17 Untapped Backlink Sources (Updated)

by Tamil Int Sec Team 00:11 3 comments SEO

How’d you like to see my secret stash of untapped authority backlinks that I personally use to rank for competitive keywords?

Well consider yourself very lucky…

…because today I’m going to pull back the curtain and share some of my absolute BEST sources with you.

Warning: you are NOT going to find anything about article directories (blah) or blog comments (yawn) here.

I’m bringing the noise.

Bonus: Download a free checklist that will show you how to quickly leverage these strategies. Includes 2 bonus strategies not found in this post.

1. Submit to Audio Sharing Sites

SEOs never use audio sharing sites…which is CRAZY because they’re ridiculously easy to get backlinks from.

And make no mistake: these audio sharing sites authoritative sites that can make a serious dent.

All you need to do is create a piece of audio (preferably music) and upload it to an authoritative audio sharing site.

Here’s an example (live dofollow link):

Even if you have as much music talent as MC Hammer you can still take advantage of this technique.

Just hit ‘record’ on your laptop mic and beat-box like you do in your car. These files aren’t usually screened by people so you don’t have to worry about winning a Grammy.

Just record something, upload it, and grab your authority links.

Needless to say, you don’t want to spam these sites. Create a legit non-spammy profile or else it will get deleted pretty quickly.

2. Find Golden Link Opportunities From “Best Of” Blog Posts

You probably already know that the days of spammy link building are long gone.

And to succeed with SEO today, you need use mail outreach to build quality backlinks.

Question is:

HOW?

Well step #1 is to find people to reach out to.

And the best way to do that?

“Best of” blog posts.

Best of blog posts are simply lists of the best blogs in a given niche. Here’s an example:

See how huge this is?

Someone is handing you a list of quality blogs on a silver platter…

…blogs you can potentially get links from.

Here’s the exact step-by-step process to follow:

1. Use these search strings to find “best of” blog posts in your niche:

“best TOPIC blogs 2015″

“my favorite TOPIC blogs”

“TOPIC blogs to read”

“My favorite TOPIC blogs”

2. Next, add any quality blogs on the list to a Google Doc.

3. Finally, reach out and get your links.

How do you get links from the people you just found?

• Blogger reviews (#3 on this list)
• The Moving Man Method (#10 from this list)
• Infographics (#15 from this list)
• Broken link building (#14 from this list)

3. Blogger Reviews

If you have a a software product, information product, consulting service or ANYTHING of value that you sell, you can easily turn that into handfuls of high-quality backlinks.

How?

By offering it to bloggers for free.

Here’s how:

1. Find bloggers in your niche that might be interested in what you have to offer. If you sell an information product that teaches people how to make their own soaps, you’d Google things like “soap making”, “make soap at home” etc.

2. Your results will be a mixed bag of mommy bloggers, hippie bloggers, and sites like ehow.

Filter out any major authority sites or news sites. You’ll be left with a solid list bloggers that might be interested in your offer, like this one:

3. Reach out to them with this email script:

Hey (site owner name),

I was searching for some homepage soap recipes today when I came across (site name).

Awesome stuff!

Actually, I just launched a guide that teaches people how to make luxury soaps at home. I usually charge $X, but I’d be more than happy to send it over to you on the house. All I’d ask is that you’d consider mentioning it on your blog or writing a review.

Let me know how that sounds.

Cheers,

Your name

You want to be VERY careful about the language you use for this strategy.

Note how I don’t ask for a link or review…which would violate Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

I just send them the product and let them decide if it’s worth a mention on their blog.

4. Give Testimonials

Companies big and small LOVE to show off their customer testimonials. If you’re using a product or service that you love (or at least like), consider sending them a testimonial.

When you do, make sure to tell them that they can put

it on their homepage or a testimonial page. To show that you’re a real person they’ll often put a link to your site for you…without you even having to ask.

Make no mistake, you can get some baller backlinks from testimonials (here’s one on a PR6 page):

When I see an authority site with testimonial links I sometimes buy their productjust to give a testimonial and get a link.

5. Link Reclamation

Link reclamation is simple:

First, you find mentions of your company and products that don’t link back to you.

Here’s an example:

Then you email the person with a friendly reminder to add your link.

Very simple…but very, very powerful.

See how the author of that article mentioned backlinko.com….but didn’t link to it?

That’s where link reclamation comes into play.

Instead of saying “oh shucks, I wish they linked to me”, you proactively reach out and ask them to link.

You see, when people mention you in an article, they (usually) like you.

(That’s true even if they didn’t add a backlink to your site)

A simple friendly reminder email is usually enough for them to log into WordPress and add your link.

Here’s the step-by-step process:

1. Find Unlinked Mentions

Use a tool like BuzzSumo and Mention.net to find mentions of your brand.

When you do, you’ll get a heads up whenever someone writes about you online:2. See whether or not the person that mentioned you linked back to your site.

