Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission

Backlink or link building is one of the crucial parts of search ranking. Yes, you may find it easy to set up a blog and publish a few articles quickly. But I am sure you got frustrated to see that your articles are nowhere in the Google search results. And one of the reasons behind that is either you are not building backlinks or are building low-quality backlinks which are not at all worthy.

Warning!!: If you are not aware of how to build backlinks for SEO, then it is advised not to build backlinks. It is better to avoid link building mistakes, rather doing something wrong. This link building guide is for beginners so that they can understand the basics of link building and create good backlinks slowly.

I am getting regular questions from the newbie bloggers about link building techniques that actually work in 2020. E.g.

  • How to start creating backlinks for a new blog?
  • Is it necessary to create backlinks from day one?
  • How to rank a website without a backlink?
  • How to get dofollow backlinks from high authority sites? And many such.

To answer them all, I would say, it is a process and you have to learn the art of building backlinks gradually from scratch. You can’t get a backlink from a very high authority website on day 1 and even if you get that what is the benefit if your website doesn’t have any good content to deliver value or solution to the reader?

In this article, I will try to simplify everything about creating backlinks for your website or newly created blog from scratch. I will also mention the easiest ways & few of the advanced link building techniques that professionals are following and you can also start working on them to create backlinks for SEO in 2020.

There are multiple ranking factors that are driving behind every ranking position in search engines. There is a small picture where you can see what are the major factors responsible for ranking on top of Google search.

google ranking factors
Image Source: https://www.webdesignplusseo.com

So, from this picture, it is clear that backlink plays a major role, besides content. Now, what is backlink or how to start with link building?

In simple words, Google or any search engine needs some data or signal to understand the value or quality of your article. And on that process, the number of websites from where your article or website is linked/mentioned matters a lot. Besides that number, relevancy plays a major role in 2020.

importance of backlinks
Image Source: https://www.gotchseo.com

So, when someone mentions your article from his/her blog with some anchor text, it is called a backlink. You can check out my interviews, where I got mentions from those blogs and that’s how got some backlinks.

The importance of backlinks in 2020 is not the same as earlier. Gone are the days when quantity did matter a lot. But now it’s all about quality & relevancy. Yes, even one powerful relevant backlink from a high authority website is enough to rank your article on top, compared to 100 low-quality backlinks.

Let’s not make it more complicated, rather find out the step by step guide to start creating backlinks for better ranking in 2020.

So, if you have just started your website then I would say you can skip building backlinks for the first few months. As your main focus should be creating some high-quality articles and try to build some initial audience. That’s the most important thing to create a successful blog. Follow this blog promotion guide to know how to promote your newly created blog for free.

As soon as you find that people are finding your articles good to read and giving good feedback, then you can understand that your blog is going in the right direction. Anyway, before creating a single backlink I would say you better read a lot of articles to get comfortable with link building techniques.

Let’s discover the different types of backlinks you can create for your blog.

1. Blog Commenting

This is the easiest way to create a backlink for your blog. Although blog commenting has lost its charm, but it’s still one of the powerful link building techniques.

  • To start with you have to find out the list of blogs in your niche. Means, different blogs writing on similar topics you write on your blog.
  • Then find out how many of them have blog commenting enabled and whether they have the option to provide a website URL or not. These days many websites disabled those features to stop spamming.
  • Then start writing a quality comment on those blogs gradually following the blog commenting guidelines. Make sure not to spam, as your comment may not get approved in that case and you will not get any backlink.

There are different types of commenting systems enabled on blogs. The majority of the blog commenting systems will give you a nofollow backlink. But if you choose the CommentLUV blogs, you will get dofollow backlinks as well.

dofollow commentluv blogs

2. Directory Submission

Directory submission is one of the old link building techniques. If you ask me the effectiveness of directory submission in 2020, then I would say the benefits are not the way you are expecting. It will not give you any direct ranking boost.

