Startups can grow their search presence by earning high-quality inbound links.
Backlinks are the top three ranking factors of Google and websites having more referring domains pointing to them constantly outrank their competitors in organic SERP.
Hence, relevant links help startup websites gain exposure, authority, and first-page rankings on search engines.
The top techniques that startups can use to build or earn backlinks are:
Link insertion means adding your link to an already-indexed article on a website. You can pick any pages on the site after checking the traffic, outbound links, and content relevance.
Niche link edits, or insertions, are fast, easy, mostly dofollow, and offer dual benefits of passing referral traffic along with high-quality contextual backlinks.
Link insertions are paid placements, with costs depending on site authority, niche, and traffic. Listicles, expert roundups, product or service reviews, and how-to articles are some of the best examples of content for link insertions.
A link from a low to mid-authority domain can range from $100 to $250 per link. High-authority and high-traffic pages cost more, with prices going as high as $500 per link.
Niche edit link placements are ideal for startups because there is no need to create new content and the waiting time is also less, compared to other techniques like link bait or guest posts.
Startups can gain niche edit backlinks by identifying websites that are currently ranking for their target keywords.
You can find pages directly from a Google search. Listicles, how-tos, and expert interviews are good sources to get backlinks.
For example, if you have an SEO agency in Los Angeles, you can find websites listing the top SEO agencies in Los Angeles. As shown in the screenshot below, Loopex Digital and Built in LA are good prospects to get relevant links.
Once you have identified your link targets, check the following page-level and domain-level metrics:
Alternatively, you can also find domains currently ranking for your main search phrases using the Ahrefs Keyword Explorer.
The tool will show you the domain’s DR, total backlinks, and total traffic.
Avoid domains with zero traffic, as those might be penalized and have little value.
Prepare an Excel sheet to keep all your link targets in one place. Now, reach out to the site owners and ask them whether they allow link placements within existing content. This is the trickiest part since most of them won’t allow niche edits.
However, some of them will do, and they will share their guidelines with you. Some website owners might also charge money to add your company, product, or service to the list. Follow their guidelines, and you can quickly create some high-value backlinks pointing to your domain.
Avoid taking all your niche link insertions using your primary anchor. Use natural anchors within relevant articles and paragraphs so that the link does not look forced. If proper guidelines are not followed and you get too many backlinks from low-quality domains like PBNs, it can even lead to search engine penalties.
Niche link insertions are smoother, faster, and raise your link equity quickly. You can use the link insertion service from Outreach Labs for high-quality niche-edit links. We offer both single-link inserts and monthly blogger outreach campaigns.
The Skycraper technique in link building can help you attract tons of backlinks only if you know how to do it correctly. It is a free-to-use tactic, and the links you acquire using the method are 100% white-hat and natural.
When it was launched by Brian Dean in 2013, it had a high success rate of 10-15%; now it has fallen to 1-3%. It is due to the overuse of the technique by SEO professionals and link building experts. Most website owners now ignore this tactic as another way of cold email outreach.
The skyscraper technique is useful for startups because it is free, helps in earning natural backlinks from multiple high-value domains, builds topical authority, and also helps you find a place for your business in Google AI overviews.
Under the skyscraper technique, you identify high-performing content in your niche that attracts many backlinks. You can use SEMrush for this task. Enter your competitor’s domain to find the pages with the most backlinks.
After you have identified the top-linked pages, check the kind of content they have prepared. It could be listicles, how-to posts, tips, etc.
Now, create an improved version of the already-existing content. Here is what you can do:
Remember to prepare something genuinely better and not just increase the word count, because simply raising word count is known as content padding, and it won’t help with SEO.
Once you have 10X better content than your competitor, reach out to content editors working at these websites. Not just via email (that’s the old way), you should connect with them on LinkedIn or other social media platforms (that’s the new way). Your outreach should be a part of relationship building. Wait for 45-60 days before you share your agenda with them.
Keep your message short and show the value your content brings. Don’t use any existing templates because they are all overused. Provide a specific reason to update or link (e.g., outdated data, missing info) and make the action effortless (suggest anchor text or placement).
