The business-to-business (B2B) industry is fiercely competitive, making B2B link-building crucial for getting your website noticed, establishing your authority, and enhancing your SEO.

Here's the reality, though: Securing niche-specific, high-quality backlinks is time-consuming, and most B2B brands lack the expertise to run a strategic link-building campaign.

In this article, you'll get the exact tactics that work for the B2B industry. We'll also outline the primary link-building challenges and mistakes, and how to tackle them.

However, building backlinks for your B2B business requires expertise, skills, and networks that can be challenging to establish on your own. Sometimes, it makes more sense to partner with a reputable link-building agency.

At Profit Engine, we have 15+ years of experience in acquiring high-quality links, including B2B ones. Our focus is on niche edits, guest posts, and HARO placements. We use our AI-powered protocol backed by our manual vetting process to acquire credible and relevant backlinks.

Get in touch with us and discover how to grow your backlink profile while saving time.

What Is B2B Link-Building?

B2B link-building is about acquiring links from other websites to your own. 

In B2B, you prioritize building backlinks from niche directories, trade publications, and other industry-relevant blogs.

However, not all links are beneficial. The key is to secure backlinks from relevant and high-authority websites.

B2B vs. B2C Link-Building

While both share goals such as building authority and boosting visibility, the content expectations and strategies applied differ significantly.

Let's explore these distinctions in the table below:

Key Benefits of Link-Building for B2B Companies

In the B2B sector, there's a long buyer journey and multiple decision-makers. Link-building becomes a vital aspect to reach the right audience and build trust. 

Let's explore the other five key reasons why B2B link-building matters:

1. Improve the Search Engine Rankings: Ranking for keywords requires your site to have a high domain authority, which you can earn through link-building. So, when you get high-quality backlinks, you're likely to appear in top results for the high-intent queries, which is essential when decision makers are searching and considering B2B brands.
2. Enhance Better and Faster Indexing: B2B websites largely publish strategic content assets and pages explaining their product use cases. When other sites link to your website, the search engine bots follow the links and discover new content. It increases the chances of your website being crawled and indexed quickly, which can improve its overall visibility.
3. Increase Trust and Brand Authority: Unlike B2C buyers, their B2B counterparts need proof of your legitimate business. Therefore, backlinks from high-authority websites help endorse your brand, which builds trust with the skeptical C-suite stakeholders.
4. Drive Referral Traffic from Niche Sites: B2B link-building efforts focus on websites that your target audience visits, such as B2B SaaS blogs, industry journals, and publications. When they go to these websites, they are more likely to click through and land on your site. This can result in potential qualified leads, which can translate into conversions.
5. Boost Brand Recall: When decision makers repeatedly see your brand linked to and mentioned by trusted sources across niche publications, they start considering your company as a credible option.

Common Challenges in B2B SEO Link-Building

B2B SEO link-building comes with unique challenges. Let's look at what makes it complex (and how to fix it): 

• Standing Out in Outreach: Everyone usually pitches to the same websites and journalists, often ending up getting ignored. Therefore, the real challenge is earning trust from site owners who now limit guest posts.

To stand out and secure link placements, each outreach should include research-backed insights that foster meaningful conversations about collaboration. It requires more effort upfront, but yields meaningful responses.

• Securing High Quality Backlinks: Another link-building challenge is securing high-quality links from authoritative sites in the highly competitive B2B sector.

To overcome this, you have to create shareable and valuable content that naturally attracts links from other B2B professionals and media outlets.

• Maintaining Links on Authoritative Sites: Another significant challenge isn't about building links but keeping them, as pages get deleted and noindexed. 

To fix this, you need to run constant audits and monitor changes in links.

• Limited Backlink Opportunities: Unlike B2C, B2B brands operate in niche industries with few websites that have tightened their linking standards. So, a significant challenge is to find opportunities that benefit both parties in the link-building partnership. 

To address this, the goal should be to focus on building relationships with relevant brands, industry influencers, and reputable publications, and to create helpful content through the partnerships you establish.

• Approval of B2B Content: In certain niches like finance, healthcare, legal, and insurance that target other similar businesses, every piece of content has to be strictly reviewed before it is published. If your post doesn't meet the standards, it can get rejected, reducing your chances of acquiring backlinks.

One effective way to break through this is to create a framework for all your content and have a set of approved messaging to use for every guest post.

Effective B2B Link-Building Strategies

Let's now review the top 6 link-building strategies for the B2B segment:

1. Get on Podcast Interviews

Find podcasts relevant to your niche and consider being a guest on industry podcasts to reach your target decision-makers.

If you share valuable insights during the show, you can build trust and authority and expand your link opportunities organically.

