When discussing SEO, backlinks remain a powerful ranking signal. But not all links are created equal.

Unlike outreach links, natural links are the ultimate vote of confidence that comes from websites that genuinely find your content valuable enough to reference it.

But don't think that natural links happen by chance. They are acquired through smart strategies and creating quality content - the kind that brands find resourceful.

In this article, we will unpack:

• What natural links mean and their importance
• How natural links differ from unnatural links
• 7 natural link-building techniques and the mistakes to avoid

Although natural links are excellent, there's a catch: they're hard to obtain (and they take time, too). Therefore, don't rely solely on natural backlinks; instead, incorporate other link-building strategies to enhance your online presence.

At Profit Engine, we pride ourselves on building strong backlinks, increasing organic traffic, and getting high search rankings for clients in the US, UK, Canada, Australia (and more) for over 10 years.

We manually vet every link and subject it to our 16-point quality control review, ensuring you receive only the highest-quality links.

Reach out today and learn how we can help you boost your site's ranking.

What Is Natural Link Building?

A natural link (also known as an organic or editorial link) is a link that another website gives your website voluntarily because your content is relevant, authoritative, and valuable.

But what is the role of natural links in SEO?

Let's highlight the top 3 reasons why they matter:

• SEO Longevity: Unlike paid links, these links remain valuable even as search engine algorithms change, providing long-term SEO benefits.
• Credibility and Trust: When reputable sites choose to link to your site without request, it's a vote of confidence. It's also a positive signal to search engines when they are ranking pages.
• Website Traffic Boost: When niche-relevant sites link to your site, they send visitors interested in your offer or product who are likely to convert into customers.

Natural Backlinks vs. Unnatural Backlinks

Unlike natural links which are earned organically, unnatural backlinks are created with the intent to manipulate the search engines.

In the table below, you'll learn how each type affects your website and why natural links are a safer bet in the long run.

Let's get to it:

What Makes Content Link-Worthy

Link-worthy content is high-value content that other people in your niche can find beneficial to reference on their websites.

Here are tips for designing content that is indispensable for attracting backlinks:

• Create Valuable, Unique Content: The content should be so helpful that people can't help but share it. Instead of creating generic resources, you should build blueprints that stand out, are actionable, detailed, and address the industry's gaps.

• Solve Industry Problems: Linkable content should combine practical advice that your audience can apply with original research that isn't widely available. Other sites will naturally want to reference your resources.
• Ensure Trustworthiness, Transparency, and Citability: Create content that people can trust and rely on. The approach should be to conduct original research based on hands-on experiments to gather data that directly impacts the real user. When you provide original and research-backed insights, the links will come naturally.

7 Natural Link Building Techniques

Once you have quality content, the next step is to implement tactics to gain natural links from high-quality domain websites.

Let's explain each of them:

1. Podcasts and Webinars

Be active in your industry discussions by diving into podcasts, online communities, forums, and webinars to connect with an audience that is interested in what you have to say. Ultimately, you can offer helpful insights, increase your visibility, and also pave the way for backlinks.

2. Guest Blogging

You can write a well-researched and insightful blog to source natural links from reputable sites in your niche with thousands of followers. 

In return, you can build links from these sites, enhancing your site's authority and visibility.

3. Linkable Assets

You can create free, interactive tools or publish exclusive industry reports, surveys, and case studies that act as a reference point for others to cite naturally. You could also create easy-to-digest infographics that summarize complex information.

4. Social Sharing

Have active social media profiles and share your content there to spark conversations and encourage natural link building. Content that naturally has shares will drive traffic and prompt natural link building.

5. Building Relationships

Develop genuine relationships with influencers, bloggers, and businesses in your niche. Once you authentically connect with them, you can increase the chances of them linking to your content in the future.

6. Broken Link Building

You can build natural links by identifying websites with broken links, which are pages that have been removed or renamed. You should then offer your content to be used in its stead, providing you with an opportunity to earn a relevant, natural link to your content.

7. Skyscraper Technique

Create content that stands out from the existing blog posts in your niche. The aim is to outdo the older posts and gain a competitive edge on the websites that prefer fresh content. Influencers are more likely to notice the content, and it might attract links naturally.

SEO Signals That Help Natural Link Building

Search engines like Google use SEO signals to assess the relevance of your page.

Here's a quick list of the seven core ranking signals:

1. Authoritative Content: If you create content that solves your readers' problems or offers expert insights, it's likely to be linked to. Therefore, you should create in-depth content with unique research, case studies, and expert insights.
2. Fast Load Speed: When a website is slow and clunky, it won't get linked to even when the content is excellent. That means it's essential to compress images and optimize your site for mobile devices.
3. Google E-E-A-T: Your content must demonstrate expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T). Therefore, focus on clear author bios, citations, and a thorough editorial process.
4. Content Clusters: Google rewards websites that thoroughly cover a niche by focusing on content clusters, pillar pages, and utilizing semantic keywords. The websites should also address related user questions and use language that is NLP-friendly.
5. Content Freshness: The more updated the content is, the likelier it is to earn more organic links. You should update high-performing posts with the latest data and improve evergreen content with current statistics.
6. Shareability: Content that is widely shared online makes it more discoverable and increases the likelihood of earning natural links. So, ensure to create mobile-friendly content and incorporate social sharing buttons.
7. User Engagement Metrics: When your website has a low bounce rate and high scroll depth, it reflects to Google that your content is engaging, making it more likely to be linked. So focus on an exciting hook, incorporate captivating visuals, and optimize your content for readability.

