White Hat Link Building: 5 Effective Strategies to Follow in 2024

Link building is a game in some way, that we should play fairly. This game aims to increase your website’s SEO rankings and improve online visibility. To reach that goal, you should follow ethical tactics and prioritize white hat link building.

But you may wonder if you need backlinks to rank higher on search results. In fact, a recent Semrush study proves that 92.3% of the 100 top-ranking domains had at least one backlink.

Some backlinks are more valuable for your SEO than others. Some don’t have any effect at all.

So keep reading our post to find out white hat link building techniques that will boost your website presence.

But first, let’s find out what white hat link building is.

What is White Hat Link Building?

White hat link building is an important SEO strategy that includes building backlinks only with ethical techniques approved by Google. It includes creating valuable content, doing link building outreach, and suggesting a mutually beneficial link exchange collaboration to other websites.

White hat link building techniques are completely safe and acceptable by Google and other search engines. One common method is organic link building, when other websites consider your content link-worthy and link to it.

Another successful tactic is investing in doing outreach for link building and suggesting other websites to your content that can deliver value to their audience. Or you can interest other websites with your guest collaboration.

What Makes a Link White Hat?

What are the characteristics of a great backlink, and what makes it white hat? Now, let’s find the answer to that question.

White hat links are:

• Relevant: Backlinks you get should come from a website that is relevant to your content or your industry.
• Authoritative: Having backlinks from reputable and credible websites is a highly effective method to improve your backlink profile.
• Contextual:  White hat backlinks should naturally fit the content they are placed in.
• Organic: Website owners should add your link to their content, considering it valuable for their audience, not because they were paid for.
• Valuable: Those white hat links should direct readers to the place, where they can find useful and valuable information.

Now that we know what white hat links are, let’s finally answer the question of why you should invest in white hat link building.

The Benefits of White Hat Link Building For SEO

White hat link building can take time and effort. So you may wonder whether you should really invest in it. 

Here are the pros of this tested strategy:

•  Increased SEO rankings

Organically getting backlinks from reputable websites will definitely skyrocket your website performance. Partnering with a company that provides top-notch white hat link building service will ensure your website’s ranking will grow organically and steadily. Effective link building for SEO not only boosts your site’s authority but also enhances its visibility in search engine results.

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• Improved organic traffic 

You will see your website’s organic traffic growth thanks to getting backlinks through white hat link building strategies. The more traffic you get, the more you get a chance to convert website visitors into potential customers and boost your revenue. 

• Boosted business reputation

If you don’t engage in manipulative or spammy black hat link building tactics such as engaging in PBNs or buying links, not only will Google appreciate it, but users and other businesses should consider you as a reputable brand.

Long story short, even if white hat link building takes longer to show actual results than black hat link building, it will definitely ensure steady website performance growth.

White Hat Link Building: 6 Powerful Strategies to Use

Backlinks can really take your website performance to the next level. In fact, a study done by Ahrefs proves that the number of websites linking to a page has a positive impact on ranking position. 

In other words, you need to invest in link building, but only white hat link building techniques.

Invest in Guest Posting

One of the common white link building methods you should follow is guest posting. The process starts with reaching out to other websites and suggesting a guest posting collaboration.

First and foremost, it is a great opportunity to get backlinks. The most important part here is to find relevant and authoritative websites. 

Guest posting can be a win-win for you and other websites. You can get valuable backlinks, and improve your brand recognition. On the other hand, you will  enrich the host website’s blog with fresh and helpful content.

Another factor that makes guest posting a great tactic is that you can be in control of what pages you want to get backlinks for. So you have a chance to boost the visibility of your most important pages.But the question is how to find the right websites for guest posting. Leveraging Ahrefs for link building can be extremely helpful in this stage. Here are the steps you can take:

Step 1: Go to Ahrefs Content Explorer.

Step 2: Enter a broad keyword or phrase related to your industry.

Step 3: Select In title from the drop-down menu and run the search.

Step 4:  Use filters and choose Domain Rating (DR) from 50 to 60 (this is just an example from us). 

Step 5: Then cհօօse One page per domain filter․

Step 6: Lastly, click on the Websites tab and these are the potential websites you could guest post for.

Your next step should be developing guest post ideas, doing outreach for guest posting, and connecting with websites you have found. This may lead to a successful guest post collaboration.

Let’s imagine a case when you’re looking for new partnerships. Then you can suggest potential partners’ guest posting collaboration if they aren’t open for link exchanges.

Here is an email template example from SayNine. Our team suggests guest posting collaboration instead of link exchanges. The message also includes examples of other guest posting collaborations in encouragement to create the next successful partnership.

