Visibility Is Earned, Not Assumed
The internet is a staple in everyday life, and by now, you’ve visited more web pages than you could ever possibly count. Whether it’s for personal interest or business research, web pages and blog posts are packed with everything you’re looking for. And for when they want to provide a little more info? They include backlinks.
Popping a backlink or two into a web page isn’t just doing readers a favor by giving more context, though. Brands that understand how to leverage content marketing know they can’t simply exist online and leave their growth up to chance. Instead, they use SEO backlinks as part of a strategic approach to drive more traffic to their page and build credibility in their niche.
That’s more easily said than done, but in this guide, we’ll outline how B2B brands can build link strategies that increase authority, improve rankings, and drive meaningful engagement.
SEO Backlinks 101: What They Are and Why They’re Important
Before we dig into the strategy, let’s make sure we’re on the same page about what a SEO backlink even is. In a literal sense, it’s a hyperlink from one website to another that signals to search engines, “Hey, this website I’m linking to is reputable and they know what they’re talking about.” More symbolically, it’s a vote of confidence and proof that others feel they can trust you.
When other sites drive traffic to your pages, it not only looks good, it’s also crucial for your SEO and GEO strategy. Backlinks increase your likelihood of showing up in search results and AI summaries, as well as being chosen by others as a credible source to link to. How? Because they’re foundational to Page Authority (PA) and Domain Authority (DA).
PA and DA are metrics created by Moz to predict how well a specific page or domain will rank in search engine results. The score uses factors such as backlink quality and quantity, individual page authority, topical authority, and spam content to measure a site or page against others in the same industry.
Higher scores indicate credible content, which is becoming increasingly important as AI alters how Google uses information to determine what’s worth displaying. In the past, engagement metrics such as click-through rates and behavioral data indicated popular and respected sites. But with website traffic down in general, Google now uses data like backlink quality and site metrics (PA and DA) to boost one’s visibility over another.
Not all backlinks are created equal, so use good ones as you incorporate them in your strategy.
Learn more about Linking Strategies
How to Choose a Valuable SEO Backlink
Choosing a bunch of random pages to link to and scattering them in various places on your web page, unfortunately, won’t do anything significant to boost your ranking. Finding high-quality backlinks and placing them in the right spot will.
First, search for pages that might fit the bill. You want to look for:
- High-authority domains: sites that have proven to be reputable and authoritative in their industry
- Context relevance: pages that relate to what you’re talking about and provide additional value
- Low spam score: sites that seem more “legit,” determined by Moz’s machine learning model, which uses 27 common features among millions of penalized or banned sites to predict if a given site is “spammy”
- Real traffic: sites that receive a decent amount of traffic will have more visitors to send your way
When you’ve found a site you’re thinking about linking to, check its DA score and look at the PA score of the page you want to link to, as well as others that are relevant in the industry. A higher score indicates that they have a credible voice in the space. It’s also wise to check that their target audience is similar to yours, so the topic and delivery make sense to whoever's reading it.
Remember, the steps you take to link to reputable sites are the same steps others will use to ultimately link to you when you prioritize boosting your PA and DA. Take them seriously!
Learn more about What Makes a Good Backlink
Backlinking Myths That Cost You Rankings
When you’re starting to build your backlink strategy, knowing what makes a valuable backlink is worthwhile. But beware of a few misconceptions that may try to throw you off. Knowing what really matters will help you make the most of your efforts, so let’s debunk some of the more common myths you’ll hear around backlinking.
More is better
As mentioned above, Google uses DA and PA to rank pages, taking into account factors such as relevance and quality, rather than volume. And just as we’ve been told not to “keyword stuff,” stuffing backlinks into your page will have the same outcome. In fact, including too many links is a red flag for search engines and may have you playing around in spam territory.
Any link is a good link
We’ve learned to look for sites with low spam scores, but even sites that seem like they should be helpful sometimes aren’t. URL extensions like .edu and .gov typically carry more weight since they’re established as authoritative, credible sites. But a backlink from one of these isn’t an automatic “win” for your strategy. If the link comes from an irrelevant site, one with low traffic, or was purchased as part of a greater link scheme, it can hurt your presence.
You only need organic backlinks
“But wait, didn’t you just say purchased links could be a problem?” Yes, if they’re bought unethically. Credible, legitimate marketplaces exist, and they work well to create beneficial, paid partnerships between relevant and trustworthy brands. Be sure to vet who you choose to work with.
Learn more about Backlink Myths
Credible SEO Backlink Strategies That Scale
Taking the search for the perfect backlink a little further, the best links are usually part of an intentional, reciprocal partnership. Taking a “collaboration over competition” approach with brands that share the same audience and whose services complement your own can be highly impactful.
