Link Building Strategy for Niche Sites: The Ultimate Guide

In the earlier post, I talked about some tips that will help you to grow your niche site. Among these tips, one important tips was about Link Building.

Link Building is an integral part of the growth of any website. It doesn’t matter if it is a long-term site or a niche site. Though earlier link building was a natural process, because of increasing competition, we need to do it manually.

Though you can rank a website just by good content, the chances are negligible in a competitive niche. Today I will be sharing with you the complete step by step link building process that you can apply to your niche site to make it soar higher in the search ranking as well as to gain authority.

Link Building Strategy to Get Success With Niche Sites

While hundreds of people are making millions of dollars by flipping their niche sites, most of the other people are fail to even earn a dollar.

Do you know the reason?

Most people are unaware of the importance of link building for a niche site growth. Those who know also are too lazy to do themselves.

People think link building to be as hard as climbing the Himalayas. This is the reason you will see hundreds of SEO companies and thousands of gigs on Fiverr, claiming you to give the moon.

While you can expect a good article from a freelance writer, you won’t find a perfect solution to link building. Most SEO companies which provide cheap services use blackhat SEO techniques and will never secure your rankings.

I know the problem you are facing hence I will explain you the step by step process you can adopt to get quality links to your website.

I have divided the different approaches into multiple months so that you get a gradual increase in your links. This both looks good and saves you from Google’s eyes.

Note: It is not that the approach mentioned in Month 1 can’t be used in Month 2. But it is not recommended to use an approach earlier than it has been recommended.

Example: You don’t want to do guest posting on other related blogs before even publishing at least five posts on your blog.

Niche Link Building Strategy: Month 1

The main aim when doing link building is to do it in a such a way that it looks natural. You don’t want to get your blog under Google’s radar.

While it is not recommended to build links from Day 1, there are few methods you can apply to your niche site to get the initial boost. These methods will help you get the out of sandbox too.

What is a sandbox in SEO?

The Google Sandbox is an alleged filter placed on new websites. The result is that a site does not receive good rankings for its most important keywords and keyword phrases. Even with good content, abundant incoming links and strong Google PageRank, a site is still adversely affected by the Sandbox effect.

Social signals also greatly help in getting out of sandbox quickly.

Note: These methods might not help a lot in ranking as well as in increasing your Domain Authority. But these links are helpful in diversifying your link profile.

Doing Blog Commenting:

Blog Commenting is one of the most underrated link building methods. Popular among newbies, this method has its own advantages apart from getting you a no-follow link from a good blog.

Here’s the thing:

No-follow links do not affect your blog’s authority.

Why should we comment on niche related blogs then? We are better off doing something better and useful.

The point here is not about authority. Let’s breakdown the advantages of blog commenting in different points.

Help you in diversifying your link profile

Blog commenting helps you get no-follow links. While no-follow links provide no authority to your blog, they are important for diversifying the link profile. There should be a good ratio of do-follow links and no-follow links pointing to a site.

An example of a good comment

So should you be worried about the ratio?

No! If you are getting good legitimate links to your blogs, then you need not worry about the ratio.

Read more here –  Is the DoFollow vs NoFollow ratio important?

Good blog comments will bring targeted traffic to your blog.

More Comments = More Traffic

It helps in getting in touch with influencers in your niche.

So how to do blog commenting in the right way?

Here are few quick tips:

• Make sure you comment in niche relevant blogs. Relevant links will always have a greater value than the non-relevant ones.
• Avoid blogs with too many comments. More the links from the page, lesser the value of the links.
• Make sure that you comment on a blog which has approved comments. This way you are sure that your comment will be approved.
• Try not to leave a small comment. Also, make sure to read the post before leaving a comment.
• Try to reply back if you get any replies.
• Also, try to avoid commenting on spammy websites.
• Try to go for quality rather than focusing on quantity.

Hope all these above points helps.

Pro Tip: How to find niche relevant sites for blog commenting?

You can find these sites using a simple google search. You just need to search for “intitle:[topic] “2..20 comments”.

Example: If your topic is dog food, you can search for “ intitle:[dog food] “2..20 comments “

Note: Do not include the quotes in your search

Go for Selected Web Directories

Web Directories are still quite useful to gain authority links in the early stages. While most of the good web directories ask for money to get a site in, there are a few free ones too.

It depends on your budget. If you have the budget, these links are a must-buy.

The biggest problem with the free directories is that they take too long for a submission to be processed. In the end, you hardly will earn any links.

Few useful tips:

•  Always find a niche relevant directory to submit your links. Also, make sure to submit your blog in the right category too.
•  Try to go for the high DA Web Directories, especially if you are paying for them.
• Try to avoid services from Fiverr and Seoclerk as most of them are sh**t.

Pro Tip: Finding web directories is as easy as a Google search. You can also use DropMyLink.