How Natural Link Building Services Help You Grow Authority Organically

Despite its value, building natural links can be challenging to acquire and require more of your time and effort.

A natural link-building service can be handy for the following reasons:

• Holistic Link Building Approach: Using their professional expertise, a link-building agency can help you create and promote high-quality content to attract top-notch natural backlinks.
• Track Record: These professionals understand the nuances of natural link-building, saving you the time and effort to achieve results. They may also have helped other clients to get niche-relevant backlinks through their strategies.
• Comprehensive Competitor Analysis: They perform competitor analysis to spot the content types that are likely to attract natural backlinks in your niche or industry.
• Align with Google Guidelines: Link-building services employ tactics that adhere to search engine guidelines, ensuring you strengthen your backlink profile and avoid penalties.

The best link-building services should diversify your backlink portfolio by helping you acquire links from various sources.

At Profit Engine, we blend custom link-building strategies with AI technology to ensure that the links we acquire align with the traffic, niche, and DA/DR metrics. As part of our link-building tactics, we can leverage HARO to earn high-quality links to your site from reputable media platforms.

Schedule your call today.

Common Challenges and Solutions in Natural Link Building

Due to the high competition for quality natural links, there are unique challenges that may jeopardise your link-building campaign.

Let's discuss them and outline their solutions:

• Difficulty Standing Out: With a vast amount of content available, making yours stand out can be a highly challenging task.

Solution: Create original, authentic content that portrays your niche authority and thought leadership. Try to think of ways in which you can add that little extra bit to make your content stand out.
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• Publishing Link-Worthy Content: With an abundance of content already available online, a significant challenge is creating content that naturally attracts backlinks.

Solution: Use Ahrefs to reverse-engineer content that naturally gets links in your niche, and then focus on creating or developing detailed guides, studies, and data visualizations.
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• Natural Links Take Time to Show Results: The SEO effects of natural links are slow.

Solution: Diversify your link-building strategies with tactics such as niche edits.
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• Dealing with Spammy Links: Another significant challenge is getting unwanted spammy and low-quality backlinks from irrelevant and disreputable sources that can harm your website's SEO.

Solution: Constantly monitor your natural links to identify and disavow any low-quality or harmful links.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

As we wrap up our guide, we will answer commonly asked questions and clear any doubts you might have about natural links:

How Long Does Natural Link Building Take?

Typically, natural links take longer to build.

The length it takes to see SEO benefits from natural backlinks will depend on factors like:

• Some competitive niches, like technology, take longer to outrank competitors and earn natural backlinks.
• If your website is new, it might take time to earn trust and earn links.
• If you choose promotion strategies, you might accelerate your natural link-building.
• When you create high-quality resources, you can boost your credibility, and your site is more likely to attract natural links fast.

Can a New Website Attract Natural Backlinks?

Yes, a new website can earn natural backlinks if it offers compelling and unique content. 

Additionally, consistently making guest appearances and building genuine relationships in niche communities can help others link to your site.

Are Natural Links Better Than Outreach Links?

Yes, natural links are better than outreach links because Google considers them as actual votes of confidence. They are from high-quality, authoritative resources.

However, outreach-based links still pass value and build rankings, especially when they are on high-quality domain sites and fit contextually.

How Do I Know If a Link Is Natural?

Here are ways to know a link is natural:

1. The anchor text is descriptive, and it's not keyword-stuffed with exact-match keywords.
2. The links originate from websites and content relevant to your topic.
3. They point to content that is equally valuable to provide their audience with reliable and trustworthy information.

Should I Disavow Links That Weren't Manually Built?

The short answer: it depends.

Disavowing the wrong backlinks (those that are helping your site) can negatively impact your site's SEO performance.

So, you have to know how to find toxic backlinks that can negatively impact your rankings and lead to Google penalties.

Therefore, only disavow links originating from forum spam. Besides, disavow links if you've received a manual action in your Google Search Console or if you have a large number of links from low-quality sites.

Conclusion

To create high-value, link-worthy resources, write in-depth guides, case studies, and research that will get noticed and referenced by others. You should also promote your content on social media and build connections with people who may want to link to your content.

If you're looking to build links without hands-on involvement, consider partnering with link-building specialists.

Our team at Profit Engine understands the criticality of white-hat link building, and we never work with PBNs and other spammy sites. Additionally, our strategies extend to niche edits and guest posts to enhance your SEO performance. 

Get started on a free strategy call to enhance the organic visibility of your business.