Link building is not one thing. It is a category of tactics — each with different mechanics, different risk profiles, and different fits for different businesses.
Some of these tactics compound beautifully over years. Others are short-term plays. A few are traps dressed up as opportunities.
Here is every major type of link building, what it involves, and whether it is worth your time.
These tactics earn links by creating something worth linking to.
What it is: You write an article and publish it on another site in exchange for a link back to your site.
How it works: Identify relevant publications in your industry. Pitch a topic they have not covered. Write a high-quality article. Include a contextual link to your site within the content or bio.
Good for: Building topical relevance, establishing thought leadership, earning links at consistent volume.
Risk level: Low — if done selectively on genuine editorial publications. High — if done through link farm networks disguised as "guest post services."
Avoid: Paying to place on sites with no real audience. These sites exist purely for link selling, and Google's systems increasingly identify and discount them.
What it is: Find a well-linked piece of content in your niche. Create something significantly better. Reach out to the sites linking to the original and pitch yours as the upgrade.
How it works: Search for top-ranking content on your target topic. Check its referring domains in Ahrefs. Build a longer, more accurate, better-designed version. Use email outreach to let existing linkers know.
Good for: Competitive niches where existing content is genuinely outdated or thin.
Risk level: Low.
Read more: Skyscraper link building.
What it is: Conducting surveys, analyzing data, or producing statistics that do not exist elsewhere — and publishing the results.
How it works: Survey 500+ people in your target demographic. Compile industry statistics. Analyze public datasets. Publish the findings with clear takeaways. Journalists and bloggers cite original data constantly.
Good for: High-authority editorial links from news sites and industry publications. One study can earn 30–100 links.
Risk level: Low.
Investment note: Requires meaningful upfront investment in research design, data collection, and content production. ROI is high, but it is not a quick tactic.
What it is: Creating a visual representation of data or a process, and encouraging other sites to embed it with a credit link back to your site.
How it works: Design a genuinely useful infographic. Publish it on your site. Promote it to relevant publishers. Offer an embed code with attribution.
Good for: Visually-oriented niches, data that is hard to read in text form, and content designed for sharing.
Risk level: Low.
Reality check: Infographic link building worked extremely well from 2012 to 2018. It still works, but the market is saturated. Only invest in infographics that visualize genuinely novel data or complex processes.
What it is: Being included as a quoted expert in roundup posts on other sites.
How it works: Journalists and bloggers ask 10–20 experts a question and compile the answers into a single article. Each expert gets a link. Position yourself as an available expert through HARO link building and similar platforms.
Good for: Building brand authority alongside link acquisition.
Risk level: Low.
These tactics require direct prospecting and contact with site owners or editors.
What it is: Finding pages on other sites that link to 404 pages, then suggesting your content as a replacement.
How it works: Use Ahrefs' broken link checker or Chrome extension to find 404 links on relevant sites. Create or identify content on your site that matches the dead resource. Reach out to the site owner with a friendly notification and a suggestion.
Good for: Earning links on well-established editorial sites that would never accept a cold pitch. You are doing them a favor.
Risk level: Very low.
Read more: Broken link building.
What it is: Getting listed on "useful resources" or "helpful links" pages that curate content for their audience.
How it works: Search for resource pages in your niche (try "best [topic] resources" or "useful [topic] links"). Evaluate their quality. Pitch your content as a worthy addition.
Good for: Sites with genuine editorial resource pages — common in education, healthcare, legal, and B2B niches.
Risk level: Low.
What it is: Responding to journalist queries looking for expert sources, in exchange for a credit link in the published article.
How it works: Sign up for Help A Reporter Out (HARO), Qwoted, or similar platforms. Monitor daily query emails. Submit concise, expert responses to queries in your niche. Good responses get published with a link.
Good for: Earning high-authority editorial links from major publications (Forbes, Inc., industry trade press).
Risk level: Very low.
Caveat: HARO-style platforms have become crowded. Response quality needs to be genuinely expert, not generic. Read our HARO link building guide for how to maximise your hit rate.
What it is: Running campaigns specifically designed to earn media coverage and the links that come with it.
How it works: Create a newsworthy asset — an original study, a provocative data point, a timely expert comment. Pitch it to journalists with a story angle. When they cover it, they link to your site.
Good for: Earning high-authority links at scale. One successful campaign can earn 20–50 editorial links.
