How do I get backlinks?

Start with the sites already linking to your competitors, because they have proven they link to businesses in your category and are the warmest targets available. Then claim what you are already owed, meaning unlinked brand mentions and broken links pointing at pages you could replace. Then cover the baseline of directory and citation listings. Only after those are exhausted does cold outreach and content creation become the best use of your time.

How do I get a backlink to my site for free?

Every method that reliably works is free apart from your time. Find the referring domains of two or three competitors, look for sites linking to several of them but not to you, and pitch those. Search for mentions of your brand that have no link attached and ask for one. Both cost nothing and convert far better than cold outreach, because the target has already demonstrated interest in your category or in you specifically.

How long does it take to get backlinks?

The baseline listings take an afternoon. Unlinked mention and broken link recovery usually produce results within two to three weeks, since you are asking for something small from someone already predisposed to say yes. Cold outreach for editorial links runs on a six to twelve week cycle and converts in low single-digit percentages, which is why it belongs after the easier work rather than before it.

How many links should I aim for per month?

Pace matters less than consistency and source quality, so treat this as a workload question rather than a target. A single person working the methods here part time realistically lands a handful of meaningful referring domains a quarter, front-loaded because the first three tactics convert fastest. If you want to know how many you need in total, benchmark against whoever currently outranks you rather than against a number from a blog post.

Do I need to pay for backlinks?

No, and the free methods generally outperform the paid ones for small sites. Paying makes sense once you have exhausted the free work and your constraint is hours rather than knowledge, at which point you are buying outreach labour rather than link placements. Buying links directly is against Google's guidelines and the cheap end of that market sells links that carry no value.

What is the fastest backlink to get?

An unlinked brand mention. Somebody has already written your name in an article, which means the hard part, deciding you are worth referencing, is done. Asking them to make it a link is a small request with a high success rate, and it often takes one email. Search your brand name in quotes, exclude your own domain, and work the results.

Strategy

How to get backlinks (the methods that still work)

Nine ways to earn backlinks, ordered by how much you get back for the effort. Start with the ones that use links your competitors already have, because those are the warmest targets you will ever work and they cost nothing but time.

Brad Williams·Updated Jul 2026·6 min read

Most advice on getting backlinks starts with the hardest method. Write something amazing, the story goes, and people will link to it. That is true eventually and useless immediately, because it gives you nothing to do on Monday.

This is the practical order instead: nine methods, sorted by what you get back per hour spent. The first three cost nothing but attention and convert several times better than anything below them, which is why almost nobody does them and almost everybody jumps straight to cold outreach.

1. Take the links your competitors already have

Why first: a site that already links to a competitor has demonstrated, in public, that it links to businesses like yours. That is the strongest buying signal you will ever get from a link target, and it costs nothing to find.

How: pull the referring domains for three to five sites that outrank you for the terms you want. Look for domains linking to two or more of them but not to you. That overlap is your list, ordered by how many competitors each one links to.

Realistic outcome: the highest hit rate of any outreach you will do, because you can open with a specific, true observation about their page rather than a generic pitch.

Find the links your competitors have and you don't

Paste a competitor domain to see their referring domains, then add your own to reveal the gap. Free, no account, and the list comes back in seconds.

Run a free check →

Covered fully in backlink gap analysis and replicate a competitor's best backlinks.

2. Claim your unlinked mentions

Why second: somebody has already written your name. The hard part, deciding you are worth referencing, is finished. All that remains is a small administrative request.

How: search your brand name in quotes and exclude your own domain. Work through the results for mentions with no link. Email the author, thank them genuinely, and ask if they would mind linking the mention so readers can find you.

Realistic outcome: the fastest link on this list. High success rate, often a single email, and no negotiation.

3. Replace broken links

Why third: you are solving a problem for the site owner rather than asking a favour. Nobody wants a dead link on their page.

How: find resource pages in your niche, check them for dead outbound links, and where you have something equivalent, tell the owner the link is broken and mention your page as a possible replacement. Lead with the broken link, not with your page.

Realistic outcome: strong conversion because the email is useful even if they do not link to you.

Why these three come first

Each one starts from evidence that the target is receptive: they link to your competitors, they already mentioned you, or they have a problem you can fix. Cold outreach starts from nothing, which is exactly why it converts in low single digits while these convert in double.

4. Cover the baseline listings

Why: directory, citation, and industry association listings are low value individually, but their absence is conspicuous, particularly for local businesses where citation consistency genuinely affects local rankings.

How: industry directories, your chamber of commerce, relevant professional associations, and consistent name, address, and phone details everywhere.

Realistic outcome: an afternoon of work, done once. Do not mistake it for a strategy. It is the floor.

