When Google’s first algorithm was released, backlinks were the most important factor in determining a website’s ranking. Over the past 26 years, the landscape has changed. In 2021, Google ran over 700,000 experiments that resulted in more than 4,000 improvements to the search engine.

Despite the changes, backlinks are still among the most important ranking factors. When it comes to SEO, they are the currency of the web. They can have a huge impact on your website’s search engine rankings. Now there are different types of backlinks, each with advantages and disadvantages.

When creating a link-building campaign, it’s important to understand which backlink type will be most effective for your site. For that, I have put together a list of some of it’s popular types for you to understand.

16 Types of Backlinks

With SEO becoming even more competitive, it’s essential to understand it’s types. Because they are an integral part of establishing your website’s visibility.

Each category of inbound link has its distinct advantage, ranging from generating potential referral traffic to reinforcing online credibility. Below, I have compiled the most crucial varieties of inbound links that can enhance the performance of your website.

Editorial Backlinks

Editorial links are links on high-quality websites in a natural, editorial context. These links are typically earned by creating high-quality content that is useful and relevant to the website’s audience.

These links differ from other types. They are not acquired or exchanged but rather earned through the value and quality of the content. The primary advantage of this is that it can enhance a website’s search engine rankings.

This is because search engines, like Google, attach significant importance to natural links when evaluating the relevance and authority of a website. A website can enhance its visibility and organic search engine traffic by securing a substantial number of high-quality organic links.

To earn this type of link, you must first create high-quality content that is relevant and useful to the target audience. This content can take many forms, such as blog posts, articles, videos, or infographics.

Guest Posting Backlinks

Guest blogging, also known as guest posting. It is the process of contributing content to another person’s blog to build relationships, exposure, authority, and organic links. Guest bloggers typically write a post for a host blog in their area of expertise, and in return, they receive a byline and a link to their website.

It is a powerful way to get hyperlinks to your site. Because it allows bloggers to tap into the host blog’s existing audience and reach a new audience. It can increase referral traffic, engagement, and conversions for the guest blogger’s website.

In addition to this link-building strategy, guest blogging can also help to build relationships and establish bloggers as an authority in their field. By contributing to a host blog, guest bloggers can connect with other bloggers and readers in their industry, leading to collaborations, partnerships, and other opportunities.

Business Profile Backlinks

Creating a profile with popular local business directories and review sites is a great way to get hyperlinks of your website. Especially if you want to promote a local business. Business profile backlinks are links from creating profiles on sites such as Yelp, Yellow Pages, Angie’s List, and more.

These websites often have high domain authority which can help boost your website’s visibility in search engine rankings. They also provide an opportunity to showcase your business, products, and services, making them attractive to potential customers. It’s one of the best off page SEO strategy.

Creating profiles on these sites can also help to increase brand awareness and local visibility as they are often used by people searching for businesses in their area. It makes them a great way to reach local customers who may not be familiar with your business.

In addition to these strategies, creating profiles on these sites can help you manage your online reputation by allowing you to respond to customer reviews and feedback. It can be an important way of improving customer engagement and satisfaction and helping you stay on top of any negative feedback about your business.

Related: Why You Should Invest in SEO?

Free-Tool Backlinks

When I started my journey, I could not afford paid tools because I had a limited budget. I checked out the free tools available online and used them to create backlinks. It’s the best way to earn inbound links without spending a single penny.

Let’s say people are looking for a free keyword tool that gives accurate data and helps develop strategies. If you have a tool that meets the criteria and is free to use, you can get backlinks from those who use it.

The more useful your free tool is, the more users will be able to benefit from it and share it with their friends or colleagues. This way you can increase your reach and get more success in this linkbuilding strategy.

Get Backlinks from Webinars

Whenever I watch Neil Patel or Brian Dean webinars, they always leave a CTA to check out their website or blog. It’s a great way to get more inbound links as webinars can influence people and persuade them to check out your content.

Webinars can be conducted to discuss a specific topic, product launch, industry-related trends, etc. If you can make an impact with your presentation and make the audience learn something new, they will be more eager to go through your content.

Apart from this, you can also collaborate with other webinar hosts and create a guest post on their website in return for being featured as a speaker in their upcoming webinar. This way you can get both inbound links and exposure which will help you significantly in the long run.

Acknowledgment Backlinks

Most people cannot build this type of backlinks because it’s all about recognition and being grateful for other’s work.

These are created when you recognize someone else’s blog post or article and link to it in your content as a reference point. It is a great way to get a backlink and show gratitude towards the other person’s work.

It also encourages people to link to your content if they find it useful and relevant, thus helping you increase your reach even further. And the best part is you don’t need to do anything special to get these backlinks, just acknowledge someone else’s work and link back to it. It is a win-win situation for both parties and can help you in the long run if done properly.

Social Media Links

When you share content on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest etc., it can often result in people organically creating hyperlinks to your content by sharing it with their followers or friends.

Search engines often see this type of linking as very valuable because it shows that people are actively engaging with your content and sharing it with others.

And social media sites are not just good for organic implenmetation of this technique. You can also use them to strategically create backlinks from relevant and authoritative sources by engaging with other influencers in your industry, joining group discussions, and sharing content regularly.

Forum Links

Participating in relevant forums can be a great way to generate organic links from people who find value in your contribution to the discussion topic. By providing helpful advice or information on topics related to your business or industry, you will naturally create links from people who appreciate what you have shared with them.

