How to Get Backlinks: 5 Proven Tactics

1. The Skyscraper Technique

The Skyscraper Technique is where you find content with lots of backlinks, create something better, then ask everyone linking to the content you improved to link to you instead.

How to do it

You first need to find pages with lots of backlinks. To begin, search for a phrase related to your topic in Ahrefs’ Content Explorer and set the “referring domains” filter to a minimum of 50. This will show you pages with backlinks from 50+ websites.

It’s then simply a case of analyzing the content and thinking about how to improve it.

Here are some of the best ways to improve content:

Correct inaccurate or misleading claims. This is arguably the best way to improve the content, as nobody wants to link to something misleading.
Go deeper. If the content in question is only skimming the topic’s surface, go deeper and explain things in more detail.
Explain it better. Using graphics, videos, or whatever you need can help the reader understand things easier.

2. The Reverse Skyscraper Technique

The Reverse Skyscraper Technique is where you choose a great piece of content already on your site, find similar lower-quality pages with lots of backlinks, then ask everyone linking to those pages to link to you instead.

It works for the same reasons as the “regular” skyscraper technique. The benefit is that you don’t have to create new content.

How to do it

To find the best opportunities for this technique, plug a few keywords you’ve published industry-leading content about into Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer, then sort the results by Keyword Difficulty (KD) from high to low.

3. Resource page link building

Resource page link building is when you get backlinks from web pages that curate resources on a particular topic. It’s a tried and tested strategy because the sole purpose of these pages is to link to valuable resources.

How to do it

To find resource pages, run one of these searches in Google and add a phrase related to your topic:

intitle:resources inurl:resources.html
intitle:resources inurl:links.html

For example, if you want to build links to a resource on losing weight, you may search for intitle: resources inurl:resources.html weight loss.

You can also use Ahrefs’ SEO Toolbar to export the results and their SEO metrics, which allows you to prioritize opportunities by Domain Rating (DR) and estimated search traffic.

4. Broken link building

Broken link building is where you find a dead link on a page, create your own page on the topic, and ask everyone linking to the dead resource to link to your page instead.

It works because people who care about their websites don’t want to send visitors to broken pages.

How to do it

There are many ways to find dead pages with backlinks. One of the easiest is to search for a topic in Ahrefs’ Content Explorer, filter for broken pages then set a referring domains filter with a minimum value of 10. This will show you dead pages with backlinks from at least 10 websites.

5. 301 redirect link building

301 redirect link building is where you find irrelevant 301 redirects and pitch a suitable replacement to everyone linking to it. It works for the same reason broken link building works; site owners don’t want to send their visitors to what are effectively dead pages.

How to do it

To find irrelevant 301 redirects, go to Site Explorer, change the mode to “HTTP,” enter a niche site, go to the Best by links report, and add a “301 moved permanently” filter.