But if you can submit your blog in some relevant directories under the proper category, then your website will get some benefits. It will help to grow your domain authority and link profile.

Here is an example of my blog on one of the popular Blog directories, BlogAdda.com. You can check out my Blog submission link where all my website articles are automatically getting fetched by this website. You have to go through their approval process before they start fetching your articles. It is a very high-authority website.

directory submission link building
Directory submission for SEO

There are many such quality blog directories where you can submit your blog. Just check this list of Best Blog Directories shared by Sumit Sao.

Profile creation sites are very easy to create backlinks. There are plenty of such websites where you can create your profile, your business profile and then mention your website URL there.

E.g. I have created a profile on producthunt.com. This is a very high-authority website from where you will easily get a dofollow backlink. You can check out my profile link here, I have attached a picture as well.

profile creation link building
Create a Profile, Get a Backlink

This is one of the best ways to build backlinks as a beginner and you will also get many high-authority dofollow backlinks. I have created a list of Top 100+ High DA Dofollow Profile Creation Sites List 2020, so that you can easily pick those websites and create profiles to get a dofollow backlink without many efforts.

4. Forum Commenting

Forums are a very good place to find a lot of niche related questions and answers. There are many forums where you can participate, answer questions and provide a relevant link of your blog, if necessary.

In fact, you can put your website details on the forum profile as well. Besides that many of the forums has a signature feature where you can write a signature with your websites as a link with proper anchor text.

E.g. I have created a profile on the forum forumweb.hosting. This is a hosting-related forum. Now on that forum, I have created my profile and also commented on one of the threads. On the signature, you can see I have added my website link with a keyword anchor text. I am creating a list of such websites and will share them with you all soon.

forum commenting link building
Guide to Getting Do-follow Forum Backlinks

It’s not necessary that you will get a dofollow backlink always. It’s good to get a nofollow backlink also, as this will balance the ratio of dofollow vs nofollow backlinks. I don’t know any exact figure, but it matters a lot to make a natural link profile.

5. Internal Linking

Yes, internal linking is the most underrated link building technique. The very first thing you should do is link all your articles among your different blog posts with different keywords. Check out the below image on how exactly internal linking can be done. You can also read this detailed guide on Internal Linking benefits on Neil Patel’s blog.

internal linking benefits
How To Do Internal Linking For SEO

To get the maximum benefits of internal linking, you have to make sure that your entire website articles are following a similar niche or category. This way you can link your articles with each other easily, naturally keeping the maximum relevancy factor.

If you have read my Affiliate Marketing Case Study, then you might have noticed that I have followed the internal linking technique heavily and got very good results from that.

6. Social Bookmarking

This is another link building technique. Social bookmarking sites are the website where you can share your blog posts in front of a wider audience. There are many types of such sites and I have shared a list of social bookmarking sites where you can easily post your blog posts and get some traffic & backlink for sure.

Create your blog or business profile and make sure to share articles on that website regularly. Most of them are free to do so, but few of them have paid plans as well. E.g. Scoop.it is one of my favorite content curation site where you can post max up to 50 articles under one free sign up.

social bookmarking example
Submit Your Post On Social Bookmarking Sites

In the above image, you can find my MIX profile where I can easily submit my articles. Similarly, you can create profiles on every social bookmarking site and start posting your articles gradually.

We all know the popularity of video content in 2020, compared to text-based content. If you have a YouTube channel parallel with your blog, then you can go ahead an extra step and get a backlink from your own videos.

I have my YouTube channel where I upload videos related to blogging, WordPress, web hosting, etc. From every video, I am mentioning my blog posts which are highly relevant and the viewer may get interested to follow those blog posts after watching those videos.

video description link building
Get Backlink For Your Blog Post From YouTube Video Description Section

This technique is good to get some referral traffic and sometimes you will get some affiliate sales as well. So, make sure to put your blog posts links in the video descriptions keeping the relevancy factor in mind.