Search for – intitle:[topic] “directory”

You can find lots of them here – Top 20 Blog Submission Sites With The Domain Authority Of 40+

Using Popular Social Bookmarking Websites

Social Bookmarking is a very underrated method of obtaining links.

No! They are not crap.

Unless you are planning to rank your website only by using social bookmarks only :p.

These links are very useful to diversify your link profile. Get a few of them, and you will be pretty safe.

While most of them are of the dofollow attribute, there are some sites which give back a nofollow link as well.

So how can I get a link from these sites?

It is quite simple. You just need to share your article on these sites.

Example of few popular social bookmarking sites:

• ScoopIt
• Digg
• Reddit
• Delicious
• Tumblr

Few Tips –

1. Make sure your content is engaging before sharing it out.
2. Also, make sure to avoid low DA websites to be on the safer side

Niche Sites Link Building Guide: Month 2

So we are in the month two now.

Make sure you have at least four to five posts up on the blog. Because you can benefit from the referral traffic too.

Get Links from Top Discussion Forums

You must have used them for some or the other purpose. These are quite useful to get links too.

I know it might be quite boring, but it’s worth the time. I have seen blogs rank in the top five from few forum links.

The big advantage we have with forums are that there are tons of them for every niche possible. So you can’t complain there.

The forums are also helpful in getting targeted traffic as well as in getting post ideas.

Few Useful Tips:

• Make sure you use a niche relevant forums. There are hundreds of them, a simple Google search is enough to find few. Relevancy is very important when it comes to link building.
• Make sure to make an active profile before spamming links. The main reason why most link building efforts fail when it comes to forums is that of spamming. Most of the times you will be banned for spamming. This means you lose the links too. Also, make sure your post is relevant to the conversation in a thread.
• Most forums allow you to add a link to the profile as well as to the signature. Make sure you add them there.

Don’t spam. Keep Quality your priority.

Link Building For Niche Sites: Month 3

The methods are mentioning below can be used for the later months too.

Using Resource Pages

These pages are goldmines.

There are 3 main reasons:

• These pages already have hundreds of link pointing to them.
• People love to link to resources. Make sure your every post you write is a resource to be ahead and also get free links.
• You get targeted traffic too as these pages often will show up in search engines. In-content links have their own advantages.

The only problem is that securing these links are not as easy as blog commenting or social bookmarks.

So how can you secure these links?

First, you should make sure your post for the resource page is detailed and practical too. It must look like a resource page to be among other resources. Right 🙂 .

Also, make sure that your site looks professional.

Secondly, you have to find a relevant resource page. You can find them easily by a simple Google search or use a service such as DropMyLink.

You then need to contact the owner to get the link secured. This is the more important part.

Few must follow tips:

• Make sure to keep your email short and sweet. No need of begging.
• Try to convince him, why the post should be among the resources. If you are able to convince him, then you can easily get your link up there.
• Also, try to follow up the email if you don’t get a reply. Most of the cases people overlook emails. It’s normal, I do too. You just need to give them a reminder.

Bonus Template: You can use to contact the Resource Owners

Hey [Name],

I was searching for [topic] before I landed on your blog. I couldn’t help notice the epic post on “[Post Name]”. You have done a great job with the post. It was quite useful.

Recently I published a post on “[Post Name]”. I think it will be a great fit to the page.
Anyways if you are interested, just ping me, I will be more than happy to send you the link.

Keep up the good work. Have a great weekend.

Thanks
[Name]

Note: Don’t use the exact email template. It is just an example, so you get the hang of how it should be done.

Do Guest Posting

Guest Posting is arguably the easiest method of getting links. With millions of blogs on the web, it’s a child play to find a blogs which accept Guest Posts.

Everybody wants his readers to engage by publishing new and fresh content. The easiest way could be a through a guest post. But it’s not all easy if you are targeting higher DA sites.

Steps to follow for guest posting:

1. First, you need to find a blog that accepts guest posting. One simple mail can help you determine if a particular blog accepts the guest post or not. It doesn’t matter if the author has a ‘write for us’ page. Also, make sure that the blog has a DA of at least 20+.

2. The second step is to find a great guest post idea. You can go through their blog posts published to know better. Make sure the post is engaging and detailed. Don’t think that you will be wasting time if you give away a free detailed article. It’s worth the hard work.

3. The next step is sending the post to be published. Make sure you check the requirements before sending the final draft. Also, don’t forget to add an author bio and in-content links regardless of the requirements.

4. Share the post with your readers. You can mention it on your about me page too. This will help increase your credibility.

Challenging with Guest Posting:

• Most high DA sites won’t accept guest posts for free. You have to pay a hefty amount to get your post published regardless of the quality. This makes it impossible for someone with a small budget to get a link from these sites.
• Even if you get a guest post published, site owner no-follows all the links, sometimes the author bio too.
• A requirement like – Minimum three thousand word is horrendous. The requirements are sometimes impossible to complete.