I would say it’s the most effective approach to establish link connections after guest posting. If you know how to engage in forums, you can acquire numerous inbound links from various forum discussions. Moreover, individuals also tend to hyperlink to your website or blog when they discover the value in your shared content.

Press Release Backlinks

Nothing can beat press release links when building trust in the search engine. A press release is an effective way to spread the news about your brand or product launch. These are a great way to help build SEO for your business.

With press releases being published on multiple news sites, implementing this strategy with these shares helps to increase the visibility of your website so that potential customers can find it and learn more about your services or products.

When crafting a PR, include relevant keywords to bring traffic to your website and a relevant backlink that directly links clients to your landing page. Through these, you can grab the attention of the audience you’re looking for and maximize the effectiveness of your SEO campaigns while still delivering valuable content.

PBN’s

Private Blog Networks, or PBNs, have become an increasingly common tactic used by SEO professionals to improve rankings and organic visibility of websites. A PBN consists of a group of authoritative domains used to link back to your website.

By taking advantage of these external domains’ power, your site can become more competitive and increase its visibility across search engines. A successful PBN can boost overall website performance regarding organic ranking within a specific set of targeted keywords when done correctly.

Although the short-term gains achieved through a well-orchestrated PBN are undeniable, the effects diminish over time when proper management and upkeep aren’t prioritized. If you’re looking for long-term results from high domain authority sites, don’t use PBNs because it’s unde black hat SEO.

Blog Commenting

Blog comments are one of the oldest and most common backlink methods, yet I don’t recommend them. Many people think blog commenting is an easy to gain visibility or make a name for themselves in their respective niche. The reality is that blog comment link-building can become a time consuming activity with no results.

It’s also worth mentioning that blog comments aren’t as effective on search engine ranking as they were years ago due to Google’s algorithm update. Unless you’re confident that you can post interesting, thoughtful and valuable comments into more targeted blogs that have added value for their readers, I’d suggest saving your time and spending it on other SEO strategies instead.

Reciprocal Links (Link Exchanges)

Many bloggers are using reciprocal links as a marketing strategy to increase their presence in the digital world. This technique can be extremely beneficial for most new bloggers since it does not require them to invest any money. It simultaneously allows for better search engine visibility and greater traffic on websites and blogs.

Reciprocal links also help build relationships within the blogging community, which helps gain recognition among peers in the industry. All these gains make reciprocal links one of the most preferred techniques used by novice bloggers because of their ease of setting up and maintaining.

Even I used this technique in 2020 when I was just starting out as a blogger. It’s an excellent way to kickstart your blog and build good relationships with other bloggers within the same niche.

Backlinks from Visual Content (Infographics, Slideshows, Video)

When creating content that will engage your audience and drive organic search traffic, one of the most effective methods that many people don’t often know about is backlinking from visual content.

Like infographics, slideshows and videos. As one of the growing trends in digital marketing, using visuals can help to keep users interested and engaged with your content for longer.

By incorporating this into link building strategies and including one or more visual elements to anchor a landing page or website, you can effectively increase brand awareness and reach a larger user base.

All while driving advantageous inbound links from high quality sites that would otherwise be unavailable. It is the key to making your online presence count in today’s digital landscape.

Related: Copywriting vs Content Writing

Types of Backlinks to Avoid

While many legitimate, useful sources of backlinks can improve your website’s search engine optimization, there are still other types of it that you should avoid using because they could harm your website and reputation.

Irrelevant BackLinks

While sometimes it’s ok to create backlinks on high authority websites that are irrelevant to the content you’re trying to promote, it is important to understand and consider the risks.

Building irrelevant hyperlinks can sometimes waste time and resources because they do not add value to your visitors or search engine rankings. Additionally, link farms and other irrelevant linking tactics can sometimes result in a website being penalized or even banned from appearing in search results.

To make sure your hyperlinks have the best chance of driving traffic and helping you reach the top of search engine results pages, make sure they are relevant and targeted.

Spammy Backlinks

If you don’t want to get penalized by Google and have your website’s rankings suffer, then make sure you steer clear of spammy inbound links. These links have been taken from dubious and unsavory sources or are known for being low-quality.

Not only do these links hurt your website’s reputation if someone stumbles upon them, but if Google catches up with you, it will easily devalue them and slap a penalty on your site. Therefore, if you want to stay safe when dealing with this link-building strategy and major search engines like Google, it would be wise to avoid spammy ones altogether.

Paid Backlinks

If you are new to SEO, paid hyperlinks may seem a great way to quickly improve your search rankings. However, these are against Google’s search engine guidelines.

They can be a huge mistake for your website if you don’t know how to maintain them. Google has taken many steps towards stamping out the use of this technique. Any violation can result in a heavy penalty, so it is always best to be on the safe side and try natural methods of building links before anything else.

That’s It Now Fellas

Creating backlinks seems easy but believe me, it’s one of the most challenging tasks regarding SEO. When it comes to this linkbuilding strategy, all you need to remember is quality over quantity.

Don’t forget the it’s types that you should avoid at all costs. Keep in mind that many things can go wrong with link building. So make sure you measure and monitor your results closely. If something doesn’t seem right, it’s best to take a step back and evaluate your efforts.

Oh in case you need help with your digital marketing efforts, do not forget to check out our inbound marketing package specially designed for small businesses.