8 Simple Link Building Strategies

Link building is the work of getting a relevant page on someone else’s site to link to a specific page on yours. The link is a suggestion that you are a source. In 2026 that still matters, and bought packages of low-quality links still get sites into trouble. The useful version is slower than an outreach blast. It is also the only version worth putting a client’s domain behind.

An older explainer on this blog, from the era when the tactic was mostly volume, now points at this page.

What is still worth doing

• Publish a page with original specifics, such as a process, a data point from your own jobs, or a clear comparison. Then tell the people who already write about that topic.
• Earn links from suppliers, associations, local organizations, and partners you actually work with. Those mentions are real.
• Reclaim mentions of your brand that forgot the link. A short, polite note is enough.
• Digital PR only when you have a story a reporter can use. A press release about a blog post is not a story.

What to stop paying for

Do not buy lists of “DA 50” guest posts, private blog networks, footer links, or directory blasts. Do not trade links in bulk with sites that have nothing to do with your work. Spam updates exist for this. They are not the same thing as a core update, and a package that was “safe in 2018” is not a defense. If a vendor’s deliverable is a spreadsheet of URLs you would never show a customer, cancel it.

Links need a page worth citing

A homepage is a weak target. People link to the answer. Build the page you want the link to point at before you ask. Internal links should point at it too, or you are requesting attention for a page your own site treats as optional. If the page is thin, the link will not make it thick.

How to tell a good link from a line item

A useful link is on a page a person could land on, in a sentence that makes sense, pointing at your relevant URL. It does not have to be on a famous site. A niche association is often better than a national blog that sells posts to anyone. Watch whether the linked page gains impressions in Search Console over the following months. Do not celebrate a count of links. Ten forgettable links are not a campaign.

Pick one page you wish more buyers would find. Make it the best explanation you can honestly publish. Then ask the ten sites that already discuss that problem. That is link building. The rest is shopping.