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Link acquisition and link building are terms that are used interchangeably. Simply put, done correctly, link acquisition is an ever-evolving process that involves obtaining external links to your website from other credible sources while adhering to Google’s guidelines to avoid penalties.
Gaining credible backlinks is a crucial aspect of SEO. Implementing an effective link acquisition strategy can improve your visibility across search engines, drive referral traffic, and boost your online presence.
So, let’s find out how it’s done.

To begin with, Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines assess Google search results for content quality, authority, and relevance to ensure users receive accurate, non-misleading content.
According to these guidelines, Google independently calculates EEAT— experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness — to evaluate content authority.
Now, here’s how you identify good and bad links:

Link building boosts your brand’s online credibility by associating your website with other leading websites in your industry. For these links to matter, they must come from high quality domains.
Good-quality websites follow search engine guidelines, have decent authority levels, and share niche-relevant content, which means backlinks from such sites are also high quality and significantly improve your website’s ranking.
There are common characteristics of a high quality links and they can be any (or all) of the following:
TLG takes pride in strictly using white-hat techniques to ensure Google loves the websites we work on. If you want to boost your backlink profile with healthy links, look no further than us!

Everyone wants as many external links as possible to maximize their SEO efforts. However, links received through black-hat practices pose a threat to your site.
Resorting to black-hat techniques can bring in large amounts of links, which is why many consider this option. For short-term goals, these unnatural links may boost your backlink profile, but they are low value and don’t have any positive effects in the long run. They could also potentially harm your website’s rankings.
While the link still adds to your overall number, it is a short-term win that will get you in trouble because Google will detect spammy links and content.
Here are a few common traits of bad backlinks you must watch out for:

If you’re looking to improve your online presence while receiving valuable backlinks, guest posting is a great option; all you have to do is write a high-quality article, publish it on relevant websites within your industry, and naturally place a link back to your site. These backlinks must be helpful to the readers and contextual to the piece you’ve written.
How To Implement This Strategy?

There are countless numbers of broken links out there, and you can take advantage of them by finding ones with similar content to yours. As usual, ensure the website is relevant before you approach it to use your resources to replace the broken links. While this technique may take some elbow grease, it can boost your SEO and network within your industry.
How To Implement This Strategy?
Link acquisition through content marketing may be lengthy, but it can yield high-quality backlinks. Once you identify trending topics in your industry, choose your preferred content format and create your piece. After that, you can promote this content across different platforms to gain exposure and build links.
How To Implement This Strategy?
This method involves examining your competitors’ backlinks to understand where they acquire links. It helps you identify high-quality, relevant, and reputable sites that may mention your website link. You can also examine your competitors’ backlink profiles to incorporate strategies that work for them in your link acquisition campaign.
How To Implement This Strategy?
Niche edits (or link inserts) are another tactic which is a staple of most link building teams out there. It simply just means inserting a link inside an already existing, niche-relevant content piece.
It does have a bad rap because of the link databases that sell spammy links, packaged up as “niche edits” – but there are ways of doing this tactic and not compromising on quality. Assuming you have the quality in check, there are some particular reasons why this is such a good link acquisition tactic:


Approaching an authoritative site with niche-specific resource pages is a fantastic way to gain high-quality links. These resource pages are a collection of useful links, guides, or tools within a specific industry. If you have valuable content that applies to their page, you can find relevant resource pages willing to link to your site. This way, you’re also contributing to the target audience’s needs on other websites.
How To Implement This Strategy?