Here is a sample email for your inspiration:
Now, measure the number of backlinks your new and improved content is able to acquire. Continue updating the content whenever an industry upgrade happens to keep your content fresh.
Classic outreach emails for link acquisition have lower success rates. To encourage people to read your email and take action, you need to build relationships first.
Relationship-based link building is the process of earning backlinks as well as repeated business by building genuine connections with:
Relationship-based backlinks are contextual, naturally placed inside content, and tied to real relationships instead of transactional exchanges. They can be both free and paid.
Many startups earn these backlinks organically through networking and outreach without paying anything except time and effort.
However, some collaborations involve sponsored content, influencer fees, PR retainers, or partnership costs.
The prices for these partnerships are:
Now, the question comes how you can find websites to approach for relation-based link acquisition.
You can use the Link Intersect report in Ahrefs to find domains that link to your competitors but don’t link to you. These are excellent prospects to send emails to.
Now, shortlist the domains based on DR and relevancy. Filter out social media sites and pick real blogs. Find out the person behind the website. Become their connections on LinkedIn and engage with their content. You can like their comments, add comments on their shared posts, or repost their content. This will help you build up a nice and steady relationship as the influencers will start noticing your actions.
Now, you can approach them by sending meaningful messages. It can be for guest posting, podcast appearances, influencer partnerships, founder interviews, or expert quotes.
Avoid sending generic outreach emails as they have little to no response rate. Don’t ask for backlinks immediately or target irrelevant prospects.
The biggest advantage of relationship-based link building is that it creates high-quality, relevant backlinks that improve SEO while also building trust and visibility for the startup. These links are safer, more sustainable, and more valuable long-term because they come from real industry relationships.
The downside is that relationship based link acquisition takes time, patience, and consistent effort. Results are rarely instant, outreach response rates can be low, and building genuine relationships at scale is difficult for small startup teams.
If you ask me about that one link building strategy that is the most successful and widely popular, it is undoubtedly guest posting.
In guest blogging, you find websites looking for guest authors and publish your high-quality content with a contextual backlink to your site.
Guest posting backlinks are relevant, and you can choose your own anchor (most of the time). They are of high authority if you get a dofollow link from a reputable domain.
Here is an example of a guest post published on Churnzero:
Guest blogging helps startups “build backlinks for improving search engine ranking by strengthening “E-E-A-T” (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness). They also help to demonstrate your expertise in your industry and attract higher-quality traffic by exposing the newly established business to a new audience.
To build links using guest blogs, you need a list of high-quality guest posting websites in your niche that offer a mix of dofollow and nofollow links.
Google search is the best way to find niche-specific guest posts. Here are some queries you can use to find websites that are looking for guest contributors:
You can also find guest posting sites on social media. Simply search with your niche keyword and add the word “guest post”. It will show you a list of posts and social media profiles of people who are interested in guest posting collaborations.
You can also use SEO software like Ahrefs or SEMrush to find guest blogs.
Enter a competitor website into Ahrefs and open the “Backlinks” report. Now, filter by “Dofollow” and look for blogs or media sites linking to them. These websites accept guest contributions as well.
Not all sites that are looking for guest bloggers are good for publishing your content. You need to shortlist the websites based on domain-level and page-level metrics like Domain Authority, Page Authority, organic traffic, link attribute (like dofollow or nofollow), and niche guest posts.
You should also answer some questions before selecting any domain for guest posting:
The good part about guest posting is that it helps you build backlinks, improve SEO, and get your startup in front of new audiences. It can also bring referral traffic and help you build authority in your niche over time.
The difficult part is that guest posting takes effort. You will spend time finding websites, pitching ideas, and creating content, and not every website will reply or accept your post. Some sites charge money, and results usually take time to show.
Some guest post backlinks are free, but most websites charge a publication fee. The price depends on the current domain authority, domain rating, and organic traffic on the site. Medium-tier domains charge between $100-$300 per post. High-quality sites charge around $500 per post or more.
Instead of doing it yourself, you can outsource the work to high-quality guest posting services, as it can save time, money, and also keep your domain safe from unnatural link penalties.
Guest podcasting is the new guest blogging. With over 584.1 million podcast listeners, being a guest on another industry-relevant podcast helps you expand your online presence.
