Launching a startup is exciting, but even the best ideas go unnoticed without visibility. That’s the struggle most startups face.
You need eyes on your brand quickly, and link-building can be your secret weapon. Done right, it amplifies your content, boosts search rankings, and attracts your ideal customers.
In this guide, we’ll cover everything about link-building for startups, including creating an effective backlinking strategy and measuring link-building performance.
Getting high-quality backlinks is hectic, especially if it is your first time doing it. That’s why we recommend working with a link-building agency.
At Profit Engine, we offer results-focused link-building solutions to help you secure genuine backlink placements quickly to boost your SERP ranking. Our team leverages AI and link-building tools to find high-PR referring domains and then vet them manually to ascertain they are safe and relevant to your niche.
Only having a great product isn’t enough—startups need strong backlinks to gain visibility, credibility, and traction. Otherwise, the company may fly under the radar until it ‘crashes.’
Here are the main reasons why startups should embrace link-building:
Enhance Visibility: Backlinks with brand mentions place more eyeballs on your startup, getting potential leads interested in your products.
Build Authority: Inbound links from high-PR domains signal search engines that your website is an authority in its niche and contains helpful information for visitors.
Improve Search Engine Rankings: Link-building influences your website’s perceived domain authority, which helps it rank higher on SERPs.
Generate Traffic: Link-building lets you leverage high-intent organic traffic from high-authority domains to your website, which is effective for lead generation and conversion.
How to Create a Link Building Strategy From Scratch
Below is a step-by-step guide for building a backlinking strategy that can drive real results for your startup website:
Define Link-Building Goals: Set SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) link-building goals for your startup website. For example, you could aim to grow your website’s domain authority by at least 5 points over six months.Â
Prepare Your Website: Optimize your website to attract backlinks naturally and increase your link-building outreach success. At the top of the list is ensuring your startup website is both fast and mobile-friendly. Also, find and fix broken links to boost your website’s credibility and user experience.
Create Link-Worthy Assets: Publish relevant, high-quality content, such as link magnets like free templates, research papers, and infographics, to attract backlinks from high-DR websites naturally.
Conduct Link-Building Outreach: Craft personalized link-building outreach emails requesting domain owners for backlinking opportunities. Always offer a win-win situation to nudge the domain owners to accept your request. For example, you could offer replacement text for outdated content on their website in exchange for a link insertion.
Track Progress: Monitor how your link-building strategy impacts the goals defined in Step 1. For example, has there been a significant (+5) increase in your domain authority? Also, evaluate other SEO performance metrics, including organic traffic, recent backlink placements, and unique referring domains.
Do you find the process hectic?
Partner with us at Profit Engine. We have over a decade of experience helping startups quickly grow their websites’ domain authority through genuine, high-quality backlinks. Also, we offer flexible link building packages, so you can pick the bundle that matches your budget.
Schedule a free call to learn how our link-building solutions can help your startup website rank higher on SERPs!
How to Build High-Quality Backlinks with Limited Resources
Most startups have limited budgets, with SEO often receiving little to no resources. The good news: you can get high-quality backlinks for your startup website without breaking the bank.Â
Below, we have compiled effective strategies to grow your link-building profile:
1. Linkable Assets
These are high-value resources, like free templates, calculators, guides, infographics, and case studies, that attract high-quality backlinks naturally.
They provide unique value to readers, compelling even high-PR domains to link to your website. Also, linkable assets are effective for attracting high-intent leads to your startup.
2. Guest Posting
A simple Google search on [niche] + ‘write for us’ will get you websites in your industry that allow guest posts from subject matter experts. Use the opportunity to share authoritative, insightful content about your startup or products.Â
Ensure your blog topic aligns with the referring domain’s audience interest to encourage visitors to engage with your content.
3. Link Insertions
Startups can utilize this strategy to rapidly scale their backlinks without creating unique link-building content. There are two main ways to secure backlinks through link insertions:
Niche Edits: Find articles that mention keywords and search phrases relevant to your industry or offerings, and request the domain owners to make niche edits to the post.
Unlinked Mentions: Use link-building tools to find websites that mention your startup and send an outreach email requesting the domain owners to insert a hyperlink to the mention.
4. HARO Link-Building
The help a reporter out (HARO) link-building strategy is an effective way to get genuine, high-quality backlink placements in news and media platforms. Identify journalists looking for expert commentary on topics related to your niche.
Grant the journalists interviews (it could even be through email) and request that they insert an inbound link to your website when mentioning you or the startup.
5. Skyscraper Technique
The skyscraper method essentially involves identifying the most highly linked content related to your niche and creating a superior version.
The premise is that publishing more valuable content will likely attract high-quality domains to link to your web page. This includes websites with the previously best-ranked blogs as they seek to address the information gaps in their articles.
How to Use Content Marketing for Scalable Link Building
Content marketing is an effective way to establish expertise and promote brand awareness. It involves creating content that attracts and engages your target audience. In link-building, content marketing entails publishing blogs that attract high-quality backlinks.Â
Below are proven methods for using content marketing to grow your backlink profile:
Identify Link-Worthy Topics: Analyze your industry and list trending topics and content gaps that interest your audience. These topics should be such that you can create authoritative content in the form of original research, infographics, or case studies that would attract backlinks from high-PR domains.
Create Evergreen Content: Prioritize content assets that can earn you backlinks for months or years after publication. For example, suppose your startup is in the telehealth SaaS niche. A guide on how patients and health providers can safeguard their private data will likely remain relevant for at least a few years.
