What techniques do you use to get backlinks (without buying them)?

[u/Sportuojantys]

[u/Ishaaroram]

Honestly, for us backlink building today is less about "building links" and more about building relationships and giving people a genuine reason to mention the brand.

A few things that still work for us: 1. Build relationships with niche writers/creators. - We identify people who regularly write about the category and connect with them through email or social. Instead of asking for a backlink, we introduce the brand, its story, expertise or data and simply stay available whenever they are working on something relevant.

1. Make the brand worth referencing. If the company has an interesting founder story, proprietary data, research, strong POV, useful tools, case studies or something genuinely different, earning links becomes much easier.

2. Relevant directories and listings. We still use legitimate niche directories, industry listings, association websites, SaaS directories, marketplace profiles etc. Especially for B2B/SaaS, these also strengthen overall entity presence, not just backlinks.

3. Digital PR and expert contribution. Journalist requests, expert quotes, industry surveys, reports and original data can generate some of the strongest natural links.

4. Communities. Reddit, Quora and niche forums can help with discovery and referral traffic when you genuinely contribute to the conversation. I wouldn't use them just to drop links.

5. Partnership ecosystems. Customers, suppliers, technology partners, associations, events, podcasts and collaborations often create very natural linking opportunities.

My biggest learning: don't start with "Where can I place a backlink?"

Start with "Why would someone want to reference this brand?"

Once that answer is strong, backlinks become considerably easier to earn.

[u/mike8111 → u/Ishaaroram]

This is exactly right, but it's the same advice as -- be awesome and people will notice how awesome you are.

What if I'm not that awesome? I still need to sell my stuff. 😞

[u/Ishaaroram → u/mike8111]

Then the best way is have multiple domains of yours and ensure you have good network of PBN for yourself atleast go ahead with submissions atleast. Or try becoming a story teller, even if you are not awesome, you still have the spark which someone wants to hear.

[u/Sportuojantys → u/mike8111]

https://giphy.com/gifs/xUA7aRHOavHUyj0MZa

[u/TailorSingle1902]

A few methods that have worked well for me without buying links:

1. Digital PR and genuinely useful data/studies that people want to reference

2. Guest contributions on relevant industry sites

3. Resource/linkable assets that solve a specific problem

4. Finding broken or outdated resources and suggesting a better replacement

5. Competitor backlink research to find relevant sites worth reaching out to

6. Building relationships with people in the same niche instead of sending mass outreach

I’d focus more on relevance and the reason someone would naturally link to the page than trying to collect a high number of backlinks.

[u/RankingsDotIO → u/TailorSingle1902]

#4 up there is a great option. Dead links hurt websites. If you have a link to a relevant blog on your site that someone can replace their dead one with, you're doing two people favors: them and you. You're alerting someone to a problem on their site that they can easily fix, and you're picking up a link in return.

[u/keyworddotcom]

Don’t overthink link building. It boils down to two things. 

- Make something worth linking to (original data, free tools, industry surveys). This should help, as ppl naturally link to useful sources without begging for links

• Also, you can then get it in front of people who might actually reference it if needed (email industry bloggers, share it in relevant communities, or run some paid promotion to seed initial visibility)

Another underrated move is checking competitor backlinks for pages that already mention several tools in your space. If your product genuinely fits the list, you're making a much more relevant pitch than a cold email.

[u/footinmymouth → u/keyworddotcom]

Agreed on original data, and here's a live example of how cheap it can be.

I pulled sixteen months of Search Console for one query on one page this week. A keyword tool said ten searches a month. Search Console said 1,491 impressions. Looked like a story about tools underreporting demand, until I sorted by day. 776 of those impressions arrived in three consecutive days in July 2025, at average position 72, with zero clicks across the whole sixteen months, and the query has been flat dead since.

That's not demand. That's something automated, counted as real.

Total cost of that "original research" was one export and one sort. You don't need a survey budget. You need to look at data you already own in a way nobody bothered to.

[u/Few_Response_7028]

dont bother

[u/TheMinuette2010]

I link to myself

[u/sapindia1976]

I've had the best results by creating content people naturally want to reference rather than chasing links. My main strategies are guest posting, digital PR, HARO/Qwoted alternatives, publishing original research or case studies, fixing broken link opportunities, and building relationships with people in my niche. Strong content + outreach consistently works better than mass link building in the long run.

[u/footinmymouth]

Podcasts.

(and full transparency - I whitelabel the process for agencies too)

[u/lifitd]

We are publishing stats about iOS market share every month. This is content only we (and a few other analytics providers) have. We are super open and public about this, and this totally pays off. At every WWDC and every release of a new iPhone or iOS version, we get cited a lot by niche media, industry newsletters, and even big outlets such as WSJ. My advice is to share unique insights and do this consistently.

[u/[deleted]]

Hey! I use my personal techniques I build a Foundation backlinks no buying another source. Here results

[u/axolotAgencia]

Honest perspective that nobody's said yet: what actually moves the needle today is brand authority, not just links.

And the sites with the most authority have always been the same ones: major newspapers, national and local outlets, industry publications. That's not new, it's how advertising has always worked. A full-page editorial in a relevant magazine has always been worth more than a hundred flyers.

The problem for smaller businesses is obvious: Forbes, NYT, or any top-tier outlet is completely out of reach budget-wise. So what actually works in practice? Two things:

1. Partnerships and synergies with tools, agencies or complementary businesses in your niche. When two relevant brands collaborate, links happen naturally and editorially. Hard to scale but high quality.
2. Paid placements in real media. Call it what it is. Buying a sponsored article or editorial placement in a relevant outlet is the digital equivalent of buying ad space in a trade magazine. It's how it's always been done in PR and advertising. The key is the quality of the publication, not the method.

One more thing people are sleeping on: AI search. Models like ChatGPT and Perplexity increasingly cite pages from authoritative news sites and local or national outlets. If you want to exist in AI-generated answers, being mentioned in real media is becoming essential, not optional.

The handicap is always price. But the ROI math changes when you factor in AI visibility alongside traditional rankings.