When you participate as a guest speaker on a popular podcast, you can take advantage of the host’s listener base. Your business name shows up in episode information on the show’s website, and your website link is included in the show notes.
You can also earn high-quality links from the podcast hosting site, the podcast directory, and social media accounts. Most podcast site links included in show notes or episode pages, are dofollow, but big platforms like Spotify or Apple Podcasts usually give nofollow links.
If you’re invited or pitch yourself as a guest, the link is free. It is paid only if it’s a sponsored appearance or a PR placement. The different pricing tiers for podcast appearances are:
Early-stage startups need brand awareness, and founder-led companies can leverage industry-specific podcasts to build backlinks and credibility for their brand.
Startups can pitch founders as experts to relevant podcasters. You can find niche product podcasts on platforms like Rephonic. Enter your keyword and filter selected podcasts from relevant publishers according to their listener base.
Next, check if the podcast has a website. Each episode gets published on the website, and this is where you will get a backlink from. Prioritize websites with high domain authority and dofollow links.
You should also click the More Episodes button to check for links in the show notes.
Once shortlisted, you can contact the podcast hosts using their email.
Send a well-written pitch by giving a quick introduction of what you can do for their listeners. Here is an example:
Follow up, and in case no replies are received via emails, message them over LinkedIn or other social media profiles.
Appearing on podcast shows can give you easy backlinks; however, it is hard to scale compared to traditional link building methods.
Help a Reporter Out, or HARO, is one of the guaranteed ways to acquire natural editorial links from trusted news domains.
HARO is a service where you can register as a subject-matter expert and start receiving daily media queries from reporters looking for sources for their content.
HARO links are useful for startups because they come from top-tier domains and are contextual, meaning they are placed in the body of the text, instead of the sidebar or footer. Also, the links are completely free and fully editorial.
However, you should keep in mind that HARO is time-intensive with low success rates. Backlinks aren’t guaranteed, and many placements may be nofollow or just brand mentions rather than dofollow SEO links.
To gain links from HARO, you can subscribe to your startup to subscribe to the service and set up a media alert using your custom keywords. Once done, you will receive 3 alerts daily, and you can select to answer up to 3 queries in a month from 1,000+ publications for free.
You acquire a high-authority link from a news publication if your answer is accepted. This way, each month you can attract quality links, even from reputed domains like Forbes, Yahoo Life, Business Insider, Daily Mail, and many others.
Remember that the answer acceptance rate on high-quality domains is just 5-8%. To increase your chances, you should keep these HARO link building best practices in mind:
In HARO link acquisition, it is easy to answer every query you receive, but avoid doing that. Check the quality of the domains where the content will be published.
Since you receive media queries almost daily, you need a service offering HARO links management to respond to the journalists' requirements. Link building services like those offered by Outreach Labs offer link management from HARO.
Digital PR is the practice of building a brand’s online reputation by earning media coverage, mentions, and links through valuable content, data, and expert insights.
The top characteristics of digital public relations are that it has a global reach, it uses a content-driven approach to link building, protects your brand from algorithmic penalties, and builds your business reputation in an AI-search-first world.
Digital PR is useful for startups because it builds brand awareness and credibility at a lower cost while delivering measurable results. High-quality digital PR can generate about 3x more leads than traditional marketing and costs around 60% less. Also, backlinks earned through PR can significantly improve search rankings and organic traffic.
Links you earn from digital PR are free. You don’t directly pay for the links, but only pay for story creation. You can expect to pay between $500-$1000 per month for digital public relations content creation and reporter outreach.
A digital PR service can help you run data-driven digital PR campaigns, where you control the narrative and directly pitch stories to journalists, influencers, podcast hosts, bloggers, and content marketers.
Your digital PR campaigns can get you backlinks and brand mentions on some of the world's largest publications. These backlinks are natural, of the highest-authority, and some of them also pass link equity to tremendously boost your domain authority and trust.
Startups can earn digital backlinks from authoritative media outlets by creating newsworthy content and pitching that content to reporters, media houses, influencers, and industry experts.
To create newsworthy content containing high-quality original assets, collect data, relate your business to breaking news (newsjacking), publish thought leadership, tell compelling human-interest stories, and introduce something new to make it timely, impactful, and relevant.
