Backlinking Strategy that Works 100% of The Time – plus Link-Building Checklist

Link Building

Are you still looking for that one perfect backlinking strategy that works? A technique that won’t leave you doubting the outcome; one you’ll know is going to work?

Backlinking strategy that works – the team Linkody got you covered.

Linkody is a tool to help SEOs with link-building and if there is one thing we know, that’s how to get backlinks.

Our backlinking strategy that works so well that 100% of our customers came through organic traffic.

This article is so detailed that you will be able to replicate our results and get backlinks the same way we do.

And the best part is, at the end of this article you will find a detailed 8 step link-building checklist.

This checklist will help you to rank on Google any content you create.

Link-building checklist

And if you are wondering if this strategy is really that good, we’ll let the numbers talk for themselves:

On top of that, every time we publish an article, we use this back-linking strategy; and boy, it really works!

link building strategy that works

It guarantees back-links, and that the post ranks on the first page:

And the best part is, after you are done with this post, all this wisdom is yours FREE.

So let’s dig in.

1st Step – Topic Research

To get backlinks, topic research really is the first step.

Why?

Because our Ultimate Goal is to Rank our Content, right?

And to rank on Google we have to find a topic that can be ranked.

It’s actually really simple!

#1 Head over to the Topic Research platform of your choice

We use KWfinder because it’s awesome and helps find topics that haven’t been covered in-depth.

This step is really important but so simple.

topic research KWfinder
  1. Start by searching for something as simple as “backlinks” – one-word keywords are perfect
  2. Select the location and language
  3. And hit Find Keywords

That’s where you will see GOLD!

KWfinder topic exploration

You will see topics related to backlinks:

  1. Obviously ranking content about “backlinks” will be too hard – Keyword Difficulty is just too big
  2. But when you click on KD – you will be able to sort all the queries starting from the easiest to rank on Google.
  3. And there you will start to see some really interesting keywords:
    • Best places to buy backlinks
    • how to get backlinks from google
    • how backlinks work
  4. And when you click on “Search Related Keyword” – that’s where you will see the magic.

Continue going through related keywords until you find the one that makes sense for your business. Every topic you write about should help you sell your product.

#2 Find Topics

The Goal is to find keywords with a Keyword Difficulty of 20 or less.

If your site has a high Domain Authority (over 40), you will easily rank articles with a Keyword Difficulty of 0-30.

  • So writing an article about “how backlinks work” might be a superb idea.

So when you start clicking on “Search Related Keyword” you will be able to find content that brings a lot of organic traffic and has a low difficulty to rank on Google (has low KD).

After a 5 minute research on KWfinder – we found a topic which haven’t been covered in-depth and has a great potential:

how backlinks work

The top answer on Quora, which is also the top result on Google, has 35 followers and 28 answers, which is quite a lot.

question stats

And the best part is if you go ahead and create this article it will reach the first page on Google with as few as 1-5 back-links!

2nd Step – Creating the Best Content

Once we know what we are writing about, we get an in-depth understanding of the topic.

#1 Research the Competition

Make sure to collect the top 5 articles on this topic and read the posts carefully.

  1. Check what’s common for all of them
  2. Identify the differences
  3. Combine the best parts of all these articles into one

#2 Create the Article

This step is straightforward. Sit down and write the content.

If you are not much of a writer, get a freelancer who writes well.

There are a couple of things to note:

  1. You must optimize the post according to SEO guidelines. Here’s the guide
  2. And once the post is ready (with backlinks), you must optimize the post every 3 months. Here’s why and how

Now, when your post is ready, it’s time for some effective link-building!

If you follow the previous 2 steps, this will be a piece of cake.

3rd Step – We start link-building

Think of a backlink as if someone else on the world-wide-web would be voting for your site.

The more links are leading to your page, the more popular it is.

And the more organic traffic it receives.

For someone else to give you a backlink, it must be beneficial to them or to their readers.

You could create a guest post, by emailing a blog owner saying that you will create an article for free.

Clearly, there is a benefit to them. Webmasters get free high quality articles, and you get a back-link.

The problem? It’s hard to scale this technique.

You can’t just write high quality articles per month.

So what else is there?

Imagine if  your offer was so beneficial that site owners would be happy to give you a backlink.

That’s not easy!

But we found a solution.

Creating high quality content is the key.

And when I talk about good content, these examples explain themselves: These are the most linked-to pages on the web:

Yes, the articles must really be that good!

That Good means that other site owners will be interested to link with your post.

So, here’s how we scale link-building.

And get over 150 back-links per post.

#TheBrief of Link-Building Strategy

Here’s a quick brief to quickly explain what this link-building technique is all about:

  1. You create content that’s much better than anything else out there
  2. Create a list of at least 100 articles that are not as good as yours
  3. Find the content that links to these articles
  4. Create a kill template
  5. Get others to link to your content instead of the post that s*cks

You have probably tried this technique already, right?