Create Linkable Assets

Building linkable assets is one of the most effective and popular white hat link building techniques. But what are linkable assets exactly?

These are any type of compelling and helpful content that organically attracts links from other websites. Having powerful content on your website can improve your SEO rankings. Most importantly, you will gain a lot of organic traffic․

So, how can you create content assets?

Start by carefully understanding your target audience, their interests, and needs. In this stage, you should do keyword research to help you define your audience’s pain points.

In the next step analyze competitors’ content strategies to see what kind of content attracts the most. Let’s see how Ahrefs can help you with this analysis too.

Step 1: Enter your Ahrefs account, and in Site Explorer, select the Content Gap option under the Organic Search section.

Step 2: Add your competitors’ domains

Step 3: Click Show Keywords to see the list of keywords that your competitors rank for but your site does not.

Step 4: Filter keywords to narrow down the list based on keyword difficulty, search volume, etc.

After having all relevant keywords with good metrics you should start filling the content gap by creating great linkable assets.

It can be original case studies, listicles, or ultimate guides that truly give readers value. Those content assets should be:

• Well-researched 
• Full of deep insights
• With fresh perspective 
• Unique and engaging

By creating compelling and engaging content that matches those criteria, you will have linkable assets that organically bring traffic to your website. 

Make sure to  promote your content assets via email, social media, and other channels to increase their visibility and reach even more.

Find and Fix Broken Links

You need a strong and healthy backlink profile, right? 

So, you should try to avoid broken links. These are dead links and when users click on them they see 401 error pages. This happens when website owners delete them.

You can trust Ahrefs in this case as well.

Step 1: Enter your domain name into the Site Explorer search bar.

Step 2: Click on the Backlinks tab on the left-hand sidebar to view all backlinks pointing to your site.

Step 3: Click on the Broken backlinks tab and get a list of all the broken backlinks.

After collecting this data, start analyzing it and decide whether it’s a good idea to replace those broken links with live ones. If the answer is positive, you should reach out to the websites linking to the dead pages and suggest changing dead links to live ones.

If these backlinks are from spammy websites engaged in black hat SEO techniques, consider disavowing them. 

These steps will ensure your backlink profile remains strong and healthy 

Keep an Eye on Competitor Strategies

Keeping an eye on what your competitors are doing can help you find new link building opportunities. First of all, you will find out newe effective backlink techniques. Plus, you will discover what type of content performs best and will refine your content strategies.   

Ahrefs can be an irreplaceable tool for doing competitor analysis as well. 

Step 1: Enter your Ahrefs account and click on the Link Intersect feature.

Step 2: Type your competitors’ domains in the Show me who is linking to these domains or URLs section

Step 3: Add your domain in the But doesn’t link to the section.

Step 4: Click Show link opportunities to find the backlink gap.

After finding the backlink gap, you should try to fill it. Start checking whether those websites that link your competitors are relevant and authoritative.

Then build  a strong outreach strategy for getting backlinks from sites that meet those criteria. To make your email outreach efforts effective, avoid being in an email spam folder by regularly cleaning your email list and implementing authentication protocols. All these efforts will help you refine your link building strategies. 

Find Unlinked Brand Mentions

The more popular your brand is, the more brand mentions you may have, but some of them can be unlinked. 

This happens when another website refers to your brand and mentions your brand name without linking. This presents a great opportunity to get backlinks because those websites are already familiar with your content or your product.

But first, you need to find those unlinked brand mentions, and again, Ahrefs can be your go-to tool in completing this task.  

Step 1: Login to Ahrefs and navigate to Content Explorer.

Step 2: Add your brand name into the search bar and leave the drop down as Everywhere.

Step 3:  Select the Highlight unlinked domains and add your website URL into the box.

Step 4: Filter websites that have high domain ratings.

After collecting this data you should reach out to these websites but only after carefully analyzing them. Avoid connecting to websites that are spammy or engaged in other black-hat SEO strategies. Instead outreach to the authoritative websites and thank them for mentioning your product or businesses on their website. Suggest adding your website’s links. This will be a win-win scenario: they will improve user experience giving more information and you can get a backlink from reputable websites. 

To wrap it up

It’s time to sum up what we’ve discussed about white hat link building.

• White hat links are relevant, authoritative, organic and valuable.
• Common white hat link building strategies include creating linkable assets, investing in guest posting and fixing your broken links. 
• Creating link-worthy content, doing competitor analysis, turning unlinked brand mentions into backlinks are other common white hat link building techniques.

FAQ about white hat link building