8. Give A testimonial

This is one of the easiest and best ways to get high-authority dofollow backlink from popular websites. As a blogger, we need good feedback & testimonials fo our everyday work. So, we try to collect all the feedback from our readers in one place. I have created a testimonial page too, where I added the feedbacks of pro-bloggers in one place. At the same time, I also mentioned their website homepage with a dofollow backlink.

E.g. I have submitted a testimonial for Matthew Woodward Testimonials page. We all know how much authority his blog is and I got a dofollow backlink to my home page from that. Here is the screenshot of that testimonial.

testimonial backlink
Get Testimonial Backlink From High-Authority Website

On a similar note, there are many bloggers who are accepting testimonials. I have been requested by them many times to provide a testimonial and in return, they mention my blog address besides that. I have also connected with top blogs who are accepting testimonials and get my feedback featured on their blog.

Make sure, you are not in a hurry. As you have to pitch a very polite and professional way so that your pitch is not get rejected.

Also Read Best Backlink Checker Tools May 2020 – Monitoring Links Made Easy!

So, the previous few methods are very easy and one can easily create that kind of backlinks by own with fewer efforts. That means the impact of those backlinks is also not that powerful. I am not saying they will not work, but they are not that powerful but help you to get the link diversity maintained.

Anyway, let’s check out the advanced link building techniques which are really worth the effort. As a blogger, if you think you want to put a good effort to create a high-quality backlink then you can start with them first as well. But again, I would say, understand first why you need backlinks and how exactly it can help you.

9. Guest Posting

Guest posting is the best way to build backlinks in 2020. It is very popular and simple as well. You will publish an article on another website from where the blog owner will give you a backlink to your homepage or inner pages.

Here are a few of my latest guest posts on different blogs.

It is very difficult to get free guest posting sites these days, as it has become very commercial. So spending money on a quality guest post is worth the money, if you realize the importance of guest posting. So, try to find out high-authority blogs who accept free or paid guest posts and then share a very high-quality article. And you have to learn the art to pitch for Guest post so that you can avoid rejection.

If you are looking for some quality blogs to write guest posts in Blogging & WordPress niche, then check this list curated by Anil Agarwal.

This is another amazing way to earn a backlink. Yes, interviews are very profitable as you will get a backlink for sure and at the same time you will also share about your journey to a wider audience. This will help to build your brand and make you popular.

So far I have been interviewed by many top bloggers. You can read all of them here. But this is not easy, as you have to earn that interview. You have to become an Expert person in your niche or area so that people find your journey amazing to read. That’s why I always stress on spending quality time to build a network and help others.

In one of my recent interview on BloggingQNA, you can see that I have answered the question and also mentioned my blog. This way from that article, I have linked a few other relevant articles so that the reader can get better knowledge and at the same time, my website gets a good quality backlink from an authority website.

interview backlink
Get High-Quality Backlink Through Blog Interviews

So, work hard to prove your skills and become an authority so that people can reach you to share your blogging success on their blogs. Besides link building, this is the best way to brand yourself as well and there are no shortcuts.

Link roundups or Expert roundup posts are another amazing way to get high-quality dofollow backlink from authority websites. There are multiple websites who are collecting the views of Experts on a particular topic.

If you get such an invite and participate, you will get a do-follow backlink to your website. As a beginner, you may not get such invites easily, but you have to spend some time to grow as an authority.

Recently, I took part in one such Expert Roundup post hosted by Vashishtha Kapoor. There I have shared some LinkedIn Marketing Trends 2020 with some other amazing professional bloggers. At the same time, you can find that my website is also mentioned on that website with social media platforms as well.

link roundups
Earn High-Quality Backlink From Expert Roundup Posts

Other than that, if you have some solid knowledge about that topic and if you think you can contribute something amazing, then you can connect with the blog to include your thoughts in that existing roundup post. This is not that easy as you have to learn the art of blogger outreach.