And it never worked.

Am I correct?

We have sent over 100 000 emails and tested every aspect of this strategy.

And we know:

  • How to automate this strategy
  • And how to get the best results.

So let’s dig in.

#1 Finding the Best Articles on This Topic

Now you have the best posts on your topic.

Why?

Because the best topics will have a lot of back-links. And by you asking real nicely, you might get some of them to link to your page as well (or instead).

The best way to find all the similar articles is… Google!

Make sure to filter them carefully to avoid sending irrelevant messages afterward.

Make a list of at least 40-50 articles. For instance, if your topic is Growth Hacks, look for:

  • marketing strategies
  • marketing techniques
  • growth tactics

You get the idea…

Find as many articles as possible (the bare minimum is 30).

To make it easier for you, we’ve already prepared a Google Sheet you can use. Make a duplicate of this sheet and add your URLs there.

#2 Find the Pages that Link to This Content

This is pretty much the only manual work you will have to do when it comes to this link-building strategy.

Go through your list and add them to tools that can find links to specific URLs – here’s one!

Backlink checker

Head over to Linkody’s backlink audit tool and find all the pages that link to this content:

  1. Click on “Purchase Credits”
    purchase credits
  2. And click on “Run a Backlink Audit”
    run a backlink audit
  3. And you will be able to find backlinks for up to 10 URLs

Fun SEO Fact πŸ˜‰

Tools like SEMRush, SERPstat, etc. in the Free version allow to find up to 10 backlinks for each URL.

So, Linkody’s tool is the perfect alternative – charging only 50 cents per URL.

Amazing, huh?

After you have all the backlinks exported, merge all the URLs in one Excel Spreadsheet, after which you will need to filter sh*ty links out.

Throughout the years we have discovered a ton of criteria, and here they are so you can avoid making the same mistakes we did in the beginning.

So here’s a list of websites you should exclude:

  1. Domain Authority under 20 (leave only high-quality URLs)
    • Of course, if your site has low authority you will need to lower the bar.
  2. Spam Score over 7
  3. Sites that have “feed” or “archive” in the URL (that’s automatically generated content)
  4. Sites that are older than 2 years (no-one will edit those)
  5. If the list is really large, exclude no-follow backlinks
  6. You have to make the list GDPR compliant – exclude every site based in Europe, here’s the list of European TLDs.
  7. Exclude Flipboard URLs. These are content aggregator sites that we have contacted way too many times, so let’s stop spamming them.
    • @flipboard, thank you for answering all our spammy emails πŸ˜€

Once the backlinks are filtered, it’s time for the outreach.

Note: If you collected 70 articles, you will have collected a list of around 1 000 – 5 000 back-links!

#3 The Outreach

You are probably thinking “Hell No! You want me to email 1 000 websites?”.

What if I told you this can be automated and even personalized?

That’s exactly what I will teach you how to do.

Now when you have a list of filtered sites that give back-links to content that’s not as good as yours, you will have to upload it to NinjaOutreach.

For this link-building campaign, NinjaOutreach will be your best buddy.

#1 Click on Lists (1) and head over to the “lists of prospects” section and click on Import (2)
Import an outreach email
#2 Then you will be able to Upload all the URLs you filtered
Upload outreach URLs

The beauty of NinjaOutreach is that it will group all your URLs and find their contact information and emails:

  1. You just have to select the list (or make a new one) where the prospects should be located
  2. Then click on websites
  3. Copy and paste all the URLs into the 3rd field
  4. And Submit to NinjaOutreach so it can do its magic.
    • It might be a good idea to discard duplicate URLs to avoid sending emails to people that are on other lists as well, or repeated in the same list.
    • Note: you can only upload 1 000 URLs per list.

After you hit submit you will be notified when the list is uploaded, so you can start the outreach process.

#4 Create the Perfect Pitch

Crafting the perfect message is the most important part:

  • Subject lines must be catchy and should raise an interest in opening the email
  • The text body should be straightforward with a clear task, and should benefit the reader.

We have tested hundreds of different subject lines, templates, and Call-to-Actions; so we know what works and what does NOT.

F Off Email Response2

So, be ready to get some F-words:

The good news is, we have a recipe that works:

Outreach Email Templates

Our know-how will teach you how to get a 50% open rate, and 5%++ response rate from an outreach sent to completely unknown people.