5. Publish something only you can publish

Why: original data is the most reliable trigger for editorial and press links, because journalists need numbers and very few companies publish any.

How: look at what your own operations can see that nobody outside can. Aggregate, anonymise, publish annually. A single genuinely novel statistic about your industry outperforms a dozen well-written opinion pieces.

Realistic outcome: slow to produce, then earns links for years without further effort. The only method here that compounds.

6. Get onto resource pages

Why: these pages exist specifically to list useful things, so the owner is actively looking for additions. Topically tight, which is exactly the relevance signal that matters, and they tend to stay up for years.

How: search for resource and useful-links pages in your niche, check that yours genuinely belongs, and pitch it in two sentences.

7. Guest posts, selectively

Why: still effective on real publications with real audiences. Google has been explicit that guest posting at scale for links is a link scheme, so the standard is whether an editor could reject you.

How: pitch places you would want the byline from regardless of the link. If the site accepts anything for a fee, skip it.

8. Expert commentary and quotes

Why: journalists and bloggers constantly need someone to say something quotable. Being reachable and fast is most of the job.

How: monitor the services journalists use to source quotes, answer quickly, and be specific rather than promotional. Vague, hedged answers do not get published.

9. Build something small and free

Why: a calculator, template, or checklist people actually use gets referenced repeatedly without further promotion. Every reuse is another link.

How: solve one narrow, annoying problem in your field completely. Narrow beats comprehensive here, because a tool that does one thing gets described in one sentence, and one-sentence things get linked.

The methods that work are boring and specific. The ones that sound clever are usually the ones nobody has measured.

What to skip

Automated generators. Links from sites that exist only to produce links. Search engines mapped those patterns years ago. See do free backlink generators work.
Comment and forum link dropping. Almost universally nofollow, and transparent to everyone reading.
Reciprocal link exchanges at scale. An obvious footprint, and explicitly named in Google's spam policies.
Cheap bought links. Covered in should you buy backlinks. The usual cost is not a penalty, it is paying for something that does nothing.

A realistic first month

Week 1: pull three competitors' referring domains, build the gap list, cover the baseline listings.
Week 2: search unlinked mentions and email every one of them.
Week 3: work resource pages and broken links from the gap list.
Week 4: pick the single best idea for something only you can publish, and start it.

That sequence front-loads every method with evidence behind it and leaves the slow, speculative work until you have momentum. If you only do week one, you will still be ahead of most sites in your niche, because almost nobody looks at what is already working for their competitors.

Frequently asked questions

How do I get backlinks?: Start with the sites already linking to your competitors, because they have proven they link to businesses in your category and are the warmest targets available. Then claim what you are already owed, meaning unlinked brand mentions and broken links pointing at pages you could replace. Then cover the baseline of directory and citation listings. Only after those are exhausted does cold outreach and content creation become the best use of your time.
How do I get a backlink to my site for free?: Every method that reliably works is free apart from your time. Find the referring domains of two or three competitors, look for sites linking to several of them but not to you, and pitch those. Search for mentions of your brand that have no link attached and ask for one. Both cost nothing and convert far better than cold outreach, because the target has already demonstrated interest in your category or in you specifically.
How long does it take to get backlinks?: The baseline listings take an afternoon. Unlinked mention and broken link recovery usually produce results within two to three weeks, since you are asking for something small from someone already predisposed to say yes. Cold outreach for editorial links runs on a six to twelve week cycle and converts in low single-digit percentages, which is why it belongs after the easier work rather than before it.
How many links should I aim for per month?: Pace matters less than consistency and source quality, so treat this as a workload question rather than a target. A single person working the methods here part time realistically lands a handful of meaningful referring domains a quarter, front-loaded because the first three tactics convert fastest. If you want to know how many you need in total, benchmark against whoever currently outranks you rather than against a number from a blog post.
Do I need to pay for backlinks?: No, and the free methods generally outperform the paid ones for small sites. Paying makes sense once you have exhausted the free work and your constraint is hours rather than knowledge, at which point you are buying outreach labour rather than link placements. Buying links directly is against Google's guidelines and the cheap end of that market sells links that carry no value.
What is the fastest backlink to get?: An unlinked brand mention. Somebody has already written your name in an article, which means the hard part, deciding you are worth referencing, is done. Asking them to make it a link is a small request with a high success rate, and it often takes one email. Search your brand name in quotes, exclude your own domain, and work the results.

Keep reading

How to get backlinks for free

The free tactics in depth, without the spammy shortcuts.

Where to get backlinks that actually count

The specific places worth pursuing, ranked.

How to replicate a competitor's best backlinks

The single highest-probability method, step by step.

Should you buy backlinks?

When paying is legitimate, and when it wastes money.

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