Besides that, there are link roundup posts where many bloggers share the best articles they read in a week. You can outreach to those bloggers if you have something awesome to include.

12. Create Infographic

This is a very effective way to build backlinks for your blog. But it’s not that easy for beginners. If you have some design skills then you can easily create an infographic for free using Canva.

Otherwise, you can hire someone to create an awesome infographic for you. But this is just the beginning. As soon as you have a high-quality infographic, you have started reaching out to people to have a look at the infographic and if they find that awesome they may link as well.

infographic link building
How to Build Links With Infographics and Boost Your SEO

Besides that, there are many infographic submission websites where you can post your infographic and easily get backlinks to your website. And for that, you don’t have to go for any professional tool or paid Image creation tool. Just use Canva and you can create stunning infographics for free. I have shared a video related to that on my YouTube Channel.

13. Become Author Of High-Authority Sites

There are many high-authority websites where you can become an author/contributor and write quality articles. While writing you can mention your website from that article. It looks like guest posting only, but this is very difficult compared to guest posting.

First of all, you have to be a very good writer to get such accounts approved. And after that, you have to share some amazing content regularly to share your knowledge & expertise. E.g. I have shared some amazing articles on YouStory (Check My YourStory Profile). You can check my profile details here.

yourstory author profile
How to Get a Backlink from YourStory

It’s not that simple to get a backlink from YouSrtory or similar high-authority websites like Huffingtonpost, Thrive Global, Forbes, etc. First of all, they will review your request and then only approve. Even if they approve they will not accept any content or any links from that content from day one.

You have to be very careful and share really good content to create a very good impression. The purpose is not only to get a backlink & leave that platform. Rather it is good to share regular articles on those websites to gain authority, expose yourself and get huge referral traffic to your blog for free.

Link exchange in 2020 is a big crime. Yes, search engines like Google are very smart to get such things. But if you have a network of blogs, then there is no harm as you are linking your own blogs only and many top blog networks are doing that.

Besides that, if you want to link exchange among 2 different blogs, make sure not to do it among the same domains. For that, both of you should have min 2 domains or one must have 2 domains. So that you can make sure the direct link exchange doesn’t happen.

link exchange
The Proper Way To Do Reciprocal Linking

15. Answer on Quora

Question answer platforms are very popular these days and one of them is Quora. Quora is not only a platform where you can answer questions, but also you can drive huge traffic from Quora.

Quora has tightened the policies recently. So while answering questions, make sure to link relevant articles only and that also very few links. Those links are nofollow but have huge potential to drive referral traffic to your blog & keep your backlink profile natural.

get backlink from quora
How to get backlinks to my blog from Quora

You can also create a very compelling profile on Quora and share all necessary details of your website, your business & skills. This is a very good way to expose your value so that people can connect with you.

Broken link building is a very advanced technique. If you know what is 4040 page not found errors, then you can easily identify the massive opportunity to get a very high-quality backlink.

In big authority websites, then always link many outbound websites. But after months, many of them got 404 page not found errors. That means that is an opportunity for you to provide a similar article from your blog and get a mention on that high-quality blog.

I would say, better to read this detailed guide on the Broken Link-Building technique.

17. Skyscraper technique [It still works]

In 2020, you might have read many places that content length doesn’t matter. Until you are providing an accurate answer, you will get the top ranking with a short article also.

This might be true if your blog has very high authority. But for a new blog, it is not possible. So, it is better to follow the skyscraper technique and create a 10X better content covering every aspect to get better ranking.

You can read the detailed guide on how to build a backlink using the SkyScrapper technique here.

18. Build a Relationship

Networking is the key to get success in any field. Yes, if you want to create a successful blog then without the help of fellow bloggers, readers, and your friends it will never be possible.