No one can deny that visuals are the most creative way to attract a target audience. Image link building is a method for acquiring links using attention-grabbing visual content such as illustrations, photographs, and infographics. If other websites find your imagery valuable, they’ll use it in their content and credit you. This way, you’re earning more backlinks and boosting your link profile, capturing the attention of search engines as well.
How To Implement This Strategy?
This could be considered an umbrella term, but this is about promoting your content so it can reach a wider audience – increasing content engagement and your chances of acquiring more backlinks.
There’s so many different ways to do this, but some include:
Media outreach and press releases: PR / media outreach is a tactic in of itself but the idea here, is to amplify reach. You could also get the same effect from running press releases, or selectively buying placements at very specific publications (this is particularly for very niche audiences, fashion or luxury).
Local businesses can also benefit from local SEO link building. This drives regional traffic to their products or services and boosts rankings for local search terms. It’s safe to assume that some local sites may not give you backlinks due to competition, but there are ways in which many would be more than happy to direct more organic traffic to your website in return for the same.
How To Implement This Strategy?
The link acquisition method involves building links using a 301 redirect, which signals to browsers and search engines that a webpage has permanently moved to a new location. “301” is the HTTP status code for this redirection type.
This is a powerful way of maintaining a strong backlink profile because it transfers link equity and link juice by preserving the backlinks from the redirected website to yours. You can utilize 301 redirects in different ways, but since it’s still a grey area in Google’s eyes, it’s important to use this strategy correctly and with caution.
How To Implement This Strategy?
Redirect 301 /oldpage.html to http://www.example.com/newpage.html
Save the changes, and your redirection is successful.
For example, Backlinko.com bought a domain (PointBlankSEO) and redirected a specific webpage, “Link Building Strategies” to the relevant page on their website. Here, it’s likely they bought it purely because that one page, was an asset with very good traffic and links, so they wanted to pass that topical value to their site.

The old webpage: http://pointblankseo.com/link-building-strategies
Redirected to: https://backlinko.com/link-building-strategies
Link attrition is part and parcel of SEO – but if you do lose quality links, you should always try to get them back as well.
So you should always be monitoring any links that you’re losing, or that have become broken and figure out ways you can get the link back.
If it’s simply pointing at a broken link, then just find a suitable page where you can change it to a 301-redirect. While if you have lost the link completely, just reach out to the editor/site owner to see if you can get it added in, or can get a link in a different place.

Brand mentions follow a similar method to tracking down unauthorized image use. You must identify websites mentioning your brand without a link back to your site and request they include a clickable backlink. This is a subtle but impactful way of link acquisition that also shows your website’s credibility.
How To Implement This Strategy?
When you conduct outreach to genuine sites, a natural side effect of this, can be building relationships that go beyond just a link insert or link exchange.
It can lead to bigger collaborations on content, events, or even business partnerships. For example, here’s an email below, where we initially just reached out to suggest a resource link inclusion – but we ended up with a link in a few recipes, social shares and being linked to an article they were writing on MSN as well. Not bad for a single outreach email!


One of the most sophisticated approaches to acquiring links and improving your site’s authority is to publish industry white papers or data studies. This is because you’re conducting detailed research to create content that offers a comprehensive analysis and in-depth insight into a specific topic, which in return will attract high-quality links from industry-specific sites, or even digital PR coverage in top tier publications.
How To Implement This Strategy?
At TLG, we have in-depth expertise in different link acquisition techniques and only use the ones that produce high-quality results for your website. Why not see for yourself by opting for our services?
As discussed above, creating content that compels people to link to it, is a very effective method of link acquisition.
These are creative but 100% white hat link acquisition practices that most may overlook, but the pros will support
We have all used online tools like meal planners, template generators, and calculators. Did you know you can build links and generate new leads by creating one yourself?
Start by doing keyword research using “tools,” “templates,” or “generator,” and finding what type of tools appear for your industry. Identify the top 10 search results and check which has the most backlinks.
Your job is to use your expertise and build something similar; try to make it way better in terms of design, user interface, customization, filters, etc. For example, if you’re a financial expert, you can create calculators for interest rates, eligibility, credit scores, and more for your website as long as you have the professional knowledge to make them. Here’s an example of a calculator aimed at the ecommerce sector below.

You will gradually find people appreciate linkable assets and credit you for creating them. You can also proactively send outreach emails to websites that will benefit from mentioning your tool, especially resource pages.
Consumers love “10 Best XYZ” articles because they offer many options and comparisons of products, movies, restaurants, etc. You can also get your spot among these list mentions.

