How Do SEO Companies Build Backlinks?

If you are interested in improving the SEO of your company but aren't all that clued up about the topic, then it would likely be a good idea to hire an SEO company like Link City.

However, you will likely also be interested to know what link-building strategy will be used by your chosen SEO company to improve your rankings on search engines.

Thankfully, in this piece, we'll explain exactly how we go about link-building here at Link City, as well as how some other SEO companies go about the process.

Keyword Research

Before an SEO company starts with its link-building efforts, it will first need to figure out what keywords will be applicable to your website so that it can begin building links around these anchor texts.

SEO companies usually use tools like Google Search Console and UberSuggest, which can help reveal what keywords will be applicable to the client's niche and help improve their SEO performance.

These keywords will then need to be prioritized based on which of them are being searched for most, as they will have the biggest impact on your client's site.

Once you have found a variety of target keywords, you can then go about building links around these keywords through some of the methods we will list below.

Guest Blogging

Guest blogging or guest posting entails creating a blog post or other content for other websites within your niche that have a high level of domain authority in exchange for some quality backlinks to your own site.

This can improve your ranking as websites with high domain authority are favored by Google and other search engines, so having these authoritative websites linking back to your website can cause the algorithm to view your website as trustworthy and relevant to your niche.

This will cause the algorithm to rank your site higher in the search rankings. The fact that guest posts are content that your website has created and posted to another website can also improve your organic traffic.

If a user from a website you have written guest posts for likes what they see, they may make their way back to your site to see what else it has to offer.

Guest posting is one of the most ethical link-building methods, as you are exchanging valuable content for quality links that can improve your site's ranking.

SEO companies will often find relevant websites to create guest posts for, and if they are anything like Link City, they will have a team of skilled content writers to write guest posts for your website to help generate links to your site.

These websites are often found through your chosen SEO company finding relevant websites in your niche, seeing where your competitor's backlinks have come from and finding sites in your niche that have gaps in their content.

Niche Edits

Niche edits are another method used by SEO companies to create backlinks to your website.

Niche edits will often improve your rankings much more quickly and effectively than guest post links, as the process entails placing links into content that has already been crawled and indexed by Google.

This means that your links will be found and acknowledged by the algorithm more quickly, which is why niche edits often take effect more quickly than guest posts.

There are a few ways that SEO companies go about finding niche edit link-building opportunities, which we will mention and discuss below.

Broken link-building

Broken link building is one of the best ways for SEO companies to go about obtaining niche edits, and while this process can be quite time-consuming if you do it yourself, an SEO company should be able to do it for you without nearly as much hassle.

The process is quite simple but can be quite hard to execute as it entails finding a website within your niche that has some broken links. Once broken links have been found, the SEO company will likely contact the website owner and ask to replace these links with links from your own website.

The majority of site owners will appreciate this process, as you will not only be informing them of a factor that could be affecting their SEO, but you will also be providing them with a solution to the problem in one fell swoop.

Press mention link-building

SEO companies often also make use of press mention link-building when they are building backlinks to your site. This is another process that can take a lot of effort and time if you decide to do it yourself, but it will be a cinch for an SEO company like Link City.

The process basically entails scouring the internet for websites and pages where your site has been mentioned but has not been linked. Once the SEO company has found these sites, they will likely contact the site owner and ask them to link back to your website.

Conducting this process manually can take up a lot of time, so companies will often automate this process by using Google Alerts. By using Google Alerts, these companies will be able to find out every time you are mentioned on the internet, as they will be sent an email if this is the case.

Few website owners will turn down this opportunity, as it will be beneficial to the SEO of your website, as well as theirs.

Outreach

Outreach is the most common method used by SEO companies when they are backlink building, although the process often also makes use of tactics like niche edits and guest posts.

Email outreach

Email outreach is a very simple process that entails an SEO company sending "cold" emails to other websites within your niche to ask them to link back to your site.

The SEO company will generally ask if the target site will allow them to add a niche edit link to some of the existing content on their site that is relevant to your own site.

Alternatively, the company could also send an email offering to write a guest blog for the other website, which is often more likely to work, as the website owner will be getting something in exchange for providing your website with a backlink.

Thankfully, if you have hired an SEO company, they will generally also do this part of the process for you.

Social media outreach

Many SEO companies seem to forget that social media channels can be used to a great effect, as while they will not directly improve a website's ranking, they can help improve its organic traffic.

The SEO company you choose to hire will contact influencers and other influential social media pages within your niche and build relationships with them and your site in exchange for some social media coverage.

The company will generally search social media websites for influencers within your niche and contact them to ask them to give your website a shout-out.

This is often done in exchange for money or another transaction that will provide the influencer with some form of value, such as relevant content.

Link Farming

Link farming is generally considered to be an unethical form of link-building that some SEO companies choose to use (you won't find Link City using this method, though!).

Link farming entails creating a website with the sole intention of using it to create backlinks to other sites.

This tactic can work if it is done correctly, but if not, you may only receive a temporary boost in your ranking before Google's algorithm catches on and penalizes your website for using this method to climb the rankings.

Private Blog Networks

Some SEO companies also use an unethical technique to help build links that often entails purchasing expired domains with a high level of domain authority and adding them to a network of websites with a large number of links to your site in order to manipulate the search rankings.

While this technique is considered to be unethical and "black hat," if used effectively, it can fly under the radar of Google's algorithm and vastly improve the ranking of your website, especially if some of the expired domains had a high level of authority.

Why Should You Consider Link City?

If building backlinks sounds like a chore to you, then why should you bother doing it yourself? At Link City, we can help build links for you and help your site rank by using some of the practices we have mentioned above.

If you aren't so sure about us, then you don't need to take our word for it; look at what our clients have had to say about us on Trustpilot.

Be sure to contact us for a no-commitment discussion about what link-building strategies will work best for you.

FAQS

Is link-building still effective?

Yes, link-building is still an integral part of SEO and is used throughout the entire industry.

How many backlinks does it take to rank on Google?

Unfortunately, the answer to this question is: it depends. While some sites in sparse niches won't need all that many backlinks to rank, others could need hundreds.

Can you have too many backlinks?

Yes, it is definitely possible to overload your site with toxic backlinks, which is why you should leave link-building to the professionals at Link City!