggles that the recipient faces and how you can help them.
3. Keep your introductions short and get straight to the point early.
4. Incorporate an effective Call to Action (CTA).
5. Use your full name as the sender and a professional email signature.

Example Cold Template For Backlink Acquisition

Here is an example of a cold email template that you can use for your next SEO backlink acquisition campaign:

Example

Subject: [Collaboration Type] | [Article Name]

Hi [Recipent’s name],

I was on your website this morning wanting to find more information about [subject], and I really appreciated the depth of your research and the resources available to readers like me.

I’m a really big fan of [recipent’s website] and have followed your blog for a while.

In fact, I have been so inspired by your work [Article Name] that I have been thinking about how the resources on my website [your website name] could be beneficial to your article [Article Name] or any other articles you are writing in the future.

I’m not sure that you’re aware, but recently [fact/ survey/ website/ company initiative]. You can see the full [survey/ press release/ article] in my [your website/ article] located at this [URL].

Most of our readers are [your target audience] and [target audience’s goal]. Therefore, [your objective for your website initiative].

Optional credentials/achievements: We couldn’t have done it without my amazing team at [your website name], and we recently managed [award or achievement]

I’d be thrilled to hear back from you if you’re interested. Just let me know, and we can bounce some ideas around. I have also linked some previous work below for your convenience.

[Article 1]:
[URL]

[Article 2]:
[URL]

Looking forward to hearing from you,

[Email Signature]

Again, this example email template is a good starting point for beginners and can be adjusted to fit your needs. If you get a reply, you can continue the conversation. Hopefully, this will lead to future networking and partnership opportunities (and backlinks).

Example hypothetical email using the above template by Martyn Snibson Communications

Relationship Management (Post SEO BackLink Acquisition Outreach)

The often overlooked value of managing the relationship with the people you’ve received backlinks is essential. Expressing your appreciation for their time and effort is undoubtedly worth mentioning, particularly for journalists and other busy professionals who are very time-poor and with whom you may want to collaborate again in the future. Acknowledging their goodwill can go a long way to ensure your business or brand maintains a positive public image.

Some effective ways to show your gratitude to those who have provided you with backlinks include:

• Social sharing: Acknowledge the journalist, website owner or collaborator by giving them public credit on social media platforms.
• Make it a win-win scenario: Ensure both parties benefit from the backlink acquisition. This can be achieved through a reciprocal link back to their website, credit or other beneficial arrangement.
• Congratulate them: For example, if a journalist writes an article in response to your digital PR campaign, congratulate them on their splendid work!
• Make a relation: Follow them on social media platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter (X). Additionally, try to engage with their social media content often to maintain an ongoing connection with them.
• Send them a gift: If you know their personal details, consider sending them a gift as a token of appreciation. This could be some flowers, wine, chocolate or branded merchandise (if you have any).

By implementing these relationship management strategies as part of your link acquisition campaign, you can maintain positive relationships with those who can support your backlink efforts now and for future collaborations.

What to learn more about creative SEO strategies? See how Infographics can elevate your next SEO project!

Key Takeaways

✨ To recap, here are the basic steps to doing backlink acquisition in SEO:

Last modified 7 June 2024 at 8.42 pm.

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