How to Get Free Backlinks for Your Website: Our Top 10 Methods [UPDATED]

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Introduction: Getting Backlinks Without Paying For Them

If you’re here, you will be searching for how to get backlinks for free. However, growing your SEO organically can be a slow process. There are many methods and techniques involved, which you can learn about in our simple SEO guide below.

SEO Basics: The Simple SEO Guide for Website Owners [UPDATED]

One such method is backlinks. These help to drive traffic, boost authority, and improve rankings if earned naturally and effectively.

But Google says you can’t pay for them, and this is for a good reason – it’s to help prevent web spam and avoid websites bloating their authority artificially.

From providing testimonials to blogger outreach, here we look at our top 10 methods to achieve backlinks without paying for them.

Editor’s Note [17.02.25]: First published in 2017, our guide titled “Top 10 Ways to Get Free Backlinks for Your Website” needed a bit of a refresh to bring it in line with our current content and advice. We’ve added links to existing related material and have given our guide to getting free backlinks a general tidy-up.

Top 10 Methods to Get Free Backlinks

Claim Links

Your company, website or products have probably been mentioned many more times than you have backlinks for and claiming these links is an easy way to gain backlinks. Using tools like Mention.net or BuzzSumo, you can scour the internet for instances where you have been mentioned and use the results to help you create a list of potential mentions to convert to backlinks.

Become a Repair Man

Broken links negatively affect your SEO and fixing them should form part of your own maintenance programme.

However, there is also a way you can use broken links to get free backlinks.

By using tools such as Screaming Frog (or free tools like Dead Link Checker) to run an audit on the site of a target blogger or potential link site, you can prove yourself useful as a handyman. This way, you can identify broken links to the webmaster and suggest suitable alternatives you could replace a broken link with a quality backlink for your site.

Blogger Outreach

Bloggers are influencers and getting backlinks from bloggers who are most active in your niche can earn you good traffic. Identify the right people, build a relationship and target them individually. Make sure that you are providing them something in return.

Pitch Your Academic Expertise

Backlinks from trusted sources gain more weight and a link from a .edu domain can bring big rewards. A lot of universities offer a resources section for their students and a well-aimed pitch to a university’s webmaster could land you a very high-quality backlink. Consider what kind of degree course your site could be useful for and research institutes that both offer courses in this field and also provide resource links for students. If you’ve graduated from a university check whether they provider Alumni profiles as you may be able to publish a profile and mention/link to your website from there.

Get a Free Critique

There are plenty of free peer-to-peer website reviews sites where you can submit your domain’s URL and receive feedback on your site; from design to content. The beauty is that you get a free backlink. Check the domain authority of the service you are submitting to.

Provide Testimonials

Usually, it’s the other way around and companies chase you for testimonials but, if you use the services of any organisation, product or company then offer a testimonial and they may return the favour with a backlink.

Create Powerful Infographics

Infographics are an incredible way to build backlinks and well-researched and creatively produced content of this nature is hugely popular. Three times more likely to engage an audience, infographics are hugely shareable and, with the right data, more likely to be linked to. You can use tools to create your own infographics that are available free such as Canva.

Improve Existing Content

Once again, using the approach of “why reinvent the wheel?”, you can earn a lot of free backlinks by taking existing well-performing content and expanding, updating or improving it.

For example, the best-performing content for the keywords ‘best ways to get hired fast’ is a 12-step guide with pictures from Wikihow that was updated a year ago.

To rank highly simply produce a better piece of content, find out who links to the original and let them know that you have a more definitive article.

Add a video, make it a twenty-step guide and enliven the design for a surefire way to get a link.

Blogger Outreach

There are always plenty of opportunities to reach out to bloggers, companies and review sites to publish a blog post. Doing your research and looking at ways to create relevant and unique content for both you and your target site is key. The benefit for your target is a free piece of content and a reciprocal backlink.

Use Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking sites like Reddit, Tumblr and Stumble Upon all rank well in search engines and provide a democratic opportunity for internet users to rank your content directly. Using the 80:20 rule, you should always give more than you ask for when establishing a social bookmarking account. Be relevant and don’t just promote your URLs to social bookmarking sites, make sure you engage with others and share their content too.

Further Reading

For more useful help, advice and insights, visit our link building guides below.

What Are Backlinks and Do They Still Help SEO?

Best Link Building Strategies: Top 10 Tips for Building High-Quality Backlinks [UPDATED]

Backlink Your Way to SEO Success: An Up-To-Date Link Building Guide [UPDATED]

Need help? Contact Opace

If you need help getting backlinks or simply don’t have the time, then Opace can help. Get in touch with one of our SEO team today to discuss your SEO strategy.