• Check the podcasts' websites and domain authority.
• Get featured on their website and show notes to attract potential backlinks.

2. Employ Guest Posting

Another way to build backlinks and enhance your brand reputation in the B2B sector is to demonstrate your expertise by guest posting on blogs.

• To find websites that accept guest posts, search for: Intitle: "write for us" + your keyword.
• Pitch to the sites that meet your traffic and domain authority requirements.
• Share real insights that the readers will find helpful and that add to your credibility.
• Add links to the content to point the readers to your site.

3. Create Linkable Content Assets

A strong B2B link-building tactic involves creating linkable content that naturally attracts high authority links over time.

Here's how to do it:

• Find a topic in your industry that matters and resonates with your audience.
• Pick a format that works well in B2B, like free resources, case studies, infographics, online tools and calculators, and research reports. 
• Provide actionable and genuinely practical value.
• Reach out to website owners, influencers, and industry publications who might find the content valuable.

4. Build Links with HARO

An effective strategy is to connect with journalists who are seeking expert responses on their industry-specific queries. In exchange, you get the opportunity to earn high-authority, relevant backlinks from trusted publications.

• Through our HARO link-building, we can help you spotlight your B2B brand and get featured on top publications.
• We pitch to hundreds of journalists and follow up on them while uncovering new opportunities.

5. Leverage Broken Link-Building

Broken link-building involves finding broken links on relevant sites and offering your content as a replacement. Here's how you do it:

• Analyze competitor backlinks using tools like Semrush and Ahrefs to find dead links on authoritative B2B sites.
• Contact the sites, pointing out the broken links, and offer your content as a replacement.

6. Use the Skyscraper Technique

You can focus on creating content that surpasses the existing topics online in terms of quality, depth, and comprehensiveness. Here are the steps to follow:

• Identify top target keywords related to your B2B niche.
• Check for the content that ranks for that target keyword.
• Create unique and valuable content based on that topic.
• Reach out to the sites linking to the original sites.

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Building B2B Links

It's one thing to know the strategies to implement in your link-building, and it's another to avoid making mistakes.

Here are the top 9 mistakes (and their solutions) to avoid running afoul of Google’s link spam guidelines:

1. Generic Outreach Emails: If you rely excessively on outreach tools, you could send spammy emails that are a waste of time.

Solution: Personalize your outreach emails with a relevant reference to their content and offer value upfront to increase the chance of a successful response and collaboration.

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2. Building Only Dofollow Links: Over half of brands fail to acquire nofollow backlinks.

Solution: Build nofollow links, especially from media websites or authoritative sites with a large following, which can boost your traffic, increase your brand visibility, and make your backlink profile natural.

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3. Black Hat Techniques: Buying links from link farms and shady link-building services can increase the chances of your site being penalized.

Solution: Opt for steady and organic link acquisition strategies.

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4. Ignoring Link Relevance: Building links without user intent and relevance in mind can mislead the search engines about the intent of your content.

Solution: Build backlinks from relevant brands where your audience overlaps.

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5. Overuse of the Same Anchor Text: Another overlooked component is using the exact match anchor text excessively to manipulate search engine results.

Solution: Have a mix of branded, generic, and keyword-rich anchors.

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6. Low Quality Guest Posts: Generic and low-quality content or creating content on unrelated sites just for backlinks can be flagged as spam.  If your content is low quality or copied, the links it will attract won't hold much value.

Solution: One way to get niche-relevant backlinks is to create valuable, unique, and high-quality content (like original research and infographics) for related websites.

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7. Lack of Due Diligence on Link-Building Agencies: Dodgy link builders who promise to deliver dozens of backlinks often employ methods that violate Google's guidelines. This could lead to penalties and a lower ranking in SERPs.

Solution: Vet and team up with credible link-building professionals who can analyze your link profile and create a detailed link-building strategy tailored to your goals.

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8. Overrelying on One Link-Building Tactic: It may be tempting to stick to one tactic that works well; however, that comes with risks of tanking your rankings if the search engines' algorithms were to change.

Solution: Diversify your link sources to create a natural backlink profile and reach a wider audience.

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9. Ignoring Local SEO Link-Building:  Another mistake is ignoring geo-targeted and local SEO link-building efforts, which can result in missed opportunities to enhance your local search visibility.

Solution: Aim to get backlinks from local citations, get listed on local directories, and community sites to rank in the local search results.

How to Choose the Right B2B Link-Building Agency

Not every agency will be a good fit for your business. 

