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11 Powerful SEO Link Building Strategies For 2021

By John E Lincoln

We all know that more links means higher rankings. But, SEO link building isn’t always easy.

That’s why I’ve put together this comprehensive list of the top SEO link building strategies for 2021.

I’ve also assigned each strategy a score between 1 and 10, with 1 being the least favorable and 10 being the most.

So if you’re looking to expand your online presence and skyrocket your Google rankings—keep reading!

What We’ll Cover:

Journalist Response

One of the best ways to get yourself out there is by responding to journalist inquiries.

As it turns out, being featured on news sites, blogs, publications, and podcasts doesn’t just generate more awareness for your brand; it can also help you develop effective link building strategies.

I’ve been featured in both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal because journalists have specifically reached out to me and asked for a quote.

If you haven’t already, you’ll want to keep Help a Reporter Out (HARO) on your radar. HARO connects journalists with industry experts to share their expertise, stories, and case studies.

Favorability Score: 10/10

A tried and tested SEO link building strategy involves building broken links.

Basically, you want to find relevant pages in your industry that could potentially link out to you and that have broken outbound links.

The good news is that most of the major tools on the market will allow you to crawl the web and find broken links relatively easily.

Once you find one, inform them that the link is broken and suggest that it should be updated to reflect a relevant, up-to-date piece of content on your website instead.

While the manual outreach process is not ideal, it can drive some quick-win results when performed correctly.

Favorability Score: 4/10

Unlinked Mentions

Unlinked mentions are one of the best SEO link building strategies for 2021.

This occurs when there’s an online mention of your brand that doesn’t link back to your site.

Since you could be missing out on an opportunity to generate leads and build your site’s authority, this is the perfect excuse to reach out and convince the author to convert the mention into a clickable link.

Not only does this help the user find you, but it’s a great way to build a lot of links and expand your digital footprint, especially if you’re a medium-sized or larger brand.

Favorability Score: 10/10

seo link building

SEO Link Building Strategy: Monitoring Brand Mentions

Industry Studies

There’s no denying that content with original research or industry studies are highly linkable, particularly at the national and local level.

With this SEO link building strategy, the goal is to craft a piece of content that people will want to download and link to.

And if you’re in a niche in which no one has ever really published an industry study, you’ll want to jump on that opportunity asap!

Not to mention, if you can create industry studies around specific locations, that can also help drive SEO links to local pages.

Favorability Score: 8/10

Offer Story or Content as Part of Your Link Building Strategy

Never underestimate the power of outstanding content.

In fact, you need to make it an initiative for your organization to create a story around your business.

What is your brand doing differently? What pain points are you addressing that your competitors aren’t?

This story must cut through the clutter that your industry or general business publications are really going to appreciate.

This SEO link building method will require some creative problem-solving.

Favorability Score: 6/10

seo link building strategies

SEO Link Building Strategies For 2021

Review Sites

No matter your industry, there are plenty of review sites on the web that can help consumers determine whether or not your product or service is good.

It’s important that you’re on them, and luckily, they’re often pretty easy to get onto.

Remember—only you can create or claim your listing. So, be sure to fill out these profiles and maintain them on a regular basis.

Don’t worry—there are always new ones popping up, giving you ample opportunity to reap the reputation management benefits of local and national review sites.

Favorability Score: 5/10

Showcasing Awards is a Powerful SEO Link Building Strategy

Do you have a list of all the awards in your industry? Are you making sure that you’re submitting to those awards?

If you’re not, you probably should be.

Showcasing your awards can drastically increase your backlink potential.

Although this is one of the more effective link building strategies on this list, awards can take a long time to submit.

Favorability Score: 7/10

Competitor Mentions

Competitors share a similar audience to you, which means it’s always a good idea to keep an eye on them.

With that being said, did you know that you can crawl the web and find every single person who has ever mentioned your competitor?

To spare you the agony of doing this manually, I recommend setting up Google Alerts to monitor any competitor mentions.

Once you find these mentions, you can reach out and ask them to also list you on that same article, write a similar article about you, or dare we say—replace a competitor with you.

While this is one of the top SEO link building strategies for 2021, it can be a little tricky to get somebody to actually add you to one of those lists or to make the modifications that you’re requesting.

Favorability Score: 6/10

Refresh Older Posts

No matter how good your content is, it has an expiration date.

You might see a spike of growth once you hit “publish,” but at some point, the growth will level out and traffic will stop pouring in.

If you’re content is more than two years old, you should consider performing a content refresh. After all, searchers are always seeking results that are relevant and recent.

That’s why Google announced an improvement to their ranking algorithm in 2011 that was “designed to better understand how to differentiate the level of freshness you need” for each query.

You can even reach out to websites and offer to refresh an older post for free so it can start climbing the rankings again.

Favorability Score: 6/10

Provide Resources

Providing a resource, image, or video can help create a strong link building profile for your brand, making it one of the most popular SEO link building strategies for 2021.

For one, building a detailed resource list is useful for your readers. It will also make it easier for bloggers to find your content and link to it in their posts.

Favorability Score: 5/10

SEO Link Building Strategy: Lists and Guides

SEO Link Building Strategy: Lists and Guides

Lists and Guides

The content you publish needs to have the intended user in mind.

What’s in it for them? What will compel them to share it?

Listicles, top lists, and guides tend to perform very well online because they highlight the specific ways the user can expect to benefit from your brand.

As an authority, you can use these tips and how-to’s to provide consumers with a unique perspective on various issues and trends associated with your business.

Favorability Score: 5/10

Wrapping Up

There you have it—11 SEO link building strategies for 2021!

When looking at this list, I recommend you only choose what you know will work best for your industry.

Focus on implementing 3-4 per quarter and master each of them!

Which link building strategy will you be focusing on in the coming year?

About John E Lincoln

John Lincoln (MBA) is CEO of Ignite Visibility (a 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 Inc. 5000 company) a highly sought-after digital marketing strategist, industry speaker and author of two books, "The Forecaster Method" and "Digital Influencer." Over the course of his career, Lincoln has worked with over 1,000 online businesses ranging from small startups to amazing clients such as Office Depot, Tony Robbins, Morgan Stanley, Fox, USA Today, COX and The Knot World Wide. John Lincoln is the editor of the Ignite Visibility blog. While he is a contributor, he does not write all of the articles and in many cases he is supported to ensure timely content.