Networking, collaborating, and building relationships within your industry can help you form a close-knit community that works together to improve everyone’s visibility. Welcome guest contributions, content partnerships, and co-marketing opportunities with others to help broaden your reach and elevate everyone’s voices. Share real conversations with SMEs to educate and provide higher value for your readers.
Then, once you’ve got some meaningful links to work with, an “easy” way to get the most bang for your buck is using them in ways that make a big difference.
For example, a backlink that’s included as part of the editorial body will hold more weight than one placed in a sidebar or footer. Within the body, there’s context. And anything with context is more likely to be clicked.
The anchor text, or the actual text used in the hyperlink, also matters. Good anchor text tells the reader exactly what they’ll be linking to before they even click. Again, it provides context!
Learn more about SEO Backlink Strategies
Backlinks and Their Role in AIO and LLM Visibility
Backlinks have long been known to influence traditional search rankings, but their importance doesn’t stop there. As AI-generated search experiences like Google's AI Overviews (AIO) and large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT become increasingly integrated into how users access information, backlinking is emerging in new and powerful ways.
According to an Ahrefs study on AIO correlations, five of the top seven ranking factors for appearing in AI Overviews are directly supported by a solid backlink strategy. Those include:
- Brand web mentions
- Branded anchor text
- Domain Rating (DR)
- Number of referring domains
- Number of total backlinks
While the correlations to AIO rankings are still evolving the direction is clear: backlinks are connected to your brand showing up in AI summaries and LLM references. A brand that's well-linked, well-cited, and consistently mentioned across high-quality domains stands a much better chance of being “chosen” by AI as a reliable source.
Here’s what that means for your backlink strategy:
- Branded mentions and anchor text increase brand visibility and give search engines and AIs more context about your authority.
- A healthy mix of unique referring domains tells AI systems that your content is broadly recognized, not siloed.
- An elevated Domain Rating can serve as a shorthand for trust, both for humans and machines.
In addition to supporting traditional SEO metrics like Page Authority (PA) and Domain Authority (DA), backlinks help position your brand to be referenced by AI systems generating content and search summaries. That makes a well-structured seo backlink strategy more vital and versatile than ever before.
Learn more about SEO Metrics (and a bit about GEO)
Closed-Loop Backlinking: How to Control What You Can
Once you’ve formed good partnerships, sourced credible links, and created educational, read-worthy content, there’s still more you can do to increase your visibility and raise your DA/PA scores.
At Content Workshop, we had a novel approach that we were confident would succeed. After several months of brainstorming, implementing, experimenting, and conducting thorough data analysis, this concept was proven to be validated as highly effective. That stratgey was the Closed-loop Backlink Method.
The method essentially helps the pages that link to you increase their PA score. When their PA score increases, the link they direct back to your site holds more weight. Ultimately, that helps increase your site’s over all DA score too. In this way, both you and the linking site benefit.
The system works because of a few key factors:
- It cycles links through a rotation. New pages have lower PA scores, so linking to them from an established page with a higher PA score gives them a little boost.
- It follows the 4-link rule. Each SEO backlink typically increases a page’s PA score by 1 point, until it reaches a maximum of 4. After that, returns generally diminish. Pages with 4 backlinks are cycled out for new pages.
- It allows for unique domain tracking. Since you control multiple links, you can get a better idea of where traffic is coming from.
By no means is this an easy strategy, but if you’re serious about making a profound impact with your links, it’s one to consider!
Learn more about Closed-Loop Backlinking
Tracking SEO Backlinks That Actually Matter
At this point, you’ve produced great content, formed relevant and beneficial partnerships, and have started seeing link traffic come in… But what do you do now? Next steps are typically based on data–knowing what’s working and what’s not. To achieve that, you need to track your backlinks. Let’s cover some factors you should focus on.
Segmentation
As you start publishing your content and earning a higher PA and DA score, you may naturally begin to receive backlinks. These are passive.
The intentional backlinks are the ones you’ve invested time and effort into obtaining. This is where you’ve formed working relationships, collaborated with publishers, and participated in content swaps, among other activities. And because of the significant effort that goes into creating these opportunities (and securing those backlinks), they deserve a dedicated layer of tracking.
Key metrics
Getting a backlink is one thing. Knowing where it came from and what contributed to its success is another. And you want that info.
Note metrics such as:
- Placement context. Where on the page is it located? Is it within a paragraph that holds supporting information?
- Anchor text and call to action. Does the reader know exactly what they’ll learn more about if they click on the link?
- Traffic potential. Does the referring page get a lot of traffic that will, in turn, be sent to you?
- Audience alignment. Most importantly, do you share similar audiences? Will they think your content is relevant based on where they came from?