If they linked to your site, you’re set.

If not, move onto step #3…

3. Reach out and get your link

Finally, send them this script:

Hey NAME,

I just wanted to reach out and say “thanks” for mentioning YOUR BRAND in your excellent article yesterday.

We really, really appreciate it.

I’m reaching out today to ask if you could add a link back to our site. That way, people can easily find us while reading your article.

Either way, thanks for the shout out and keep up the great work!

Thanks,

YOUR NAME

I can tell you from experience that these are some of the easiest — and most powerful — links you’ll ever get.

6. Directory Domination

I chuckle every time people claim that directories are dead.

In May 2012 Google deindexed a few hundred free directories. If directory links didn’t work then why would they deindex them?

Hint: they wouldn’t.

This matches my personal experience: links from the right directories can still do wonders for your site.

And because web directories are seen as “old-fashioned” in the SEO world, you can usually get from aged domains for next to nothing.

Here are some directories to consider submitting to:

Free:

R-TT Directory

So Much

Directory World

All The Websites

Paid:

Family Friendly Sites

Business.com Directory

7. HARO

HARO (short for Help a Reporter Out) is one of best ways to get killer backlinks from authority news sites.

Here’s how HARO works:

1. Sign Up To HARO as a source here.

2. You’ll get three emails per day from reporters looking for sources, like this one:

3. Respond with your credentials and some helpful tips.

Easy right? You give a reporter a tailored response and they’ll hook you up with a link.

Don’t sleep on HARO.

Backlinko reader Sameep Shah got a link to his web design business from Inc.com (DA92) using HARO:

8. .Edu Resource Backlinks

Everyone knows that .edu links are the bomb.

But aren’t legit .edu links impossible for Average Joe SEO?

Fortunately not.

If you have an awesome piece of content on your site, you can usually get a 1-2 .edu links just by asking around.

Here’s how…

Most universities have resource pages where they link to websites that are helpful to students and faculty. Here’s an example:

Let’s say you had a website web design. You could get a link from the example above by emailing them and showing them your helpful nutrition-related resource.

Use these search strings to find them:

site:.edu “your keyword”

site:.edu “your keyword” + “resources”

site:.edu: “your keyword” + inurl:links

site:.edu: “your keyword” + “other sites”

Only 5-10% of them will actually post your link. But keep in mind that a handful of these links can make a HUGE difference in the SERPs.

9. Submit Your Site to Website Feedback Sites

There are a TON of sites that are designed to help you get feedback on your site’s layout or conversion potential.

And almost all of them allow a dofollow link back to your site.

Here’s an example from a site called ConceptFeedback.com:

As you can see, there’s a nice dofollow link on the page.

All you need to do is submit your site with a little description of how you want to improve it.

Here are some Website Feedback Sites that you can use:

ConceptFeedback.com

SuggestionBox.com

Criticue.com

10. The Moving Man Method

Here’s a strategy that’s absolutely perfect for ecommerce sites (but it also works well for blogs).

In fact, I used the Moving Man Method to score Grade-A contextual links from a handful of authoritative domains (including DA87 .edu site):

Pretty sweet, right?

Here’s the step-by-step process.

1. First, find sites that have moved or gone out of business.

The easiest way to do this is to keep your ear to the ground. When you hear that a company has gone under, it’s time to swoop in.

For example, in my case, I read that an SEO agency called BlueGlass suddenly went out of business. That’s when I realized that there were probably hundreds of sites linking to a site that no longer existed.

If you want to be more proactive, you can use search strings like:

“keyword” + “out of business”

“keyword” + rebrand”

“keyword” + “has moved”

2. Next, find the sites and pages linking to the old business or site.

This is super-simple if you use a program like Ahrefs, Open Site Explorer or Majestic SEO.

Just take the URL of the old site and pop it into your tool of choice:

And — bingo! — you’ll have a list of pages linking to a site that moved or isn’t there anymore.

3. Finally, reach out and let the site owners know about their outdated link…

…and pitch a link to your site as a replacement.

Here’s a script that works well for me:

Hey NAME,

I was looking for information on TOPIC today when I stumbled onto your site.

I couldn’t help but notice that you were linking to OLD SITE. As you may have heard, they went out of business a few months back.

Actually, I have a guide on my site that’s really similar: URL.

Might make a nice replacement for the OLD SITE link.

Thanks,

YOUR NAME

11. Submit Your Site to Blog Aggregators

Blog aggregators are sites that list quality blogs in different industries. Here’s an example:

You can get a dofollow link on most blog aggregators for free in three easy steps:

• Submit your site
• Add a special HTML code to your site to confirm that you’re the owner
• Wait for someone from the aggregator to stop by and take a look at your site

When they approve it you’ll have your own page on the aggregator with a dofollow link to your site. Easy peasy.