Four Easy ways to find Blogs Accepting Guest Posts

Google search:

You can easily find guest posting opportunities by a searching specific keywords. I have listed few of them below.

Your Keyword “guest post”
Your Keyword “write for us.”
Your Keyword “guest article”
Your Keyword “guest post opportunities.”
Your Keyword “contribute to our site.”
Your Keyword “submit your content.”

Example: If my niche is treadmills then I would search for: Treadmills “write for us.”

If you don’t get any results, then try to search for a broader keyword. In this case, it would be fitness.

2. Reverse Image Search:

This method is quite interesting. First, you need to find an influencer in your niche who does guest posting quite often. Get hold of his author pic and search it on Google.

You will easily find potential targets this way.

3. Twitter:

Twitter is also another great place to find influencers. Just search for specific keywords like ‘contribution’ and you niche etc. to find guest posts written by people.

4. DropMyLink:

Bonus Email Template for sending to Blog Owner:

Hey [name],

I’m a long time reader of [Blog Name]. You may have noticed my comment on your post on X (awesome article by the way).

I’m writing to you because I am interested in contributing a guest post to Example.com.

I’ve been brainstorming some post ideas that I think your readers would get a ton of value from:

-Post Idea #1

-Post Idea #2

-Post Idea #3

I’ll make sure the piece overflows with information that can’t be found anywhere else.

To give you an idea of the quality I’ll bring to your site, here’s a link to a guests post that I recently published on Example.com.

If you have any post idea on your mind, feel free to share it.

Cheers,

[Name]

Brian Dean from Backlinko says:

1. You land backlinks from authority sites.

2. People look up to you as an expert.

3. Targeted referral traffic floods to your site.

Using Guestographics

Guestographics is the hottest method in town. In this method, you essentially use an infographic as a guest post to get links.

The term was coined by Brian Dean from Backlinko.

Let’s start with the basic.

What is an infographic?

An infographic (like the one above) is a popular form of content marketing that can help you simplify a complicated subject or turn an otherwise boring subject into a captivating experience.

So, now that you know about infographics let’s learn how you can get authority links using the method.

Steps to follow:

Step 1: The first step is to find an infographic idea. This is the most important step. You don’t want to invest on an infographic that won’t convert well. Make sure it is relevant to your niche.

The solution is to find an infographic idea that has already worked well. No, I am not telling to copy an infographic.

Pinterest is a great place to look up amazing infographics.

Just the idea! Hope you get it.

Step 2: After you find a great infographic idea, the next step is to create it. You can either create yourself or outsource it.

While I don’t recommend to create your own infographic unless you have some knowledge of design. You can’t expect links from a substandard infographic. You can use templates on sites like Piktochart to make your job easier.

If you are thinking to outsource it, then you can find designers on sites like UpWork. Make sure you tell them the exact requirements and also check their ratings.

Step 3: The next step is finding potential targets. This can be done in many ways. Make sure you stay organised by using Google Sheets.

Ahrefs:

Just find a related infographic. Get hold of the post and enter the link on Ahrefs. Check for the backlinks.

You will find the blogs that have linked to the infographic. Make sure you pick a popular one.

Reverse Google Image:

This is also a great way to find targets. Just search the infographic and Google will show the websites that have embedded the infographic.

Step 4: Now you need to mail the potential targets. Make sure to offer them unique content too. Infographics go pretty well with a small piece of content. This way they will be more than happy to publish your infographic.

Make sure the email is short and sweet. Also, include a link in the content.

Some quick tips about infographic:

• You can get an infographic done for $5 on Fiverr to $500 on UpWork. Regardless the quality matters. Make sure is above par.
• Infographics get many shares too. Make sure you make the infographic is data heavy. This way you will get more shares.
• There are chances that someone has used your infographic without adding a link back to your blog. Make sure to check using Google and send them a friendly mail.
• Similar to Web Directories there are few Infographic Submission Sites where you can submit your infographic. You can use them too.

Find more sites here: Top 20 Free Infographic Directories and Submission Tips

Spying your competitors (Can’t be considered as a link building method but useful)

Let’s face this:

There are times when you are not able to outrank your competitor despite trying everything out. Be it Guest Posting or Guestographics, you have no other option left to help you outrank them.

I don’t know about you, but I usually pop my competitors URL into Ahrefs to check the quality of links. You usually find PBNs there. Nonetheless, you get to know the exact approach he took to get to the top.

Don’t get me wrong here, I am not recommending you to copying his links or take up the same strategy. I am just telling you to learn from his links, what type of links you need to make to outrank him.