Reporting
When working within a campaign, reporting backlink performance helps initiate a conversation about what should be done differently next time, based on what’s working and what's not. To do this, ensure your data is organized and easy to understand.
Be sure to tag each link by its campaign and filter it into content themes or pillars you’ve set up. They should always reinforce your broader content strategy framework. Tagged backlinks can then be integrated into your analytics stack. Use UTM parameters to tag intentional links and measure their referral traffic, tracking conversions to determine if the links played a role at any point in the buyer’s journey.
Learn more about Backlink Tracking
Tactical Backlinking Moves That Pay Off
Putting a solid backlink strategy in place means there will be a lot of moving pieces to keep organized as you go. Any time you start the next phase of your strategy, or start a new strategy entirely, it’s always a good time to revisit these reminders to ensure you’re getting the most out of your backlinks.
Target new content early
As mentioned, the first few backlinks carry the most weight. After a page receives four, it takes more links to make the same impact. Cycle new pages into your strategy as they’re created to get the most return for your time.
Prioritize high PA and audience fit
When you partner with people in your industry or link to each other’s work in collaborative pieces, keep the standards high. Partnerships with brands that have relevant audiences and have already established themselves as an authority in the space will be most beneficial.
Build backlinks in focused sprints
Instead of linking as you go, plan ahead, organize everything, and begin! Working in focused sprints creates compounding value in shorter periods of time. It also helps keep everyone involved more focused. After all, this SEO backlink strategy stuff can be quite complex, especially if it’s dragged on for too long.
The Role of Backlinks in Your Broader SEO Strategy
By now, you’ve likely realized that backlinks are not just a side project you take on in hopes they’ll help increase website traffic–they’re a key part of a larger credibility system. At the end of the day, a lot of work goes into building and maintaining a solid strategy. The good news? Your efforts ultimately lead to domain-wide SEO success.
Technical SEO and on-page content
As AI continues to evolve and the amount of time we spend sifting through individual websites decreases, backlinks will continue to hold power. They contribute to visibility, organic traffic, and most importantly, industry authority.
If search engines aren’t collecting the more traditional metrics like click-through rates or bounce rates, they have to base their rankings on something else. This is why PA and DA will become more significant indicators of content quality and relevance. Focus on more than Google. Large language models like ChatGPT seem to be pulling data from Bing-indexed pages first, so prioritize ranking there as well.
Positioning your domain for success
Some of the time-tested factors of successful SEO strategies still hold true. For example, when thinking about keyword research, it’s not something you want to take lightly. Target terms your audience actually searches for and use this data to help determine low-competition, high-relevance opportunities for backlinking.
Take a look at your competitors as well. Review their backlink profiles to identify which pages or publications are linking to them. You’ll want to take some time here to identify gaps you can fill through your own efforts. From here, you can reverse engineer your link-building strategy and develop outreach plans accordingly.
Glossary of Key Backlink Terms
| Term | Definition |
| AI | Refers to Artificial Intelligence—machine learning systems that generate, analyze, or curate content. In marketing, AI tools are used to automate and enhance content creation and visibility. |
| Anchor Text | The visible, clickable text in a hyperlink that provides context about where the link leads. |
| Backlink | A hyperlink from one website to another, seen as a vote of confidence that can boost SEO and authority. |
| Domain Authority (DA) | A Moz metric predicting how well a website will rank on search engines, based on factors like link quality and domain age. |
| Domain Rating (DR) | An Ahrefs metric assessing a site’s authority and credibility based on backlink profiles and competitiveness. |
| GEO | Generative Search Optimization (GSO) refers to the strategic process of enhancing a website's visibility and ranking within AI-powered search engines. |
| Page Authority (PA) | A Moz metric that predicts how well an individual page will rank in search results, based on link profile strength and other SEO factors. |
| Spam Score | A metric used in SEO to evaluate the likelihood that a website or webpage is engaging in spammy practices. A high spam score indicates higher risk of penalty. |
| SEO | Search Engine Optimization—the practice of optimizing online content to improve its ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs). |
| SERP | Search Engine Results Page—the page displayed by a search engine in response to a user’s query, often including organic listings, ads, featured snippets, and more. |
| Keyword Research | The process of identifying and analyzing the queries that users search for, to optimize content for search engine visibility. |
Need Help? We Build SEO Backlink Strategies That Work
We’d be lying if we said this was easy. Just because it requires a lot of planning and brain power doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing.
We’re passionate about helping brands like yours reap the most reward for your efforts through strategic, intentional content strategy. And that includes a killer plan for those backlinks.
If you’d rather stick to what you’re good at and let us take care of this part, let us create a customized SEO backlink strategy for your brand. Just give us a shout and we’ll get to work.