Earning links is the most tedious work in SEO and the thing that most separates who shows up from who does not. It is worth starting with the easiest, because almost everyone skips exactly the links that were already available.
1. The links you could already have
Start here, today:
- suppliers who list resellers or partners;
- customers who credit whoever did the work;
- trade associations, unions, professional boards;
- events, fairs and courses you took part in;
- the school or university where you studied, if it lists alumni.
These are simple requests, to people who already know you, and almost nobody makes them.
2. Catalogues and search sites in your field
Being in the places where people look for your kind of service brings a link and a visit at the same time. The quality test here is one question: does the catalogue have a real relation to what you do? If it does, it counts. If it is a generic directory that accepts anything, it does not.
That is exactly the selection an organised network of search sites delivers — on Magneth, your listing appears on search sites with content related to your field.
3. Content that earns citations
The most valuable and the slowest. It works when you publish something other people need to cite: data only you have, a comparison nobody made, a genuinely complete guide.
There is no point asking for links to ordinary content. Nobody cites what already exists in fifty other places.
4. Content partnerships
Writing for a partner's site, taking part in an interview, giving a testimonial. It takes work and earns good links, because they come from inside related text.
What to avoid
Buying link packages, swapping links en masse with random sites, and building sites whose only purpose is to link to yours. All three are known patterns and none of them age well. Details in bad backlinks.