Risk level: Low (when executed properly).
Investment note: Requires PR skills and creative execution. TDL runs digital PR as part of its advanced link building approach.
What it is: Finding places where people mention your brand without linking to you, then asking for the link.
How it works: Set up Ahrefs Alerts or Google Alerts for your brand name. When you find a mention without a link, reach out and politely request one. Most sites will add it — they already like your brand enough to mention it.
Good for: Recovering easy, low-effort links from sites that already have a positive opinion of you.
Risk level: Very low.
What it is: Getting links embedded naturally within the body text of an article, in a context that is semantically relevant to your target keyword.
How it works: The link appears in the middle of a paragraph discussing your topic — not in a bio, sidebar, or footer. This is the most valuable link placement type.
Good for: All campaigns. Prioritise this over footer, sidebar, and bio links wherever possible.
Risk level: Low.
What it is: Paying or negotiating to have a link inserted into an existing, already-published article on another site.
How it works: You find a relevant article that has already accumulated traffic and links. You contact the site owner and negotiate placement of a contextual link.
Good for: Getting links onto pages with existing authority faster than waiting for new content to age.
Risk level: Medium — this is technically a form of paid link and violates Google's guidelines if disclosed as sponsored. The risk depends entirely on how it is executed and whether the link looks natural.
What it is: Building links to your links. Tier 1 links point to your site. Tier 2 links point to your Tier 1 links to amplify their authority.
How it works: After earning a strong Tier 1 link, you build secondary links to that page to increase the referring page's authority, which passes more equity to your site.
Good for: Amplifying the value of existing strong links.
Risk level: Medium to High — depends entirely on the quality of Tier 2 links. Using low-quality automated links in Tier 2 is a risk. Read our tiered link building breakdown for the nuances.
What it is: Linking between pages on your own site to distribute link equity and reinforce topical authority.
How it works: When you publish new content, link to it from existing high-authority pages. When you build external links to a hub page, use internal links to pass equity to supporting pages.
Good for: Amplifying the impact of external links without spending a penny. Often overlooked.
Risk level: None.
Do not ignore this. A proper internal linking architecture multiplies the impact of every external link you build.
What it is: Appearing as a guest on podcasts, which typically publish show notes with a link to your site.
Good for: B2B and personal brand niches. Builds relationships as a side effect.
Risk level: Very low.
What it is: Offering a scholarship to students, then getting listed on university financial aid pages.
How it works: Create a legitimate scholarship with a real application process. Submit it to university scholarship directories.
Good for: Historically produced high-authority .edu links. Google is now more skeptical of this tactic and may discount .edu links from scholarship directories.
Risk level: Low — but ROI is declining as Google devalues this pattern.
What it is: Writing a testimonial for a product or service you use. Many companies publish testimonials with a link to your site.
Good for: Easy, natural links from tools and services your company actually uses.
Risk level: Very low.
What it is: Getting your business listed consistently across local directories — Google Business Profile, Yelp, Apple Maps, industry-specific directories.
Good for: Local SEO. Mandatory baseline for any business targeting local search.
Risk level: Very low.
Read more: Local link building.
What it is: Getting listed in industry-specific directories.
Good for: Niche directories with genuine editorial standards and real traffic. Generic directories with no standards add little.
Risk level: Low (niche directories) to High (mass submission to low-quality generic directories).
What it is: Becoming a member of professional associations, trade bodies, or industry organizations that list members on their site.
Good for: High-trust links from authoritative industry institutions. Often easy to obtain via membership.
Risk level: Very low.
Private blog networks (PBNs): Networks of sites built purely to sell links. Google targets these actively. Sites using PBNs regularly get penalised.
Link schemes: Systematic reciprocal linking, link exchanges at scale, link injection via hacked sites.
Paid links without disclosure: Technically against Google's guidelines if not tagged as sponsored or nofollow. The risk depends on scale and detection probability. Not recommended.
The right mix depends on three factors:
Your industry:
Your budget:
Your timeline:
For a complete strategic view, see our link building strategies page. For in-depth execution on a specific tactic, browse the dedicated pages linked throughout this guide.
TDL does not use a one-size-fits-all approach. We match tactics to your industry, competition level, and budget — and we execute with full transparency.
Talk to TDL and let us put together the right mix for your campaign.