Choose Effective Content Formats: Leverage content formats that naturally attract more backlinking opportunities. For example, content assets like checklists, interactive graphs, and calculators encourage sharing and linking, making them effective backlink magnets.
Build Industry Relationships: Establish genuine relationships with bloggers, journalists, and industry influencers. This can be achieved through attending industry events and conferences and participating in CSR efforts. You can then leverage your networks to secure backlink placements on high-PR websites.
Optimize for SEO: Utilize on-page, off-page, and technical SEO tactics to make your content easily discoverable and increase your ranking on SERPs. For example, incorporate high-volume keywords into your content and meta description. Also, ensure your website is mobile-friendly, so you don't miss out on mobile traffic.
How to Measure the Success of Your Link Building Efforts
Tracking your link-building metrics is the best way to determine whether your backlinks add value to your website’s domain authority and SEO performance.Â
Below are essential metrics to evaluate the ROI on your backlinking efforts:
Number and Quality of Backlinks: Monitor the number of backlink placements secured over a month or quarter. Also, assess the referring domains to determine authority, niche relevance, and quality of the inbound links to your startup website.
Organic Traffic: Measure the impact of your link-building strategy on your startup website’s traffic. Check how much traffic was from organic searches or referrals from the inbound links.
Keyword Ranking: Assess changes in ranking for targeted keywords on web pages that received new backlinks. Additionally, measure page authority to assess the likelihood of specific web pages ranking in SERPs.
Brand Visibility: Track changes in brand mentions online (linked and unlinked) to establish whether the backlinks have effectively promoted your startup to a wider audience.
Lead Conversion: Check whether there were website visitors from referring domains who entered your content marketing conversion funnel and ultimately became clients.
Common Mistakes Startups Make with Link Building
Below are common pitfalls to avoid when pursuing backlink placements for your startup:
Publishing Generic Content: Startups are often under pressure to publish multiple blogs to create link-building opportunities. However, churning out generic and low-quality content can harm your link-building efforts, as high-PR websites are likely to reject your outreach requests.
Using Link Farms: Avoid using link farms and private blog networks (PBNs) to inflate your backlink profile, as search engines often flag these links as toxic. A high number of spammy backlinks will likely hurt your website’s perceived credibility and authority, resulting in lower SERP rankings.
Anchor Text Overoptimization: Trying to include as many keywords as possible in your anchor text makes them sound unnatural, which can send negative trust signals to search engines.
Pursuing Irrelevant Backlinks: While a diverse backlink profile helps boost your website’s SEO performance, avoid inbound links from unrelated domains. Search engines often perceive irrelevant backlinks to be spammy or from link farms, which could harm your website’s domain authority and rating.
When to Outsource Link Building for Startups
We encourage startups to outsource link-building efforts so they can land quality backlinks quickly and boost their SERP rankings.Â
However, some startups may opt to build their backlinks in-house as a long-term link-building strategy. But how do you know when to outsource the process?
Here are situations that warrant outsourced link-building:
Low-Quality Backlinks: Are most of your backlinks of low quality? Work with a link-building agency to help secure genuine backlink placements in high-DR websites to boost your domain authority.
Limited Link-Building Budget: Unfortunately, in-house link-building is expensive and doesn’t guarantee high-quality backlinks. In contrast, link-building agencies have existing relationships with high-PR domain owners, which they can leverage to get you backlink placements at a fraction of your SEO budget.
Convenience: Outsourced link-building takes non-administrative tasks off your plate so that you can focus on your startup’s core business functions.
Fast Turnaround Times: Working with a link-building agency lets you secure quality backlinks quickly. For example, at Profit Engine, we deliver the requested high-DR backlinks within 30 days of payment. Also, we provide tiered links to prop up your main backlinks, further reinforcing your website’s domain authority.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Got additional questions? Let’s answer commonly asked ones about link-building for startups:
What Is the Fastest Way to Get Backlinks for a Startup?
The fastest way to get backlinks for startups is through partnering with link-building agencies.Â
At Profit Engine, we help startups secure backlink placements quickly through link-building outreach for guest posting, niche edits, and HARO opportunities.
How Many Backlinks Does a Startup Need to Rank?
There’s no specific number of backlinks that a startup needs to rank. It depends on the niche, referring domains, and backlink quality.Â
For instance, you might need up to 50 backlinks to rank on SERPs for high-competition niches. Additionally, 10 backlinks from DR60 domains will likely boost your website’s SEO performance over 20 inbound links from DR30 domains.
Is It Worth Investing in Link Building Agencies?
Yes. It is worth investing in link-building agencies for two main reasons:
They have networks and relationships in multiple industries, which they leverage for backlinks.
They use AI and link-building tools to craft and implement a backlink strategy tailored to your website’s SEO needs.
How Long Does It Take to See Results From Link Building?
There’s no specific answer to how long it can take to see results from link-building.Â
Some websites experience a drastic change in domain authority and rating within three months, while others require up to a year, depending on the niche’s competitiveness.
Conclusion
Link-building doesn’t have to be overwhelming, even for a startup. With the right strategy, you can build authority, drive traffic, and rank higher on SERPs. It all comes down to creating linkable assets and reaching out to the right (high-authority and relevant) domain owners.
But considering the hassle of launching and sustaining a startup, we recommend outsourcing your link-building efforts to save time and money.
Profit Engine is the #1-rated link-building agency for startups struggling to rank or that lack the internal bandwidth to execute advanced link-building campaigns in-house. We’ll help your startup get quality backlinks in high-authority domains within 30 days of placing your order.Â
