Link building strategies are essential to any high-performing SEO approach. As Google’s algorithm grows more intelligent and refined, link building has evolved beyond a helpful tactic; it’s now crucial for driving lasting success in search rankings.

But if you’re new to SEO, you might ask: what exactly is link building? Simply put, it’s getting reputable, high-authority websites to link to your site. These backlinks act as endorsements, signaling to search engines that your site is trustworthy and very valuable, ultimately boosting your potential to rank higher.

In this blog, we’ll dive into four proactive link-building strategies to elevate your search authority and amplify your digital presence. Plus, we’ll cover why disavowing low-quality links is a critical step you don’t want to overlook!

Disavowing Toxic Backlinks: Protecting Your Site’s SEO Health

Disavowing toxic backlinks is one of the most essential steps in any SEO strategy, particularly in link building. These harmful links can damage your site’s reputation and ranking, signaling spam-like activity to Google. Using Google Search Console, you can review your backlinks, identify those with high spam scores, and assess which may harm your site’s trustworthiness. Left unchecked, toxic backlinks can undermine your visibility and may even lead to your site being removed from search results. Removing or disavowing them should be a top priority.

What Makes a Link Toxic?

Toxic links often come from sources flagged by search engines as unnatural or manipulative. These include:

• Paid links: Links you’ve purchased which are seen as manipulative.
• Link exchanges: Excessive reciprocal links that appear unnatural.
• Automated links: Generated by link-building bots, often leading to spammy sites.
• Low-quality directories: Links listed on directories with poor reputations.
• Unnatural link patterns: Links from irrelevant or suspicious sites.

Once you’ve cleaned up toxic backlinks, you’re ready to build a solid link profile with these proactive strategies:

1. Create Linkable Assets

A straightforward and effective link-building strategy is creating linkable assets—valuable content others want to cite. This could be in blog posts, in-depth guides, research reports, or thought leadership pieces. When your content is insightful, informative, and unique, it becomes a valuable resource that others naturally link to.

Pro tip: Linkable assets often benefit from outreach to ensure they reach a broader audience. Keep reading to learn how outreach can amplify your efforts.

2. Outreach Link Building

Building relationships is critical in link building. Networking, collaborations, personalized outreach, and consistent follow-ups can help establish connections that lead to valuable backlinks. Digital PR tactics such as partnering with influencers or creating newsworthy content can amplify your outreach, drawing attention to your content.

Use influencer collaborations, industry partnerships, and creative campaigns to expand your reach.

3. Analyze Competitor Backlinks

A wealth of SEO tools, like Semrush’s competitor backlink tool, can help you analyze what works for your competitors. By reviewing the content types that attract strong backlinks and identifying who links to them, you gain insight into opportunities for your link-building strategy. This can also guide your content creation, helping you produce pieces likely to attract similar high-quality links.

4. Reclaim Lost/Broken Backlinks

Lost or broken backlinks can often be reclaimed with a little effort. Links can go inactive due to page updates, deletions, or redirects. Reclaiming these links is relatively simple and effective; fixing an existing link is often easier than securing a new one from scratch.

To get started, use tools like Semrush’s broken backlink checker to locate inactive links. Then, contact the linking site and request that they update the link to a relevant, working page on your site.

Combined with the proactive disavowing of toxic links, these strategies will help you in maintaining a strong link profile and boost your SEO efforts for long-term success.

If all this feels overwhelming, don’t worry—our monthly SEO packages are here to make it easy!