You should leverage personal opinions instead of objective facts. Avoid using sensationalized language and provide evidence. Here are some of the best tips to craft engaging digital PR content assets:
Wendy’s LinkedIn post is a solid example of modern digital PR because Wendy’s isn’t directly advertising a product or running a hard sales pitch. Instead, the brand is inserting itself into an existing public conversation (“chatter about burgers”), using humor and subtle competitor references to generate organic engagement, comments, reposts, and brand discussion.
The post also humanizes the company by featuring its U.S. President, Pete Suerken, which makes it feel more like a cultural/social moment than traditional marketing. It received around 236 comments and 133 reposts.
The newsjacking received positive publicity and acquired coverage from numerous media publications.
High-authority PR links and citations boost brand credibility and attract positive media coverage. However, it is difficult to get noticed in a crowded news cycle, and PR requires credible data and relevance, which is challenging to create.
Partnering with a digital PR agency helps because they can help you counter these challenges with effective storytelling using original data, along with reaching out to credible media publications since they already have existing relationships with reporters, bloggers, and industry influencers.
When your brand is mentioned on any website without a backlink, it is an unlinked mention.
If you have a mention without a backlink, it won’t pass any link equity. John Muller explains in this Google SEO video from March 25, 2022.
Converting your business mentions into clickable hyperlinks is known as unlinked mentions link building. That’s where you get the maximum SEO benefit.
For early-stage startups, unlinked mentions are one of the few scalable white-hat link building strategies that do not require huge content production budgets. It is mostly a free backlink acquisition strategy because the mention already exists. However, some publishers may ask for an editorial fee between $20-$500.
Unlinked mentions are editorially earned and contextually relevant, so they are of high value. They can appear in product roundups, founder mentions, interviews, or statistics pages.
To earn unliked mentions, you need to set up brand alerts. The easiest way is to set up brand alerts using a free service like Google Alerts. To create an alert, visit Google Alerts and type your brand name.
Now, click on Show options to set the frequency for your alert.
From the drop-down, you can choose once a day from how often, leave the sources automatic, select your preferred language, and region. Choose ‘only the best results’ and select your email alert, where Google will send the alert every day. Now, click on ‘Create Alert.’
You will start receiving alerts whenever your brand name is mentioned.
Instead of Google Alerts, you can also choose TalkWalker because you can select the type of alerts you want to receive.
You can select News and Blogs because these are the two most important places where you will want to gain backlinks from.
There is no need to chase every page for a backlink because they have mentioned your brand. Some pages don’t even receive traffic or are indexed by Google. Prioritize DR metrics and check the link attribute since dofollow links will pass link juice compared to nofollow ones.
I recommend evaluating pages that are DA and DR >29 and website traffic above 3000.
Both Google Alerts and Talkwalker Alerts are free to use.
If you have some budget, you can automate the process of shortlisting the best domains using Ahrefs Content Explorer or SEMrush Brand Monitoring Tool.
In Ahrefs Content Explorer, search for your brand or keyword, then select “in content” and enable the “highlight unlinked” option by entering your domain URL to find pages mentioning your brand without linking to it.
Apply your filters to narrow down the results to authoritative and relevant backlink opportunities.
Export only the pages with highlighted unlinked mentions to begin your link reclamation campaign.
In SEMrush, you can go to Brand Monitoring and choose “Brand” from the drop-down menu.
Now, create your query.
Select your sources. You should choose news and blogs because they have the best chances of converting into high-authority backlinks.
SEMrush also analyzes the sentiment of the mentions so that you can only approach website owners where the sentiment is positive.
Next, click “Mention details” > “Backlinks” > “Without backlinks.”
These are the websites that mention your brand without linking to it. Export the results to begin your campaign.
Once you have a list of domains ready, perform a manual evaluation and find out the email ids of the website admins using a tool like Email Hunter.
You can also approach them on LinkedIn.
Reach out quickly while the article is still fresh and personalize your emails instead of using templates.
Some of the places that convert really well are:
Unlinked brand mentions link acquisition has high conversion rates compared to cold outreach. They are also a white-hat and low-risk strategy. However, for startups without any online visibility, it is challenging to find domains with brand mentions.