As I am running my Facebook group successfully, I am able to make very good friends with many bloggers. With the period of time, we always try to help each other by mentioning each other’s content through various platforms.

facebook group blogger meet
how to grow your Facebook group 2020

Well, this may not be a strategy as it takes time to build a relationship. And when we all are in a relationship, we always try to help each other in every possible way. My Facebook Group grows up to 7K+ members in just 1 year. Read this detailed FacebooGroup Case Study to understand various strategies I took to grow this group.

19. Blogger Outreach

Well, blogger outreach is already mentioned in this post a couple of times. In simple words, it is like to reach a blogger for some collaboration purposes. Now that could be various things.

E.g. you may want to guest post, you may find some broken link opportunity, you may want to submit an entry in existing link-roundup or Expert roundup post, etc. Check this detailed guide to understand how to get backlinks through blogger outreach.

20. Write a Case Study

Case studies are working best for your blog as well as your personal branding. When you experiment with something and it worked fine, that is the time when you must take that experience in front of the people. People will value your effort when they can see that you have achieved some figures in terms of money or success.

I did the same thing and published my Black Friday Income Case Study. This case study was shared more than 700+ times. You can do blogger outreach and ask them to link your case study from a suitable blog post. If they find that really useful, you can get a high-quality backlink. This is not that easy, as you have to very good at blogger outreach.

21. Interview Other Bloggers

I love to share the amazing journeys of bloggers on my blog. There are multiple benefits of organizing interviews on your blog. You can share some amazing experiences with your readers and also get connected with the blogger personally.

Many times, the blogger mentions the interview from their about us page or any featured page. Personally, I am doing the same & mention all the websites who took my interview. This is another good way to get some authority backlinks.

22. Create Web 2.0 Sites

This is another popular way to create a backlink. This is not that easy for beginners, and you need very good knowledge & hold about creating backlinks. You can know more about Web 2.0 link building techniques first and then act accordingly.

E.g. I have created 1 Web 2.0 website with the similar name of Bloggingjoy and shared a few articles with a period of time. I have linked a few of my blog articles from them, but the most important part is that you have created a brand name Web 2.0 website which will help you to spread about your brand.

web 2 link building guide
Web 2.0 Link Building for Branding in 2020

23. Content Syndication

Content syndication or I would say content repurposing in the different platforms is a great way to use the same content on different platforms. Few of the most popular platforms are:

Here is my Medium profile where I have linked my home page as well as publish couple of posts where I have linked my internal posts also. Though these links are nofollow, but it carries a lot of value.

medium profile backlink
how to get a backlink from medium

24. Expired Domain

This is one of the very popular technique these days mostly followed by the expert blogger or SEO experts. I would not mention much about Expired domain link building techniques, rather I would like you to refer to these below articles to understand how exactly this works & what are the Pros / Cons.

25. PBNs (Private Blog Network)

This is also a very advanced link building technique in 2020. As a beginner, it is not possible for you to create a PBN network or Private Blog network as it needs a very good amount of knowledge & investments. And if you have done things wrongly, then you have to pay the price as a Google penalty. If you are interested in PBN, then better to connect with some expert persons. To know more about PBN backlink, here are few amazing resources.

So, what is the future of backlink? Do you still have a doubt? There is no doubt the importance of backlinks in 2020 and it will always be there. But rather than creating a huge number of backlinks, few good highly relevant authority backlinks may do the magic.

I know there are many other advanced types of link building techniques that can be included here. But my intention is to help a beginner to understand the process. If you work on these techniques and understand how exactly backlink works for ranking, then you are most welcome to explore other advanced techniques also.

But to start with, keep one thing in mind that you need great content first. Other than that, a high authority backlink can’t help you to grow your blog. So, focus on creating a very valuable website first for your readers, and then grade you can build backlinks and also earn backlinks naturally.

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24 Comments

  1. Bro, I must say that you murdered this post. You touched every aspect of link building. I really love forum posting and blog commenting. I will be starting guest post soon.

