Effective link building strategies contain many different steps. If you're new to the industry, putting all these pieces together can be challenging.

To simplify the process, we’ve created this link building checklist. It contains everything you need to build authoritative links at scale.

Link Building Checklist: 7 Key Steps

We’ve broken this checklist down into seven separate steps. Performing each one will help you run effective link building campaigns.

Step One: Link Building Strategy Assessment

The first part of any link building campaign is to develop a strategy that suits your business.

At LinkBuilder, we do this by creating a proposal for each client that we onboard.

Here are the three steps we use:

1) Identify Your Link Building Strengths

There are many ways to build links, so the first part of a link building campaign is choosing the ones that play to your strengths. These strategies will become a crucial part of your overall campaign.

Here are some common business characteristics that lend themselves well to certain types of link building:

• A strong network of business/website owners: Link exchanges, guest posts, or adding expert input to other people’s posts

• A high level of expertise in a particular area: Writing guest posts on authoritative websites or answering questions on HARO

• Content creation or web design skills: Creating content for linkable assets

• Strong sales skills: Running website outreach campaigns

• Operating multiple websites: Link exchanges across different websites

• Media contacts or PR expertise: PR link building campaigns

• An existing brand with a lot of exposure: Unlinked mentions

Find out more about our favorite ways to earn high-authority links in this article.

2) Find Your Most Linked-To Content

If your website is established, it may already have links. Finding out which pages have the most links is helpful for two reasons:

1. It highlights the type of content you should create to generate more links

2. It highlights content you could use for future linkable assets campaigns

Finding your most linked content is easy. Head to Google Search Console to see which pages have the most links. You can also see the domains that link to each page.

Or you can use an SEO tool like Ahrefs or SEMRush to see your most linked-to content and the specific pages that link to each piece.

Just search for your website in one of these tools and then choose the option to see the pages with the most backlinks.

Below is the most linked-to content on the popular SEO blog Backlinko. If we were to build links to this website, we would consider using some of these pages as the basis of our campaigns.

Another benefit of knowing your most linked-to pages is that you can add internal links from them to other content on your website. This spreads link authority across your site.

3) Perform Competitor Backlink Analysis

Discovering how your competitors generate links is a great way to see what strategies work for websites like yours.

You can see your competitors' links in your SEO tool.

In Ahrefs, click on your site and then hit “Competing Domains” in the sidebar. This highlights a list of websites that rank for similar terms to yours.

Below are websites that rank for similar terms to LinkBuilder.

Once you have this information, head to the backlinks report seeing which pages have the most links.

You can also look at the pages that link to the website. This can provide further insight into the strategies your competitors use.

Here are some of the types of links to look out for and the strategy the site may have used to generate the links:

• Links from guest posts: Outreach-based guest post strategy

• Links in expert roundups: HARO link building

• Links in “best of” lists: Reach out to these websites and ask to be featured in these lists

• Links with keyword match anchor text: Outreach, linkable asset, or paid link building campaigns

Step Three: Find Outreach Targets

Most link building tactics involve contacting other websites to ask them to link to your website.

The first step of any outreach campaign is discovering suitable targets. This means high-quality websites in niches that publish content related to your business.

Here are four ways to discover a high volume of outreach targets:

1) Identify Relevant Niches

First, make a list of niches that are relevant to your website.

Most websites can target three types of websites: those in your niche, those in the broader niche, and those in adjacent niches.

We’ve used the example of a running shoes website to show what each category could consist of.

1. Websites in your niche: Running shoe sites

2. Websites in the broader niche: Running, general exercise and fitness sites, athletic equipment sites

3. Websites in adjacent niches: Nutrition websites, websites that focus on other sports, travel websites, and lifestyle websites.

Once you have a list of relevant topics, you can move on to the next step.

2) Find Websites in These Niches

The next step is to find websites that publish content on each topic.

Just head to Google and search for relevant keywords. Or you can use an SEO tool to discover relevant sites.

The Ahrefs Content Explorer lets you search for content with your keyword in the article content or title.

This will bring up a list of sites that write about your chosen topic. The image below shows the results for the topic “Running.”

3) Find Similar Websites

Once you have a list of websites, you can expand on this by discovering other websites that rank for the same keywords as the sites on your list.

Open the Ahrefs overview for the site and view the “Competing Domains” report.

Add any relevant websites to your list of outreach targets.

4) Find Websites That Link to Your Competitors

Discovering websites that link to your competitors is helpful because these sites have a proven track record of linking to similar sites. Search for your competitor’s website in your SEO tool and check out the websites that link to them.

The best sites to add to your list are those recently linked to your competitor, so organize the report by recent links.

Step Four: Perform Website Quality Checks

You should only build links from high-quality websites. There are two reasons for this:

1. Links from high-quality websites are more effective. They’ll pass on more link juice and can direct traffic to your website.

2. Links from the wrong websites can harm your site. Links from spam sites like PBNs and link farms will either be ignored by search engines or lead to a rankings penalty.

There are several ways to tell a real website from a link farm. Here are the ones we use:

• Content Quality - Real sites have original, high-quality content. The content should read well and include the author’s insight. The site may also have original images or graphics.
• Website Design - The design should look professional and not templated. Some authoritative websites have basic designs, but these are few and far between.
• Business Signals - The website should signal that it is a real business. Look for “About” pages, contact information, links to social media accounts, and articles with named authors. Sites that lack this information are often link farms.
• SEO Metrics - The website should rank for relevant keywords and generate traffic from Google. We typically look for sites that get at least 1,000 visits a month. Avoid sites that rank for spam keywords. Also, check that the website’s DA meets your requirements. Be aware that spam websites can have a high DA, while real websites can have a low one.
• Suspicious Outbound Links - Always look out for suspicious outbound links, as this is a sure sign that a website is a link farm. Signs of suspicious links include keyword match anchor text and links in places that don’t make sense. If the link doesn’t provide value to the reader or support a point, it may have been placed there artificially.

Step Five: Run Outreach Checks

Effective link building outreach requires you to send targeted messages with your proposal.

Unfortunately, most website owners are inundated with requests for backlinks. This means you need to make yours stand out.

Here are the steps we use in outreach to ensure we get the best chance of receiving a reply:

1) Choose the Right Person

The best person to send your message to is usually in charge of content.

At small websites, this is likely to be the business or website owner. For larger sites, this could be the content or marketing manager.

Find the relevant person’s contact information on the website via LinkedIn or Twitter or an email finder program like Hunter.io.

2) Introduce Yourself

Introduce yourself and your brand when sending outreach emails.

If you ask for a guest post, add links to published content to show the prospect that you can produce quality content.

Ideally, this content should be published on authoritative blogs or websites. This is good social proof and shows outreach targets that other websites have accepted your proposal.

If you’re using a skyscraper link building strategy, introduce the content and why it is worth sharing.

3) Personalize Each Email

Successful outreach requires you to personalize each email you send. You can’t rely on mass outreach programs unless you segment your prospects into small groups.

We ensure each email mentions the recipient's name and website and includes a pitch relevant to their published content.

4) Include a Value Proposition

A good value proposition gives websites an extra incentive to link to you.

Some ways to do this include:

• Offer to share the article on your social sites or email newsletter

• Provide a prewritten guest post that targets a particular keyword

• Provide a link on your website