Sometimes people have no idea about the quality of links to built for a particular niche, this helps here. Links may not be the only ranking factors, there are much more factors like age of the site and the On Page SEO too, but still, they are very important.

We are in 2024 now, things are only getting tougher, especially for new sites. Sometimes this method is quite useful. You can easily replicate some links.

This is a great method to build a stronger link profile and also to be ahead of your competition.

You will love to read – How to spy your competitors using Semrush

PBNs and Web 2.0 Link Building

Ok here’s the truth!

Most niches I came across on the top spots were using PBNs. PBNs while can’t be considered as white hat SEO, people are earning millions of dollars with their niche sites and as well as flipping them too without any issue.

What is a PBN?

A Private Blog Network (PBN) is a network of authoritative websites used to build links to your money website(s) for the purpose of ranking higher in Google search. A money website is a website you intend on ranking i.e. the one that actually makes money. This can also refer to a clients website.

Advantages of PBNs

• Get authority links quickly. This leads to faster ranking.
• Set your own anchors.
• Have full control over your links.

PBNs might look to be the easy way to go, but still, it’s against Google’s guidelines.

If you are thinking to use PBNs, then you can choose two possible ways. You can either buy PBN links from the marketplace such as SeoClerk or Source Wave, or you can build your own PBNs.

Building PBNs is not easy and expensive too.

I will mention some guides below to help you understand better.

Read –PBNs: Everything You’ve Ever Wanted to Know But Were Afraid to Ask

Private Blog Networks (PBN): The Myths and the Risks

What happens if you try to flip a niche site using PBNs?

Empire Flippers are one name you will hear when it comes to flipping niche sites. You can get the best price here. Flippa is not recommended unless you don’t want to come out with everything clean.

Yes, you can flip sites using PBNs, and they sell too. But you have to maintain those links. You can charge a nominal amount from buyer too for the maintenance part.

I can’t say if PBNs is the way to go. But it looks very lucrative. It depends on your choice.

Web 2.0 Link Building

Web 2.0 link building is almost dead. People don’t prefer it.

But look what Al-Amin Kabir from Marketever has to say:

So far in several of my experiments, Web 2.0 backlinks worked (and very recently, it’s working) really great for me. I built even $2K+ making site relying mainly on Web 2.0 links. (Yes, you heard right, $2K+ site with Web 2.0 links, no PBN, no Thousand dollars OUTREACH/Guest Post).

I have used them, it’s great to boost rankings but don’t expect much.

While these may be free to make, it’s not as easy in comparison to building links using Forums.

Let’s get down to the advantage of Web 2.0

1. Free: Most of the sites are free to use. No need to worry about hosting etc. You can create as many as you want.

2. Control: You have the full control of the links. You can play with the anchor text.

3. High Domain Authority: Most of the sites have a high authority.

Some useful tips for Web 2.0 Link Building:

• Don’t use spun content: Google is against plagiarism. So you are better off using original content.
• Make it look like a real blog. Make sure you add the mandatory pages like About Us etc.
• Link out to authority sites. Don’t only link to your money pages.

These can be as good as PBNs if done in the right way.

Problems with Web 2.0 Link Building

• Most of the links don’t get indexed. You won’t find them in Google Search Console.
• It’s not worth the time unless you are thinking of outsourcing them.
• You rarely can see a significant difference in the rankings.

How to make a link building campaign?

Most of times we are confused when it comes to Link Building. Should I do a guest post first or go with geographics.

It is important to plan when it comes to link building if you are serious enough.

Do you track your outreach emails? Do you track your links?

No! Don’t worry.

Here are few tips to be ahead:

• First, make sure you create a Google Sheet. I love Google Docs, you should use it too. You can easily share stuff, and everything can be accessed irrespective of the device.
• Draft out a plan. Prioritise stuff first, as what method you are going to use first.
• Tabulate your potential targets. Like, incase of Guest Posting it will give the author’s info.
• Make sure you track their responses. Incase they don’t reply, hit them again with another mail.
• Track your backlinks using Ahrefs or any other alternative.
• You can also use services like Linklicious to get links indexed faster.
• Make sure to track your rankings too. Try Semrush Now Free for the Next 14 days worth $129.95.

More Link Building Resources for 2024:

• Link Building Outreach: The Powerful Technique (Complete Guide)
• Best link building tools to try in 2024 for top rankings on Google
• Top ways to build high quality backlinks for your blog
• Top link building mistakes to avoid in 2024
• Link Reclamation: What Is It? How to Reclaim Lost Backlinks In 2024
• Advanced link building guide for 2024
• Best Place to Buy Backlinks in 2024
• Best Backlink Checker Tools to Check Backlinks for a Website
• People Also Search For: How to Rank for These Queries?

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed the post. You can’t go wrong with the strategies mentioned above. This surely help you take link building for a niche sites to the next level.

Please drop your questions below. I would love to answer them.