If you cover all five factors we've spelled out below, you will be able to choose the right link-building agency:

1. Look for Their B2B Specifications

Again, circling back, from our comparison above, link acquisition in the B2B sector requires a different approach to link-building than in the B2C sector. An agency with industry-specific experience already understands the type of content that earns links and the competitors.

Look for an agency with:

• Proven experience in B2B outreach
• Experience in your specific industry, for example, SaaS

2. Evaluate Their Link-Building Strategy

Ensure your chosen agency adheres to white-hat SEO practices, avoiding black-hat methods such as link farms. So, they should prioritize: 

• Creating guest posts and thought leadership content
• Auditing content to support their link campaigns

3. Ask the Metrics They Track

The metrics they measure should align with your goals. 

Additionally, the agency should be transparent about the progress and provide reports with actionable metrics such as: 

• Number and quality of backlinks
•  Domain authority (DA) or the domain rating (DR) of linking sites
• Organic traffic growth and the improvements in keyword ranking

4. Check Their Transparency and Communication

A trustworthy agency should be transparent about its process and pricing and follow Google guidelines to prevent your website from being penalized.

The link-building experts should:

• Understand what the link-building efforts should achieve
• Keep you informed about the process, from creating a tailored strategy to sharing actionable insights about the results
• Keep track of your backlinks and provide structured reports on what's working

5. Ask for Case Studies

Look for an agency with a proven history in link-building. Also, check the clients' reviews and testimonials about the agency's communication, transparency, and impact of their strategies.

 An experienced agency will have:

• Specific case studies with metrics, examples of links, screenshots, and evidence of the increase in traffic
• Track record of positive and verified reviews on its website
• Portfolio of successful campaigns

If you're worried about shady link builders ruining your SEO, don't be. We've got your back. 

At Profit Engine, we leverage an AI-driven link-building strategy to analyze the competitors' tactics, find opportunities, and optimize our efforts. We get you HARO placements and manually vet each link to ensure they meet the quality standards.

Ready to grow your link-building strategy? Connect with our link-building experts to discover how we can get you B2B-specific backlinks relevant to your niche.

Future Trends in B2B Link Building 

To future-proof your link-building strategy, you need to understand the practical techniques that will dominate the landscape.

The key trends are:

• Video Content for Link-Building: Video is becoming increasingly crucial in link-building, where B2B thought leaders feature in YouTube videos and add their links in the description to drive organic traffic to their website.
• AI in Outreach and Prospecting: AI is quickly becoming a valuable partner in discovering link opportunities and helping personalize outreach, thereby increasing the chances of receiving responses. 
• Thought Leadership as a Link Magnet: Valuable insights from founders, CMOs, and C-suite executives are increasingly serving as a source of organic backlinks. So, when you participate in panel discussions, expert roundtables, and post authoritative articles on LinkedIn, you can attract natural links from industry peers and journalists.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Let's wrap up our guide with quick and concise answers to commonly asked questions about link-building strategies for B2B:

How Long Does It Take to See Results from B2B Link-Building?

It can take 3 to 12 months to see results from your link-building efforts.

The time it takes to see results from B2B link-building depends on several factors, including your website's history, your competitors, the resources you invest, and your backlink strategy.

What Is the Ideal Number of Backlinks for a B2B Site?

Short answer: There's no specific quantity of backlinks that works best, but there should be a balance. 

Too few backlinks can lead search engines to consider your site irrelevant, while too many may raise red flags about manipulative link-building practices.

Can LinkedIn Be Used for Link-Building?

Absolutely! 

LinkedIn is great for acquiring backlinks. You can use it to send personal messages for link exchange and collaboration purposes.

How Do I Recover from a Drop in Backlink Profile?

Here are the key steps to find and reclaim lost backlinks:

1. Use Ahrefs Site Explorer to discover the backlinks that have recently disappeared.
2. Analyze the cause of why the links were lost, whether it's a 404 error, a deleted linking page, or a removal of the anchor text from the linking site.
3. Focus on reclaiming links where the backlink has a broken redirect, the link was removed, or the referring page is no longer found. Also, pay attention to pages with the highest traffic.
4. Contact the webmaster to request reclamation. You can also suggest a replacement link on your site.
5. Monitor and follow up with a gentle reminder if the link isn't replaced.

Conclusion

The competition in B2B link-building is fierce, and you have to take advantage of all the techniques we've explored above. Remember, link-building is not a quick fix but a long-term investment.

If you're struggling to build a healthy backlinking profile, consider partnering with Profit Engine. Our outreach is 100% genuine, targeting active B2B industry sites and blogs. We also go the extra mile to vet and deliver high-quality links from authoritative websites manually.

Contact us today to elevate your business with a winning B2B link-building strategy.