Conduct a simple Google search for popular listicles or round-ups in your industry. Collect the most relevant and authoritative prospects based on their DA/DR, healthy link profile, referral traffic, spam score, and other metrics.
Once you have this information, create a short pitch to the editor explaining why your backlink deserves a mention in their article and how it can help their readers. Be concise and persuasive, and customize the details to make your request stand out.
If you’re an industry expert that can offer very nuanced advice or have access to unique data that isn’t accessible elsewhere, you can become a source for journalists and bloggers.
However, these writers receive hundreds of requests, so you must impress them with your ideas. One of the best ways to do this is through HARO (soon to be Connectively), which is a service that connects credible journalists by updating you with their writing queries.
You can pick one that resonates more with your brand and respond to it with your pitch or article. If you’re selected, the journalist will let you know. This way, you’ll get quality links from high-DA websites and build relationships in your industry.
Emphasizing the “comprehensive” aspect of these guides, they’re mentioned to provide all the information about a specific topic in one article so the reader doesn’t have to go elsewhere to find out about the subject.
Guides work well for backlinking opportunities because they explain complex topics. This means that whenever another blogger or journalist mentions a concept, they can link to your guide as a reference and for more context.
For example, an article about “Top CRM Software in 2025” lists HubSpot CRM as one of the options. The article title suggests its purpose is only to inform readers about the available options, not teach them how to use them. Instead, the writer can link to a “Getting Started With HubSpot” guide in their article.
So, if you create an all-inclusive guide covering everything about a topic with research-backed information, you can receive a backlink.
This also works really well, if you can create a guide aimed at a specific audience, that you know is particularly responsive and likely to link to you. Angle a resource aimed at that audience, and then reach out to sites in that sector. Here’s an example about animal charities that picked up a lot of links.

If you come across outdated research or articles, find out how many backlinks point to those pages, and if you see that it has an abundance of them, you’ve hit the jackpot.
The key is to find an outdated article within your industry to use your expertise that can provide a better and more up-to-date version of it. Write a fresh piece on that topic and publish it on your website.
Once the content is live, contact the referring domains of the outdated articles and inform them about your updated articles. If they like it, you’ll get a good backlink. They might even want to collaborate on other projects if they like your work.
Link acquisition is possible through three broad categories: manual outreach, digital PR, and link earning.

Here is a brief summary of what each of these means:
Manual outreach for link building involves contacting authoritative websites, bloggers, or influencers to give your website a relevant backlink.
Start by ensuring that you have content that offers comprehensive and topical expertise insights that make people want to link to it. The next step is to identify high-quality web pages using Google Search, social media, or other tools or scraping methods, to collect relevant lists of sites.
Once you find the right websites, you should manually contact them (or via semi-automated tools) using personalized emails that explain necessary details concisely and clearly, stating your request for a backlink without sounding spammy.
Some examples of manual outreach used to get links include requests for resource pages, broken link building, guest posting, and tactics that leverage competitor backlink analysis. We have elaborated on these below.
Digital PR differs from traditional PR because it solely deals with online platforms for bloggers, journalists, podcasters, YouTubers, industry publications, etc.
It increases your brand awareness and credibility and results in backlinks from authoritative sites. However, its direct focus is on gaining social and online media coverage, which indirectly helps with your link-building efforts.
The process involves identifying your objectives, understanding the audience and competition, creating newsworthy content, developing strategies to get backlinks, and measuring and monitoring your results.
Some examples of digital PR include data-driven and high-quality case studies, opinion pieces, influencer outreach, guest posting, and more, which we elaborate on further in this article.
Contrary to traditional link building, link earning is a high-quality, natural link acquisition technique that involves creating valuable, trustworthy content (or linkable assets) that are self-promotional and passively acquire links.
Its passivity is because this content has original research, data analysis, actionable insights, and in-depth expertise. It aims to provide accurate information that does not resemble an advert promoting products or services.
This method of link acquisition is one of the safest as far as Google’s guidelines are concerned because you genuinely earn links with compelling content – although it does have the disadvantage that you lose some element of control over the velocity of link acquisition, or being able to build links from specific sectors.
Some content that can naturally earn links include original research, interviews, building free tools, visual content, trending topics, and interactive assets.
Acquiring links requires extensive data research to identify good sites from bad ones, which means calculating different metrics. Sounds complex.
Several link-building tools provide end-to-end services, such as website analysis, outreach, and link prospecting, to relieve you of these daunting manual tasks.
Here is our curated list of the only tools you’ll keep to support your link building efforts:
Link acquisition will constantly evolve as strategies and Google’s guidelines change, and website owners need to stay updated with industry best practices to ensure they’re making the most of their backlinks.
The entire process is a complex mix of multifaceted approaches because sticking to one method will get you nowhere. The techniques mentioned in this article will help you create a healthy backlink profile.
If you’re new to SEO, navigating these waters may confuse you. Thanks to TLG, you don’t have to worry about these complexities; let our experts build safe and healthy links for you.

I’m a marketer, entrepreneur, SEO consultant & link building agency owner based in Scotland, United Kingdom. I'm also the founder and MD of TheLinksGuy