In addition to Technorati (a must) here are some other blog aggregators to submit to:

Alltop.com (PR7)

Blogarama.com (PR2)

12. Find Guest Posting Gigs on Twitter

If there really is a hell, I’m convinced that Satan makes tortured souls guest post for all of eternity.

It can take hours just to find a handful of sites that don’t have a strict laundry list of guest blogger guidelines.

But there’s an easier way. You can tap into the underutilized power of Twitter search to find sites that are posting guest posts on the reg.

Here’s an example:

You KNOW that the sites that have tweeted their guest posts in the last week must be posting on a regular basis (no annoying dead ends!).

Here are some search strings to use in Twitter search:

“your niche” + guest post

“your niche” + guest author

“your niche” + write for us

“your niche” + guest article

13. Scoop It

Scoop It is one of my absolute favorite places to build buzz and (nofollow) backlinks with a few minutes of work.

Scoop It is a site where people aggregate their favorite content around the web into a magazine format.

Here’s an example of a Scoop it page:

Lots of people’s personal Scoop It pages have hundreds of followers. Which means that your content will get in front of hundreds of people. More eyeballs=more links.

To get people to post your stuff all you need to do is use Scoop It’s built in suggestion feature.

Just search for a high PR Scoop It page and hit “suggest”. You’ll see something like this:

Just send the person a quick message and let them know about your content.

In my experience about 50% accept within a day –meaning dozens of authority backlinks in about 15 minutes of “work”.

14. Broken Link Building

This strategy is similar to the Moving Man Method I outlined above.

The difference is that with broken link building, you’re only looking for pages that are 404ing.

Moved businesses and companies that changed names won’t show up with this approach.

That being said, it’s definitely worth the time and effort because of the killer inbound links you can get from this strategy.

What we’re doing is finding resource pages in our niche. So if we were in the fitness niche you’d search in Google using these search strings:

“fitness”  + “resource page”

“fitness” + “resources”

“fitness” + “recommended sites”

“fitness” + “links”

And find pages like this:

Now you COULD email them and just ask for a link. But I’ve found that the begging approach doesn’t work very well.

Instead, give the site owner a hand by letting him know about any broken links that you happen to find.

You can easily find the broken links on any page. Just use the nifty Chrome Extension Check My Links.

This program quickly finds any broken links the page happens to have. It also highlights them in red to make them easy to find:

Hi (site owner name),

I was just browsing around your resources page today, and among the lists of great resources, were some broken links.

Here’s a few of them:

URL1

URL2

URL3

Oh, and I have a website, mysite.com, that also regularly posts quality content related to whatever. If you think so too, feel free to post a link to it on your resources page.

Either way I hope this helps and keep up the good work!

Thanks,

(Your Name)

15. Infographics

Almost everyone in SEO knows about infographics, but I’m absolutelyflabbergasted at how few take advantage of this incredibly easy link building strategy.

That’s because many people assume that infographics are expensive and hard to make.

And they assume the infographic has to go viral for this technique to work.

Fortunately for us, both of these assumptions are DEAD WRONG.

Heck, you can get a halfway decent infographic made from someone on Odesk or Elance for less than $250. In my experience, the IDEA is 10x more important than the design itself.

Be creative, make something unique, and then hire a cheap designer to make it for you (you can also do it yourself using tools like Piktochart).

Once you have it ready, it’s time to get the word out.

1. Your first step is to submit it to infographic sharing sites, like these:

Visual.ly (PR7)

DailyInfoGraphic.com (PR5)

AmazingInfoGraphics.com (PR4)

OmgInfoGraphics.com (PR3)

2. Then reach out to bloggers in your niche and offer them the infographic as a guest post. To sweeten the deal, tell them that you’ll write a unique description for their site.

I’ve literally gotten 100+ high PR backlinks from related sites from a single quality infographic and this 1-2 punch.

16. The Skyscraper Technique

It’s no secret that amazing content makes link building 10x easier.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to know what TYPES of great content actually get results.

Enter: The Skyscraper Technique.

It’s a strategy I’ve used to literally double my search engine traffic in 2-weeks:

Here’s how it works:

1. Identify content in your industry that’s performed well in terms of generating backlinks, social shares and blog comments.

2. Make something that blows the piece of content you found out of the water.

3. Reach out to the people that linked to the now-inferior piece of content.

You can read a step-by-step case study of the process in action here:http://backlinko.com/white-hat-seo

17. Google+ Profile

Did you know that your Google+ profile allows contextual, dofollow links?

(Note, you have to be signed out of Google+ to see the link as dofollow. Weird but true).

Here’s an example:

With enough interaction within Google+ and direct linking to your profile, you can make that a pretty powerful link.

For example, Mark Cuban’s Google Plus Profile page is PR4!

Now It’s Your Turn

Now it’s time to actually put these powerful strategies into practice.

To make the process easy for you, I made a checklist that outlines the EXACT steps you need to take for each technique in this post.