  2. Can you suggest me how newspaper event based article rank in one day in search engine?

    1. First of all, ranking depends on many factors. To answer your question, the news websites are very high-authority websites and they are posting many articles in a single day. That’s the reason whatever they post, it gets posted even within seconds.

  3. Hey Santanu

    Awesome post bro

    It is a huge list of effective solutions for creating backlinks.

    Just by going through the whole articles it feels like where to start.

    I will start by CommentLUVBlog.

    Thanks for sharing such a wonderful post.

    1. I am happy that I can help you to create backlinks from scratch. And that’s what my intention behind creating this detailed guide. Thanks for the encouragement and all your support.

  4. Hello Santanu,

    Link building is a tough job for bloggers. Your ranking solely depends on your link profile. I completely agree with your points here. People need to pay close attention to their blog link profile. Guest posting is a great way to build backlinks while creating high-quality content on other blogs. I think Web 2.0 sites will definitely play a great role in link building. However, Content is always king that attracts natural backlinks. When people like your content they love to mention it on their blog posts. Thanks for sharing this beautiful post. 🙂

    Regards
    Vishwajeet Kumar

    1. You are right brother, as a beginner people got confused and either they don’t create backlinks or create bad backlinks without knowing the benefits or impact of such backlinks. Thanks for reading & sharing this article in your social profiles.

  5. Wow. This is only guide I am searching for. You nailed it brother. Beginner to advance- all linkbuilding tips is here.

    Thanks Santunu for effort

    1. Thanks a lot, the brother for finding this link building guide useful I hope this will help beginners to create a quality backlink from scratch.

  6. hey Santanu, you explained very well.
    me also using the techniques like blog commenting to build the backlinks. you have come out with the powerful techniques.

    thank you for this post. keep come up with this type of awesome stuff.

    1. I am happy to see that you find this post useful and shared on your Facebook Group. Thanks a lot for your support.

  7. Abdul razique says:

    Sir can you help me, my question is very different
    After the submit my own website link, when will I get link , because I have submitted on many website but still I got few link why?

  8. Hello Santanu,

    This is a comprehensive guide to link building. I can see how much time and effort you have put into it. I hope this goes a big hit on your blog.

    Keep up the good work. thanks for sharing such a great post.

  9. Lawal Rahman says:

    Backlinks remain the toughest aspect of blogging and SEO… One can leverage it to compete.

    This post is a complete guide to know different strategies of building quality backlinks for a blog and I think we all need this valuable guide.

    You have said it all in this post and I don’t think a blogger can try any of these strategies and still remain the same…

    I have tried some of the techniques you mentioned and I’m beginning to see a significant positive change in both my DA and traffic.

    Thank you

  10. Hey SANTANU DEBNATH ,

    Great post with great information. It is my first time commenting on your blog post and i must say that you have made an incredible post and effective link building techniques. Whereas your all the suggested tips are effective and helps a lot for building backlinks.

    Backlinks and link building matters a lot and are also vital parts for search rankings. Blog commenting is also an effective way to create backlinks, whereas doing blog commenting also helps us to connect with other great bloggers by sharing our ideas, knowledge and opinions. Doing guestposting is also an effective technique to create backlinks. Forum commenting, profile creation, video backlink, internal backlinks, Links roundups, quora are also helpful and will helps to generate backlinks. The video content have gain much popularity, Whereas quora is an amazing question and answering platform that helps to generate more traffic.

    Your all the suggested tips are helpful and works well for creating quality backlinks. As this post will help several users for creating quality backlinks.

    Truly informative post and thanks for sharing.

  11. Link building is always a tough job for any blogger. But you have covered all the techniques to create links. And one can definitely use these techniques to create links for their site. Thank you for sharing this blog.

  12. Thanks, Shantanu sir

    for these detailed guide of backlink building
    because am new in blogging and I need to build links for my blog,
    by using these articles, I think now I able to start link building.

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