TLDR: Link building is the process of earning links from other websites back to your own, and it remains one of the strongest trust signals Search Engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo etc.) use to judge a site’s authority. Done well, it’s built naturally around genuine content and interest, backed by solid keyword research, and delivered consistently over time, not chased with quick wins.
What is link building in SEO?
At its simplest, link building is the process of earning links from other websites that point back to your own. Link building exists to lift a client’s website visibility online and it does that job from two angles at once.
First, it helps search engines find and understand your site. When other websites link to yours, Google’s crawlers use those links to discover your pages and build a picture of how your site fits into the wider web. Second, it works on real people too. Readers come across those links naturally while browsing other content, sometimes they click through, sometimes they simply register that your brand is being referenced elsewhere and either way, it reinforces your site as a trusted point of reference.
Crucially, Google wants links to appear naturally, born out of genuine interest in the content rather than manufactured for ranking purposes. That’s why, as Kamila explains, articles placed on other sites should contain interesting and useful information, relevant to the site’s audience. It’s not about gaming the system; it’s about creating content genuinely worth linking to.
Why is link building important for SEO?
Google expects links to build up organically, driven by real interest from readers and other websites. When other sites choose to link to your content, Google reads that as a vote of confidence, evidence that other publishers see your site as a useful, credible source worth referencing.
That accumulation of natural, high-authority links does two things simultaneously. It builds your client’s site authority, positioning them as more of an expert in their field, which in turn earns more trust from the Search Engines. And from the audience’s side, those same links act as quiet reinforcement, readers spot your brand mentioned on other trusted websites, and it sticks, even if they never click through.
Put those two effects together, search engines reading a strong, natural link profile as authority, and audiences repeatedly encountering your brand across the web, and you get the outcome every SEO strategy is chasing: higher rankings.
What is keyword research in SEO?
Keyword research is the process of identifying the terms and phrases your target audience is actually searching for, so that content, on-page SEO, and link building all point in the same direction. It’s a foundational SEO discipline, one that sits underneath nearly every other activity, from the pages you build to the anchor text used in outreach.
For link building specifically, keyword research plays a more targeted role than it might for broader SEO or content teams. It’s less about generating a long list of ranking opportunities and more about informing which anchor phrases to use and which topics make sense for a client’s niche.
How to do keyword research for link building
While a dedicated SEO team typically leads on deep keyword research, a link building specialist still needs a working knowledge of the process. In practice, that means:
- Understanding anchor phrases. Before placing a link, you need to know which phrases genuinely reflect what the client does and how their audience searches, these become the anchor text for outreach links.
- Checking topical relevance. Google wants the topic a link sits within to feel natural to the destination website, so keyword and topic research helps confirm a placement actually fits the client’s niche, rather than looking alien or forced.
- Matching competitiveness to strategy. Research into how competitive a client’s field is, and where competitors already rank, feeds directly into decisions about how many links are realistically needed and how hard the strategy needs to work to move the needle.
- Letting the SEO team lead the depth. For genuinely detailed keyword research, like search volumes, ranking gaps, content briefs, that’s typically the SEO team’s territory, with link building using their output to inform placement rather than duplicating the work from scratch.
What is a link building strategy (and how does it work)?
A link building strategy starts with research. Before a single link is placed, the groundwork looks at the competition of a client: how competitive the niche is, what the nearest and highest-ranking competitors are doing, and what rank the client realistically wants to reach.
That research shapes almost every decision that follows:
- How many links are needed, and how often. A highly competitive niche demands a stronger, more consistent link building effort to match what competitors are already doing, this is usually one of the first things a strategy has to decide.
- What kind of sites to target. The strategy also defines the calibre and type of website a link should come from, matched to the client’s budget and goals.
- Which keywords and topics to prioritise. Topics need to stay natural to the client’s website, and the site hosting the link shouldn’t feel unrelated or “alien” to the client’s own subject matter,Google notices when a placement doesn’t fit.
Put together, this is what separates a genuine link building strategy from simply buying or begging for links wherever they’ll be accepted, every decision is tied back to relevance, authority, and what will actually move the client’s rankings.
How to build links for SEO: Step-by-step
Based on how a strategy like this comes together in practice, the process typically follows these steps:
- Research the competition. Assess how competitive the client’s field is and benchmark against the nearest and highest-ranking competitors.
- Set the target and the workload. Decide the rank the client wants to reach and use that to scope how many links are realistically needed each month.
- Define the site criteria. Establish what kind of websites are suitable, factoring in authority, relevance, and budget.
- Confirm keywords, anchor text, and topics. Agree which phrases and subjects the content and outreach should focus on, making sure they stay natural to the client’s niche.
- Find the right placements. This is often the most labour-intensive step. Sifting through a large volume of websites to find the ones that genuinely fit, rather than settling for the first available option.
- Place natural content. Get genuine, informative content that earns its place and becomes interesting to the site’s visitors.
- Stay consistent and monitor. Keep the placements coming steadily, month after month, and track how rankings and authority shift alongside the rest of the client’s SEO activity.
What are the best tools for link building?
When it comes to toolkits, three platforms do the heavy lifting for Modo25’s link building work:
- Ahrefs – the primary tool used day-to-day for link building work.
- SEMrush – used as an alternative, and particularly useful when analysing results.
- Similarweb – rounds out the toolkit for wider site and traffic insight.
Together, these tools support everything from identifying suitable target sites to analysing the impact of a placement once it’s live.
Top tips and the best link building strategies
If there’s one lesson that comes through above everything else, it’s consistency. Link building can be hard to stay consistent with, finding the right site for a placement means sifting through a large number of websites before landing on the one that will actually work, and that legwork has to happen again and again, month after month.
It’s also not a strategy that delivers instant results. Rankings don’t jump the moment link building begins, instead, with sustained, consistent effort, they build gradually toward the level a client wants to reach and hold. Stop too early, or treat it as a one-off project rather than an ongoing programme, and that gradual authority-building simply doesn’t happen.
The takeaway for any brand considering link building: treat it as a long-term, consistent programme built on genuinely relevant, natural placements, not a short sprint for a quick ranking boost.
How Modo25 can help with your link building
Getting link building right takes the kind of hands-on, consistent effort our team lives and breathes, from competitor and keyword research through to sourcing genuinely relevant sites and placing natural content that Google (and your audience) trusts. It’s detailed, ongoing work, and it’s exactly what our SEO team does for clients every day.
If you’d like support building your brand’s authority the right way, get in touch with our team. We’d love to talk you through how we can help your site earn the influence it deserves.