All your templates can be uploaded directly to NinjaOutreach by clicking on the outreach section (1) and heading to “Outreach Templates”:

Outreach Section

To ensure success, you can also replicate our own link-building success where we analyzed over 100 different templates. This is what we found:

The subject line structure that delivers:

  • Catchy subject line: make them wonder, “What’s in there?”
    • Add an emoji
    • Use symbols
    • 2-5 words maximum
    • Add “Re:” to followups (to make them think it’s a reply)

A Winning email structure:

  • Personalize – use the URL in which they link to your competitors’ content
  • Start with a compliment – make it about them
    • The compliment can be completely irrelevant – “Awesome pancake recipe” for a marketing site.
    • Then you risk getting an F-response.
    • But a lot higher Reply Rate.
  • Only then introduce yourself – “My name is Helvis from Linkody (we monitor everyone’s backlinks)”.
    • That’s it – keep it simple.
  • Tell them what you want.
  • Then tell them what’s in it for them – “Give me a backlink” isn’t going to cut it. Try this:
    • I would love if you could mention my resource. To return the favor I will email our 20k email subscribers, give you a link in exchange, add your tool to our tool list, and help you generate more traffic. Be as creative as possible.

And here’s our BACKLINK WINNING TEMPLATE:

To give you an idea of what it can do: for every 100 emails sent, our campaign got 10 replies and 1 backlink.

It doesn’t get any better than that!

After that’s done and once the email is ready, you must create the follow-up.

Follow-ups that get replies:

We make follow-ups super silly. 

Not sure if that’s correct, because occasionally we make some angry folks even angrier.

But this gets the job done!

Here are two examples of follow-ups we tend to send:

Number 1:

follow-up 1

Number 2:

follow-up 3

#5 Launch the Outreach

At this point everything is ready!

You just have to schedule the outreach and NinjaOutreach will do the rest.

We will also give you the settings we use for campaigns completely FREE.

This will help you avoid:

  • your email landing in the spam box
  • your email campaign being suspended
Schedule autosending

So these are the things YOU MUST DO:

  1. Send a maximum of 25 emails per day. We usually do 15.
    • That means you will send 30-50 emails per day (including follow-ups).
    • We suggest not going over 50 emails or your account could get suspended.
  2. Make sure you start sending early in the morning, or during a time your target audience tends to be online.
  3. Preferably exclude Saturdays & Sundays.
    • Even though occasionally we get really good response rates on Sundays, because people are clearing out their  inboxes.
  4. Set it up so that your follow-up is sent within 2-3 days.
  5. Then recheck to make sure you’re followed all the steps.

Now you are ready to Launch the Campaign.

NinjaOutreach will do the rest.

4th Step – Answering the Inquiries

This is something no one talks about.

But it is super important because this is where deals are closed and backlinks are made.

So, you will get replies; some good and some bad.

The key to turning these replies into opportunities is by being professional and nice.

Yes, be the nicest person they have ever talked to. 

That’s a great start.

Once you get a reply, you know the person is interested in a conversation with you. All you have to do is steer it in the right direction.

Here’s a 4 step approach I usually follow:

  1. I check the URL where I asked for a mention to see if my post would fit in.
  2. If not, I find a better, more recent post and ask for a backlink there.
  3. I prepare the paragraph or sentence which they can simply copy & paste into their article.
    • I also provide a screenshot as to where this text should be added.
  4. I make a quick analysis of their business to see how I can return the favor. Usually, that’s one of the following:
    • Free subscriptions to Linkody to monitor everyone’s backlinks
    • Invitation to our next roundup
    • Or a link exchange

I do all this to make it super easy for them to give us a backlink.

All they have to do is copy & paste my paragraph into their article.

That’s it!

To see what I mean, here’s an example:

Answer to Link Building Outreach123

So, if you are nice and tell them where/how backlinks should be added, the backlink is guaranteed.

Here’s the Data and What You Can Expect

Throughout the years we have collected data to give you the exact amount of backlinks you can expect from 1 outreach.

We have got this down to a science.

And it works if you follow our steps.

So, here’s how it works:

  • If you filter out and get around 1 000 websites that you will later add to NinjaOutreach.
  • They will then prepare to send emails to around 500 sites.
  • 250 will actually receive your email and open it.
  • Around 25-50 will get back to you
  • And you will get around 1-3 quality backlinks

That’s a realistic forecast.

Now, when we have a list of filtered 1 000 websites, we get around 10 backlinks.

So, practice makes perfect.

Ready to Get Backlinks?

Learning from other’s mistakes is always better.

We have literally tested 41 link-building strategies, and made a list of everything that works.

Tested.

And tested.

Just to realize very few link-building strategies work.

Furthermore, even fewer of them can be executed at scale.

The good news is, we did all this so you don’t have to!

And so far, this is the only link-building strategy that delivers results.

Every post we decide to write actually ranks on Google first page!


The Link-Building Checklist

So now that you have all the necessary wisdom to execute the one link-building strategy that works, the only thing you need is our Link-building Checklist.

Download it now, and come back to it whenever you need. Start the only back-linking strategy that works today, and see the results for yourself!

