10 Creative Backlink Strategies

Building backlinks is a vital strategy for boosting your website’s authority and improving its search engine ranking with creative backlink strategies. It’s also one of the most notoriously challenging aspects of online marketing. With countless sites vying for attention, how can you make your efforts stand out?

Instead of just sending out masses of emails hoping for a response, you need to get creative, think outside the box, and consider what content you’d be likely to link back to for your business. Below, you’ll find 10 examples of ways to create valuable content that is more likely to generate high-quality backlinks for your business. No matter how you approach it, it’s still an uphill battle, but at least you’ll have a solid plan to reach the top…

Craft Irresistible, Shareable Content

Content is the backbone of any successful backlink strategy. But to attract high-quality backlinks, your content must be of significant value that people can’t help to link back. If you are able to provide sites with something that is distinctly you, you put yourself in the position where they are coming to you, rather than the other way around. For your content to stand a chance of catching the eye, it needs to be :

Valuable – Offer insights or solutions that your audience cannot find somewhere else and answers questions they actually want answering.
Unique – Stand out from the crowd with fresh perspectives driven by your knowledge or expertise.
Engaging – Make your content so compelling that others cannot help but share it.

Think along the lines of:

In-depth guides that leave no stone unturned
How-to articles that solve common problems.
Infographics that visualise complex data in an easy-to-understand way
Original research that provides new insights into industry trends.

Guest Blog with a Niche Focus

Guest blogging is nothing new. It’s an industry that has continued to grow and while the public interest in long form content continues to be threatening, there’s always value in a well-written blog, especially if you can reach specific audiences that will be interested. By focusing on niche blogs, you can tap into a highly engaged audience and earn backlinks from sites that carry real authority in your industry. Here’s how to make guest blogging work for you:

Target niche-specific sites that may not usually take or post guest posts.
Offer unique content tailored to their audience’s specific needs.
Build relationships with the site’s owners and editors to increase your chances of getting published and, most importantly, getting published again.

Harness the Power of Broken Links

Broken link building is a classic yet powerful technique. Particularly back in the day, ‘top resources’ or ‘tools to use’ lists were incredibly popular. Web pages and websites dedicated to providing links to useful content around the internet. If you were linked in one of these posts, you got a high quality link usually from a trusted source that was in your niche. Gold dust essentially.

If you aren’t currently on these types of websites or lists, all hope isn’t lost however. If you can identify missing or broken links, you can seize the opportunity to replace them with your content. This is a truly powerful technique because this approach not only helps you gain backlinks but also assists website owners in maintaining the quality of their content, making it a true win-win. It also gets you in the door with people who write these types of lists and websites so next time they need a resource, they are more likely to come straight to you.

Use tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush to find broken links on high-authority websites
Identify relevant content on your website that can serve as a replacement.
Reach out to the website with a friendly note pointing out the broken link and suggesting your content as a valuable alternative.

Organise Expert Roundups

Expert roundups are a remarkable way to create content that is naturally shareable. Essentially you are creating a highly valuable resource of industry experts. This is particularly great because it is easy content for service-based industries like trade or financial services, which are typically hardest to create engaging content for anyway. Since each contributor is likely to link back to the roundup, you will also benefit from multiple high-quality backlinks in one go, showcasing your business’ value as an industry expert.

Reach out to influencers in your industry for their opinions on a specific topic.
Compile their insights into a comprehensive article.
Promote the piece widely and encourage the experts to share it with their networks.

Design Shareable Infographics

In an age of tiktoks and shrinking attention spans, condensing a long form article down into a short infographic can be a good way to recycle your content in a way that gains you different kinds of links. Infographics are visually appealing and highly shareable and with most social platforms leaning heavily on graphical content, they make great Instagram or Pinterest content. When others use your infographic, they will regularly credit your website with a backlink or you can secure added value with shares online.

Focus on a warm topic within your industry or take well-performing and suitable blog content.
Present the data in a simple, visual layout.
Submit your infographics to directories like behance or make use of them on your social media accounts.

Host Webinars and Online Events

If you have the gift of the gab or just fancy talking about your industry, webinars are becoming a highly popular form of content. Webinars and online events can generate buzz and backlinks in your industry while also showing that you know what you are talking about. They also make great PR for outreach strategies and you can take advantage of your pre-existing network. These events not only build backlinks but also establish you as a thought leader in your field.

Choose a relevant topic that addresses common pain points in your industry.
Invite industry experts to participate and share their insights.
Provide valuable takeaways like recordings or resources and encourage attendees to share these on their sites.

Provide Testimonials and Reviews

Testimonials can be a simple yet effective backlink strategy. While providing a review for a business solely for a backlink is something you want to avoid, businesses you genuinely use and work with are more than fair game. Many businesses will gladly include a link to your website as part of the testimonial, boosting your credibility along with your backlink profile. It also helps you to build relationships and respect with suppliers or useful connections in your niche.

Offer a review to a company whose products or services you genuinely use and appreciate.
Request a reciprocate backlink for your advertisement.

Develop a Free Tool or Resource

Many people love free resources, especially when they provide real value. If something is free and useful, it’s going to get links more often than not. Again, this is particularly useful in service sectors. Mortgage calculators, demos of tools, area calculators or free audits are useful things to have as they can be easily referenced by other businesses or sites without them even really thinking about it. Having resources that are just useful and accessible is dynamite and while it’s not accessible to every business, make sure to make use of it if you can.

Create a tool, template, or calculator that solves a specific problem to your target audience.
Promote your resource across relevant platforms and communities.
Encourage others to link to your tool as a useful reference.

Engage in Meaningful Commenting

Thoughtful comments on high-authority blogs and forums can result in back links. Places like reddit are filled with engaged users in your specific industry and this is a great way to provide active advice straight to them and build trust directly. This strategy can drive website traffic, visitors, and potentially earn you a natural backlink if people value your content. Even if it’s just mentioning your business offhand, this can provide real value.

Focus on adding value to the conversation rather than just dropping a link.
Offer genuine value and regularly engage before you go full PR.
Include a link to relevant content material on your website only when appropriate.

Resource and Syndicate Your Content

As we mentioned above, recycling your content into a different media can be really effective and you already have the content at your fingertips. Give your existing content new life by repurposing it. Each time your content material appears in a new format or on a new platform, you increase the chances of earning backlinks.

Turn a blog post into a video or podcast episode.
Create an infographic based on a popular article.
Syndicate your content on platforms like Medium, LinkedIn, or SlideShare.

Anyway you do it, building backlinks is going to be a tough process. It’s going to take a good number of emails and trial and error before you find a style that works for you and what works today may not work tomorrow. However, with some persistence, and sometimes a bit of luck, you should start to see results and the more links you obtain, the easier it will be to get more. So get cracking with some of the above and see where they take you.

If you’d prefer to leave it to someone else, our team is more than happy to provide you with expert outreach services with experience gaining links across a variety of different industries and sectors. We believe that a high quality link is worth 10x more than a bunch of low quality links you get from untrustworthy means. Link building takes time, understanding and there is no magic shortcut.

Let Us Do The Hard Yards!