There are certain types of content that people love linking to. These are known as linkable assets or link baits.
High-quality linkable assets can generate substantial backlinks and traffic. They also boost your brand’s reputation and continue to attract links over a long period of time.
Linkable assets can be text-based, interactive, or visual. Some popular examples of linkable assets are:
For example, the best AI tools linkable asset of Techradar has 8.9K backlinks from 777 referring domains.
To create a likable asset, produce content that is useful, interesting, data-driven, or genuinely valuable for your audience.
You can find topics to write about using SEMrush backlink analytics. Enter your competitor’s domain, and it will show the pages from the site attracting links from the maximum number of referring domains.
Alternatively, you can analyze the “Best by Links” pages of competitors in tools like Ahrefs to identify the content formats attracting the highest number of backlinks.
Look for content with high social shares using tools like BuzzSumo to identify topics with high total engagement and brand mentions. These are great topics for link bait content.
I also recommend monitoring journalist requests and industry conversations through platforms like HARO to spot emerging trends before they become saturated.
Once you finalize the topic, prepare people-first content. The best content assets solve genuine problems, provide unique data and insights, or become go-to reference resources within an industry.
Definitive guides should be comprehensive and regularly updated, while studies and research pieces should include original findings or fresh perspectives.
You should also ensure it follows the 4 elements of expertise, experience, authority, and trust (EEAT) as mentioned in Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines.
Showcase the author’s knowledge, understanding, firsthand research, credibility, reputation, honesty, integrity, and transparency within the content.
Once your content is live, get some backlinks to your newly created linkable asset.
Again, open the “Best by Links” report of Ahrefs and check the referring domains that were attracting backlinks to your competitor’s resource.
You can also use the “Broken Links” report in Ahrefs to find pages with dead outbound resources that your content can replace.
In Semrush Backlink Analytics, check the “Indexed Pages” report to discover competitor pages earning the most backlinks.
Once you find relevant articles ranking in the top 10 or pages with broken links, pitch your asset as a more updated, useful, or comprehensive resource.
Keep the outreach value-focused by explaining exactly how your content improves their article, and follow up through LinkedIn or X if email outreach gets ignored.
The links that you will earn after creating linkable assets are editorial and free. They will be a mix of dofollow and nofollow using natural anchors. Also, they will be coming from a variety of referring domains of varied authority, leading to a completely natural link profile.
Linkable assets are good, but people would avoid linking to them if they fail to solve a specific problem. Also, you should not assume that your linkable content will automatically attract backlinks. No matter how great your content is, you need a nice outreach plan to give the initial traction to begin the flow of backlinks to the page.
Although linkable content is great for SEO, it still has certain cons. For instance, you can’t essentially target your commercial pages since those are highly promotional. Also, developing high-quality linkworthy content is not always feasible for smaller startups due to the required time, effort, and resources.
In broken link building, you find dead pages (404 URLs) and suggest your own relevant content as a replacement. It is outreach-driven and works best with educational, resource-based, or evergreen content.
Startups can leverage broken link building during early growth stages because there is negligible link acquisition cost compared to other tactics, like digital PR.
The idea is simple: website owners do not want visitors landing on broken resources, so if you can offer a useful replacement, there is a good chance they will update the link. This strategy has existed for years, but most people execute it poorly because they focus on scale instead of relevance and usefulness.
One thing experienced link builders understand is that broken link building works best when your replacement content genuinely deserves the link. Simply recreating a thin version of the dead page rarely works anymore because most publishers receive hundreds of outreach emails monthly.
404 link building is a white-hat link acquisition strategy that is free. Links are editorial, relevant, and contextual. Older pages with broken links sometimes continue receiving backlinks and organic traffic for years. You can replace such links with your site URLs to get the full SEO value.
Startups can detect broken outbound links on relevant websites by using the Ahrefs Site Explorer -> “Broken Links” report for this task.
First, enter your competitor’s domain and find out the pages linking to your competitor's 404 pages.
Analyze the original dead page using Wayback Machine and create a significantly improved replacement linkable asset.
Not all pages have high-authority. Prioritize high DR websites, such as above 30 DR.
Reach out to the publisher, explaining the broken link issue, and suggesting your content as a replacement. Here is a sample email for reference:
Tip: Broken link outreach converts better when you help publishers fix multiple broken links on the page (if they exist) instead of only asking for your own replacement link.
Avoid pitching irrelevant replacement pages by recreating low-quality or outdated content. Also, don’t send mass outreach templates as they will get ignored easily.
Broken link building is a white-hat and low-risk strategy that generates topically relevant backlinks. However, it is time-intensive, and the success rate is less than 5%.
Link building outreach is asking niche websites to add hyperlinks to your website.
Inbound links through high-value outreach are great for startups because they help to improve domain authority and organic brand mentions.
Backlinks acquired through outreach are editorial, contextual, and relevant. They can be both free or paid.
The process depends heavily on building relationships with:
Imagine you run a pet grooming business, and when you search for pet grooming businesses in your area, you see two listicles ranking on Google for that query.
Those two listicles do not contain your business details. Wouldn’t it be nice if you are able to convince the website owners to mention your business and link to your website?
Hence, you can reach out to the site admins and request them to list your business by giving them honest reasons why you deserve to be on their list. It shouldn't be “give me a link” kind of an email, but rather be “we deserve a link..here are the reasons” kind of a message.
To find opportunities for link outreach, you can use the Ahrefs Content Explorer and search queries related to your product or service.
Find listicles, reviews, how-to guides, stats posts, and other similar kinds of content.
Apply filters: Website traffic around 5000, DR > 30, One page per domain, then export results.
You can also use Google to find listicles and resource pages for free, but DA and traffic filtering won’t be possible automatically.
Stay away from taking links from pages that resemble link farms, thin blogs, AI-generated spam sites, and private blog networks. These have minimal SEO value and can lead to manual penalties.
Once the websites are shortlisted, reach out to them with short, to-the-point emails giving reasons why they should link to your business.
Keep outreach emails short, value-first, and transparent.
Mention a specific relevant point from their article and explain why your resource/tool would be a useful addition for readers.
Avoid trigger words like dear sir, mutual benefit, admin, backlinks, link exchange, and SEO links. Instead, use terms like content collaboration or partnership.
Make your offer clear in the subject line and always run a 3-email sequence because 66% of replies come from follow-ups.
Outreach backlinks are of high-quality, but are also labor-intensive because they include:
Hence, you should be patient when running outreach link campaigns because the results might take around 3-6 weeks or more. However, the fruits you will reap will be sweet.
Influencers are people who already have an audience, and you can leverage their network to support your link building efforts. Startups can collaborate with niche creators, bloggers, or industry experts to earn backlinks through content-driven partnerships.
For example, you can attract high-value backlinks from product reviews, co-created pieces, YouTube video descriptions, and newsletter archives. It can be free when based on mutual value, like collaborating on content, and paid when working with established influencers who charge for placements.
Smaller creators and micro influencers charge between $50–$300 for each shoutout. Mid-tier influencers' pricing can reach around $300–$1,000+, and top-notch or macro influencers can go as high as $5,000+.
Influencer backlinks from blogs are editorial, niche-relevant, and naturally placed within content. They are beneficial for startups because they build trust, relevance, targeted traffic, authority, and brand visibility.
Links from influencer partnerships are highly relevant because you collaborate at the content level and can shape your narratives. Influencer vetted content also drives targeted referral traffic.
On the negative side, links from social media are mostly nofollow, and collaborating with influencers is challenging.
When doing influencer outreach, it is important to avoid the common mistakes, like:
To leverage influencer partnerships for SEO link building, find influencers in your niche. Their credibility helps direct customers into your “sales funnel” while improving your SEO visibility.
Heepsy lets you find niche influencers. You can search with your keyword, and the tool displays the top social media accounts based on that keyword.
You can also filter accounts with email, audience age, hashtags, mentions, average likes, and many other criteria.
You can also search with your keyword on Google to find influencers. Here are some queries to begin your search:
Prepare a list of influencers, their website (blog), social profiles, email, and follower count. Decide on the type of content format you can leverage to collaborate with the influencers.
For example, for the influencer with a high-traffic and high-authority blog, you can collaborate on a content piece or share an existing content piece published on your site with them. Blogs are powerful because they receive 97% more links than any other platform.
For influencers with a high follower reach, you can ask them to promote your link bait content. Influencers can promote your startup on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Even though many social links are no-follow links, they are absolutely worth it because they improve rankings, expose brands to new audiences, and increase traffic engagement. Social promotion also helps in indirect link building because it reaches more people, and the chances of natural link acquisition increase.
Before contacting influencers, you should decide what content piece you need to promote and ensure it is providing value. High-quality content improves the chances of earning backlinks naturally.
Backlinks from good-quality business directories and social media communities are useful for early-stage startups because they help to build online authority, visibility, and credibility.
Links from web directories help new domains index fast and create opportunities for exposure, networking, and brand recognition.
The top directories and communities you should submit your business profile to are:
The startup business web directory submission process is easy. Locate your directory, list your business, and submit your details with complete business information, accurate categories, company photos, and website URL.
For instance, the first place that you should submit your business to is Google Business Profile.
Once approved, your business will be listed in that particular category. Make sure to complete your listing and share all relevant details to avoid NAP (Business Name, Address, and Phone Number) discrepancies.
Here is another example of a backlink from a paid startup directory:
Startup founders can also use social media communities to network, learn, and grow.
Reddit (such as r/startups), LinkedIn groups, Facebook communities, X for build-in-public conversations, Discord servers, Slack groups, GrowthHackers, and Telegram channels are great for discussion and link sharing.
Most of the communities are free, some business directories are paid, with costs ranging between $49-$500 or more.
Backlinks from startup directories are not of a very high quality. However, they help to build relevance. Most of the backlinks you acquire from web directories nowadays are nofollow and hence don’t transfer link equity. But they are still useful for maintaining your business’s NAP and for higher rankings on Google Maps.
Link building for startups is the practice of acquiring natural, editorial, and high-authority inbound links from a variety of referring domains.
Earning Inbound links from reputable sources is important for search engine optimization because it builds a domain's credibility. Incoming links are ‘votes of confidence’ for your domain, and sites with natural link profiles rank high and attract qualified organic leads.
Early-stage startups need positive publicity for their newly-launched business. They also need higher search engine rankings for commercial searches related to their service. High-quality backlinks from guest posting, digital PR, HARO, influencer partnerships, and other sources earn reputation for your new company. With improved publicity and positive branding, you also earn citations and referral traffic to your startup website.
Remember, the quality of inbound links makes a real difference. Stay away from low-quality directory submissions, private blog networks, and comment spam. High-quality link building requires strategy and persistence.
Early-stage companies should always invest in high-growth, white-hat link building using different methods. Links should be natural, editorial, and mostly dofollow.
Startup founders should invest in organic link building and create high-quality, non-promotional content. The goal should be to earn links from relevant, authoritative websites. Being a new business owner, you should audit your site’s backlink profile regularly to remove bad links from link schemes and keep natural backlinks using diverse anchors.
Here are some of the best practices that startups should follow to build high-quality backlinks:
The top factors that determine link quality are relevance, domain reputation, organic traffic of the referring domain, placement of the link, anchor text quality, link attribute, editorial nature of the link, and the number of outbound links on the page.
Let’s understand these factors in detail:
Not all backlinks are good for SEO. The quality of incoming links outweighs the quantity. So, more is not always better. Startups should avoid backlinks that are a part of link schemes because they are created to manipulate organic SERP.
Some of the top link schemes that startups should avoid are:
For example, the links below are from a private blog network using exact-match anchors. There are two backlinks to the same domain in such proximity, which is unnatural and harmful for SEO.
Tactics like low-quality directory submissions, spammy guest posts, paid links disguised as editorial content, and sitewide footer or widget links are risky because they mimic unnatural link patterns to search engines.
Large-scale link acquisition from low-quality referring domains may offer short-term gains, but they lead to penalties, loss of rankings, or devaluation of links over time.
Instead, you should earn fewer but high-quality natural links from authoritative domains through link bait content, digital PR, relationship-driven outreach, and other superior link building tactics discussed in this article.
Here are the best link building agencies for modern-age startups:
Here are the top advantages of link building for startups:
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