32 thoughts on “Backlinking Strategy that Works 100% of The Time – plus Link-Building Checklist

  1. Hey Helvis, this information is fantastic. Whenever I read about link building in the past, people always explained it in an ambiguous way. But you have covered the topic thoroughly. I have bookmarked this page and will pass it along. Thanks again for the information!

    1. Thanks for the positive feedback.

      I tried to cover every inch of how to make link-building to work. I hope you manage to get great results out of this link-building strategy πŸ˜‰

  2. Love this article. Will be referring to this a lot more whenever I’m working on my backlinking campaigns. The template seems pretty good too! Will probably try sending out silly responses to see if I make people angry or not haha!

    1. Great to hear.

      And go easy with those follow-ups πŸ˜€ It’s a good way to engage with the leads but only if they can handle a joke.

      Feel free to share your learnings when you test this link-building strategy πŸ˜‰

  3. Wow, I found here an ultimate checklist for building backlinks. Sure, I gonna use it for my next project… It’s very helpful and informative article.
    Thank! for sharing

    1. I am glad you found it useful.

      I would love to know if the checklist is helpful when you try to get the backlinks and if all the necessary information is there?

  4. Helvis, great article! I am going to follow this checklist on my next project. Thanks for making it easier for us to build backlinks!!

    1. Thank you for your feedback.

      I would love to know how it goes with your link-building campaigns πŸ˜‰

  5. Thank you for this blueprint! I have 2 of the tools you list in your walkthrough, so I’m excited to see the results of this strategy.

    1. Feel free to share with the rest of us- I would love to know if this is also the one link-building strategy that works for you πŸ˜‰

  6. Thank you so much for sharing valuable information.

    Got a clear idea about how far backlinks are more Valuable.

  7. Really Great information

    I also do the same strategies. I am working with Data EximIT and we also do the same thing in a much better way. We are experts in Web and Mobile app development also in AR VR Blockchain and IOT.

  8. Really very helpful post, I am new in this field so I got confused about how all this work. You give a very clear information. Thank you so much.

    1. Thanks, I tried really hard to explain everything one might need to know to get backlinks and I am happy to hear you found this post useful πŸ˜‰

  9. Hi Helvis,

    The fantastic helpful article, its really work to earn backlinks and I going to try this for my blog to get more good backlinks.

    thanks

  10. Why is building backlinks important to your search engine ranking? In a nutshell, link building is important for one key reason, search engines use links back to your page and your content to help determine your search engine ranking. When you have many links from reputable and high authority sites back to a piece of content you created, you’ll be more likely to attract search engine traffic to that content. That means you’ll get traffic from two sources, from the link source and from search engines.

    Knowing how to build backlinks will help you increase your search engine traffic substantially, but you have to go about it the right way.

    Part of understanding how to build backlinks is understanding how not to build them. There are some methods that were used in the past or that are commonly used as black-hat strategies to build brief shooting stars that will, at best, temporarily catapult you to the top of search engine rankings, but those strategies won’t get the long-term results that you really want.

    1. Couldn’t agree more – backlinks are important and especially the ones that you get with white hat link-building techniques. Thus, this backlinking strategy is probably my favorite.

  11. Hey Helvis,

    Your article is one in a million I came across that actually consists of everything one webmaster needs when building backlinks. It’s simply phenomenal!

    I really appreciate the examples and illustrations that follow up the text, they make the reading and understanding of what was read, much easier. Witty follow-ups were also something innovative, loved them. This page is worth bookmarking and coming back to whenever one is stuck with building backlinks.

    1. Hey Katarina,
      Great to hear you liked the post and thank you for the awesome comment πŸ˜‰

  12. Thanks for sharing the information on how to get backlinks. This is very important to keep in mind these factors for ranking of a website. Keep sharing more articles like this.

  13. Hey Helvis,,
    Great article!!!!
    Good and detailed information about back linking .
    Appreciate your efforts for putting this together.
    Thanks for sharing.

  14. Hey Helvis,

    Perfect strategy you have mentioned here, I have tested it for my clothing website by creating a content & video on how to take your measurement, and I get ton of sharing, backlinks. The page is still ranking.

  15. Hey Helvis,,
    Great article!!!!
    Thanks for sharing these strategies. I will apply these strategies into my blog.
    Thanks in advance.

  16. The Link Building strategies you discussed in above is really helpful for me. Now, i can easily build link easily for my posts.

    thank you very much for sharing such a nice information.

  17. This is really a valuable post. Great job, Helvis!

    Just wondering if you can suggest any other free tool to do outreach instead of NinjaOutreach?

    It’s really expensive and being a learner I can’t afford to use it now.

    1. Actually, I would suggest you read this article. It could be useful for you if you want to find good alternatives to Ninja Outreach. Good luck with your tool hunting!

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