We tried most Backlink building methods – this is what worked for us

Backlink Strategies: What Works and What Doesn’t

After experimenting with nearly every recommended backlink strategy out there, here’s what we found to actually work—and what doesn’t.

The BS Backlink Strategies That Don’t Work (or Aren't Scalable for Most People)

We tried buying backlinks, but:

Quality backlinks can cost hundreds of dollars.
For lower-revenue businesses, this approach is unsustainable.
We once hired someone for $500 just for outreach, plus $50–$100 per link, only to receive questionable links.

Conclusion: Not worth the cost, especially for questionable quality.

The idea of writing guest posts sounds great, but in practice:

Conclusion: Low return on time invested.

This strategy involves finding broken links on similar sites, then offering your page as a replacement. We tried, but:

Site owners generally didn’t care enough about their broken links to bother updating.
Most of our emails went ignored.

Conclusion: Ineffective outreach, with minimal responses.

This approach targets sites that mention your brand without linking to you and asks them to add a link. Our experience showed:

Conclusion: Low ROI due to lack of interest from sites.

Here’s what truly moved the needle for us.

We connect with industry peers through WhatsApp groups, conferences, and virtual meetings.
These connections lead to cross-promotions, like blog posts, backlinks, and newsletter swaps.

Conclusion: Building real relationships pays off, leading to easy and effective cross-promotional opportunities.

This approach yielded a high success rate:

We create listicles like “Top X Tools for [Relevant Task]” without any initial links.
After publishing, we reach out to companies in the list and offer a chance to secure a link in exchange for a backlink to our site.
This method yields about a 12% conversion rate: for every 10 companies we contact, we get one backlink exchange.

Conclusion: A scalable, high-ROI approach that doesn’t require constantly creating new content.

Apollo helps streamline link exchange outreach:

We compile a list of niche sites with similar Domain Rating (DR).
With Apollo, we can fetch contacts and set up an automated email sequence offering collaboration and link exchange.
Success rate: ~3% (3 backlinks for every 100 sites, at 50 emails/day).

Cost: $50/month subscription to Apollo, making each backlink relatively affordable.

Conclusion: Effective for generating steady backlinks in an automated and scalable way.

RankChase is a platform that matches you with quality websites in your niche for link exchanges:

You add your site and receive link exchange opportunities directly in your inbox.
Success rate: 50–60%—for every two matches, we typically secure one backlink.

Cost: Free to join, or $30/month for 5x more matches.

Conclusion: Scalable, cost-effective, and easy to use for securing quality backlinks consistently.

Despite concerns that Google dislikes link exchanges:

Industry partners commonly link to each other, making niche link exchanges natural.
We’ve never experienced penalties from exchanging relevant, contextual links with high-quality sites.
Our SEO consultant even suggested relevant link exchanges as a viable strategy.

Let me know if you'd like more details on any of these strategies!