12 Link Builders Share Strategies That Work in 2024

Create map-o-graphics and pitch journalists

Rank statistics pages for low-hanging “fact finder” keywords

It earned links from 150 referring domains, including big media sites like Thrillist, Business Insider, CNET, Mental Floss, and many others. 

Struggling for ideas? Try asking ChatGPT: 

Hey ChatGPT. I found a unique promotion online where Dish Network offered to pay people $1,000 to binge watch 15 hours of The Office. My brand is [brief description]. Give me a few ideas for a similar promotion I can run.

Here’s one idea it came up with for a coffee brand: 

Not bad! 

But who should you tell about your wacky campaign once you have it? Here’s a smart tip from James: 

It’s as simple as reaching out to the same publications and journalists who’ve covered similar things before. You can find plenty of these already online from movies and tv shows. 

For example, you can just export the 150 sites linking to The Office campaign via Site Explorer and reach out to them. 

I have to give credit to Russ Jones (RIP) who was one of the most switched on link builders and SEOs I have ever met for this tip he shared with me. 

How to do it

Start by finding relevant pages with lots of backlinks in Ahrefs: 

1. Search for a topic in Content Explorer
2. Filter for pages with 100+ referring domains
3. Filter out subdomains, homepages, and multiple pages per domain

In the example above, there are 1,952 pages about tax with links from over 100 websites. One of them is this federal income tax calculator with 1,500 referring domains: 

Next, run a free audit with a tool like AccessScan to check how accessible the page is for people with disabilities: 

In this case, the page is non-compliant. This means that over 1,500 sites are linking to a resource that isn’t accessible for users with vision, motor and cognitive impairments—including a few government and education websites: 

Here’s what James says to do next: 

You reach out to the website and say the resource on your page is not accessible to visually impaired users. This is a highly successful outreach method vs just sending emails at scale asking for guest posts. 

Of course, this does mean you need to create an alternative resource that is compliant. But that’s easily worth it when there’s a pool of hundreds or thousands of potential linkers. 

I know it might sound a bit old-school, but guest posting still delivers great results. However, the days of mass emailing generic pitches are over. The strategy is the same—offering valuable content for a link—but the execution needs a fresh approach. 

How to do it

First, you need to find sites that might be open to a guest post. 

To do that: 

1. Run an “In title” search for a broad industry term in Content Explorer
2. Filter for sites with a Domain Rating (DR) between 30-60 (this removes big sites that probably won’t accept guest posts)
3. Go to the “Websites” tab

Here you will see the top 100 sites getting the most search traffic to content about your topic. These are good sites to pitch a guest post, as they’ve already written about similar topics before. 

Bibi recommends using AI to help with your pitch: 

Ai is an awesome tool [for pitching]. It can help you create everything from catchy subject lines to compelling pitches and even eye-catching visuals. 

For example, she used AI to create Midjourney images that combined cats and dogs with her target niche. When she reached out to trucking companies, this charming approach got a lot of positive attention. 

If zany or “out there” isn’t really your jam, that’s fine. As Bibi says, it’s not a necessity. The point is to use AI to improve your pitches and make them more creative. 

You don’t always need to be funny or wild, but AI lets you create highly targeted content in formats that would typically require a whole team with specialised skills. So, even though guest posting might seem basic, the possibilities are endless with AI. Just keep experimenting with it! 

Find a page with links, make something better, pitch it as a replacement (aka the “skyscraper” technique)

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Most people assume that “skyscraper” is dead because it worked well in 2017, then got abused until it didn’t work anymore. But we’re finding that it’s starting to open up again now.

How it works

This is arguably the most famous link building technique there is, but if you’ve been hiding in a cave for the last decade, here’s how it works in a nutshell: 

For example, this list of best headphone recommendations has 469 referring domains… 

… but it hasn’t been updated since 2021: 

Given how fast the headphone industry moves these days, this means that hundreds of sites are linking to a completely outdated list of recommendations. 

To take advantage of this, you would: 

1. Publish an up-to-date list of headphone recommendations (aka. “skyscraper” content)
2. Pitch this as a replacement to everyone linking to the outdated post.

Here’s a quick tip from Eric to help maximise your results: 

Give people extra incentive to link by offering to share their content on your social networks. We do this when promoting our clients’ content and it still works relatively well. 

Keep learning

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this post. If you want to learn even more about building links, check out these posts and courses: