Link Building: Who Needs It And Why?

Many people think that for link building you just need a technical skill, but nowadays it is more than just cooperation and more than sending emails. To do link building, you need to understand the philosophy of the backlink building process and how to optimize the process so as not to be burned.

What is link building?

Link building, in short, is a process of creating a backlink portfolio for your website to achieve better rankings. Link building is one of the factors for higher rankings in Google, but it also has additional advantages like getting referral traffic, brand awareness, and more.

Link building, first, create an authority for your website, which is also a great signal to appear in AI overviews and AI tool answers. If your product or service is searchable online, you can not avoid link building.

The philosophy of link building

To explain the philosophy of link building, I always use example tactics. This mostly explains that the link-building philosophy is much more long-term useful than you can imagine.

# Strengthening our thoughts

First, let’s remember some cases from our lives. When we want to strengthen our speech, we mention in our sentences some thoughts of a famous and influential man or a source. In short, we indirectly and virtually link to another source.

# Proof that you’re right

I guess you noticed in many books you read before that the sources from which the author takes information. It can mention another book name, the name of a scientific work, or even a magazine printed somewhere. Mostly, it was done with a page of used sources at the end of the book. There was no imagination about link building at that time; however, it was an organic reference as we need now.

# Explanation of a phrase or additional information

Again, this case was used in books with the sign of numbers or “*”. You may have noticed that at the bottom of the page, in some cases where authors guess you do not know the meaning of the word, they create a space for an explanation of unknown words if there are no used context clues. Another case you may notice in the book’s page is when the author wants to share some additional information but does not want to include it in the main body text. So, now all this in the digital world has been replaced with just backlinks and is a part of backlink building.

The Brief History of Link Building

Google first used link building as a core factor of ranking. And it is really logical. In short, as more people admit you as a reliable source of something, the more you deserve to be read by searchers and be at the peak of search results. Innovation, such as the PageRank algorithm, has changed the industry. But later, people started manipulating, adding backlinks everywhere, and ignoring the quality. They used PBN backlinks.

Google’s team understood the whole picture and updated new algorithms named Panda and Penguin. Explore them from the ranking system guide by Google.

So, from that time and still now, I consider a formula for any link building efforts: quantity+quality+relevancy.

Link building can be done by combining many strategies, but what type of links do you want to get? The types of link building you need are correlated with the types of backlinks you need. So, let’s discuss types of link building and their power to understand the priorities.

Contextual Link Building

Contextual link building is a process of earning backlinks from the body text of the website. In many cases, when specialists speak about link building, they mean contextual link building. It gives the best possible value for rankings in search engines, plus it creates the best value for search engines to understand what your page is about. Mostly, you can notice contextual backlinks in articles, guides, blogs, and everywhere you can find text.

To have your ideal contextual links, you should take into account the relevancy of the surrounding text you want to add your backlink to your target page. An additional value to your backlink is finding or creating a relevant anchor text related to your page.

A synonym of contextual link building can be editorial link building. However, all editorial backlinks are contextual backlinks. At the same time, not all editorial backlinks are contextual backlinks. The line of difference between them is that editorial links are mostly obtained from people (journalists, bloggers) who add backlinks without your effort.

We divide contextual link building into 3 parts:

• Outbound links: These are the links added on your website that feature another website.
• Inbound links: The links you get from another website.
• Internal link building: Links that connect your 2 pages.

Finding a reliable contextual link building service is the best solution you can do, as all your links will be monitored by them, unlike other link building services that only focus on inbound backlink hunting.

Image Link Building

Image link building is a process of acquiring backlinks inserted in images or mentioned contextually as the source of your image. This type of link building is not as strong as contextual link building, as your anchor text is mostly “source” or “image from,” and websites sometimes insert an image address, but do not make it clickable.

However, to use this strategy effectively, you first need to find where your images are inserted and check whether they have added your link as a source or not. You just need to find them, and after checking, you should do an outreach and ask them for link insertions.

Another version is adding a backlink in an image. In that case, the image should reflect the target URL that is hidden under pic. Below you can see an example with the link going to our contact us page. This is a simple internal image link.

Footer link building

Backlink building in footers is not a widely used link building approach. You can notice these types of links mainly in the sites where companies have a direct connection. We divide strategies for doing footer link building into 3 ways:

Your client’s website

As an example, let’s say you are a developer agency owner who builds websites. Your clients can add your link, written like “Powered by Company Name”. Sometimes these types of links are no-follow; however, as those links are in the footer, they can give you direct traffic and more visibility.

Badges

These refer to websites where others can sign in and mostly list the company. I guess many of us noticed in the site’s links going to the Clutch or G2, where people can find reviews and the score of the company to compare with other industry leaders. Again, these types of links are mostly nofollow; however, they can boost direct traffic to your platform if you have that type of service on your website.

Social media link building

In my opinion, social media link building is underestimated. Nowadays, influencers play a vital role in many brands’ sales. You may see many marketing campaigns where popular people mention some company URLs in their profiles, and that can boost direct traffic to the pages of the real company websites. Honestly, this action plays a great role also on page ranking too for relevant keywords as it works as a signal to Google that is page is in demand.

However, social backlinks are not only about influencers. It can appear in any community group and can be a source of many relevant discussions. We name social backlinks – links that are inserted on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and etc…

To understand which businesses mostly need link building, it should relate to just one or more points below emphasized:

• The business niche should be searchable in search engines.
• People like to buy services or products online.
• There is a competition within your niche.
• Searchers make a decision online before a physical purchase.
• It creates a trust signal for people.

When you do not need link building, but you do temporarily

Here again, I just separated some points when businesses may not be interested in link building, but they can be involved temporarily:

• Your site should be just visible, but it is not indexed.
• The page is ranked with the wrong keywords.
• You bought an aged domain, and you need to force search engines to admit a new reality or a niche.

Businesses that need steady link building

Here, just mentioned businesses that should build backlinks as they find their customers within search engines:

E-commerce 🛒

Online shopping is booming, so e-commerce business owners know that in order to sell their products, they first should be visible. The most specific thing you should know if you own an e-commerce online store is that you should understand where your customers live.

E-commerce online stores can be created for locals as well as for international customers. If you own an e-commerce business like Amazon, prepare your money for investing in international and local link building at once. Link building for e-commerce has many challenges.

Before diving into a new location, you can face problems like no source where you can add your page contextually. That is why, sometimes, e-commerce owners focus on local press releases or just companies investing in international link building to be visible everywhere.

SaaS companies ⚙️

SaaS companies are always involved in a link building process. The real online competition is here as they all sell their services online, and customers search for such solutions online.

In the era of AI, when people even search for the best tools via AI chat recommendations still the key role to appear there is link building. Especially, regarding this, it can be a very useful thing to do brand mention link building. It can include the tool name in listicle articles or just in the text, where you can include your name as a problem solution. You can create the best solution, maybe even the same as others created, but cheaper, but it is all nothing if you are just not visible. Ask yourself, when you search for something, the first thing you want to do is click the highest results in the query.

SaaS link building is one of the most competitive areas for link builders. First, it demands a deep knowledge of the SaaS product to understand which type of sites you should focus on to outperform your competitors. Plus, as the SaaS niche is always growing, sometimes you need link building for these products not only to rise your rank positions but also to keep them at the peak.

Financial Service Providers 🏦

Here we can divide the sphere into two parts.

Digital financial services 💳

The first part is about financial platforms where you can invest your money, trade, or just open an account. This is a really competitive niche. You will notice that companies like Forex, SoFi.com, and Interactive Brokers aggressively work on SEO, plus spending tremendous budgets on advertising, and have referral programs to find new customers. However, the main specific thing in this sphere is that platforms may need some trust, too. As an example, famous investor Ray Dalio can announce that he keeps the account in Interactive Brokers, and people will follow him to keep their money there, too.

Financial consultancy 💼

The second part of link building for financial services is about the companies that do accounting, financial consultation, business plan creation, or something like that. They have a website, but the website is not a platform for anything else. Here, the most importnat thing is to be visible again. And mostly great if you are in the top. However, being in the top will not give you new clients if you have bad reviews from your past customers. So, doing link building for financial services is great when the customer can trust you, too.

Marketing Agencies 🎯

Companies that provide different marketing services are mostly interested in link building. The first reason is their brand trust. Imagine a marketing company that provides SEO services in its packages, but they have no visibility for any keyword. Of course, many people search for different services all around marketing. And in case you ranked higher, you have your chance to earn that customer. Sometimes people notice that a marketing agency does not need a case study. As you win in a visibility war, they believe they can expect to get the same.

However, this sphere is very competitive, and here the competitors of marketing agencies are very smart, and they work not only on ranking. Referrals, real results, email cold outreaches, and many more. The most competitive thing within the marketing niche is companies that are focusing on digital marketing. So that companies are digital marketing agencies, SEO service providers, content management companies and etc…

Real Estate Companies 🏢

Companies that are building houses or providing real estate services are highly interested in link building as they can find potential home buyers or investors. Let’s say you believe in rising home prices in some specific country or city. What will you do first? Of course, you will search for companies that work in a specific area.

And when it comes to international projects, the competition is very hard. Each time has its most attractive direction or trend. Nowadays, many real estate companies are involved in building tremendous projects in Dubai. So imagine how importnat it is for Dubai developers to sell the properties before even starting to build them. The cash will definitely create an opportunity to start another project before ending that one. But yes, this actually is possible when people find you and they like your project. So, for their visibility, exactly, they need steady link building, also taking into account the power of press release backlinks.

Legal Services ⚖️

Legal service promotions are very different depending on where the service providers are. We can accept the reality that in countries like the USA, UK, and such type of countries where people really admit the law as a tool for solving their problems, they use these services. And as the population needs these services, they search. And as they search, legal service providers create websites and build backlinks.

Educational Companies 🎓

The educational niche is very competitive, but it is also one of the easiest ways to do link building. Link building for educational projects is as easy as third-party websites may not have restrictions on adding backlinks to educational content. Compared with financial companies or real estate companies, they all have targets that can be named as “aggressive selling pages”.

In many cases, conducting an outreach campaign to create new collaborations with companies and adding backlinks to your educational targets can also create value for their readers. In short, linking is created to promote more information and, as a result, educate the readers. That is why link building for educational platforms is the cheapest compared to others.

Tourism services 🏖️

Let’s remember the last time you visited a country. The first thing we do is search for hotels located in that area, and the second type of companies we look for are those that provide local events. Actions we take before visiting the country are done in your city, where you live. It means that, for example, if you have a hotel in your city, you should definitely rank in other countries with the related keywords like “best hotels in + city name”, “best restaurant in + city name”, “best places to visit in + city name”, and so on. At this stage, here are the companies in tourism services that need stable link building:

• Hotels: Link building for hotels is crucial to be ranked internationally as well as locally
• Restaurants and cafes: Mostly, restaurants and cafes need to do link building for local ranking
• Travel agencies: Preferably to be ranked locally, great to be ranked internationally, so people will find you before landing in your country
• Real Estate brokers: People like to find brokers and have an agreement beforehand

Healthcare Companies 🩺

Link building for healthcare companies is a crucial thing both locally and internationally. Most telemedicine companies get their customers from the international market, but if we speak about local searches, I want to share real points you should follow, even if you do link building:

• For healthcare companies, Google likes you to mention real certificates from people who provide any information
• Trust is very importnat for healthcare companies, so if you rank now but people do not trust your website, it will create a bounce rate issue, so after some time you can lose positions
• People know people: Sometimes, doing link building for healthcare companies refers to link building for personal branding. Let’s say people know a doctor but do not know that they work in your medical center. It is preferable to create pages for the doctors and try to rank those pages with their names and surnames. So searchers will get information from your website, not websites like Wikipedia.

Digital Product sellers

These are types of companies or industries that are needed everywhere, and they sell digital products. Here are some examples of industries that earn money when people find their names on search engines.

VPN and Proxy Providers 🛡️

I guess you noticed many cases when you appear on some platforms where access is denied to you. When you use some automations to scrape the data for some purposes, you need VPNs or proxies.

Domain and Hosting sellers 🌐

Nowadays, all companies that want to introduce their business, the first thing they consider is a website where they can include all the information related to them. And it is easier day by day, as there are many online website builders and AI sites where you can design and build your dream site.

However, the first expenses to build your website are buying a domain and hosting. That is why this industry is very hot, and link building is a must.

Review and Affiliate sites ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This type of website can not avoid link building. Why? The income they can get from customers is directly correlated with the traffic they earn online. Examples of those companies are G2, Tripadvisor, Clutch, and many more that have a great backlink portfolio and provide an audience for each company listed on their platforms.

Plus, these companies should overcome all industry leaders. As they are affiliate companies, they should prove to other companies that being listed on their platforms is a smart decision.

To better prioritize, you need local link building or international, you should answer to important question: Where are my buyers? In short, you will find the answer to your question by creating a buyer persona. However, I have created a bullet point for clarifying when you would rather go to international link building and when local.

📍 You Need Local Link Building When…

✅ Your audience is local

✅ Your buyers are locals

✅ You can not ship your products or services outside of your country or city

✅ Your product or service is connected with the culture of locals

✅ You do not have enough budget for scaling

✅ Your product is searchable only in your region

Where to build local backlinks

• local publishing sites (mostly news sites)
• Local forums
• Local influencer websites or blogs
• Local business chats or groups
• Local charity websites or groups
• Local educational institute websites

🌐⛓️ You Need International Link Building When…

✅ Your audience is global

✅ Your product or services are for everyone on the planet

✅ You have no problems with logistics and transportation to supply your products

✅ Your niche is very competitive

✅ You want to expand your business and make it global

✅ Your business is local, but customers are abroad ( example: hotels)

In this paragraph, we will delve into the key aspects of links and their proper usage.

Anchor text

We name the anchor text the text that is embedded with the link. Mostly, anchor text reflects the target URL’s meaning. Anchor text decision is a very important part of link building, as it is a signal for all search engine bots. Anchor text should be:

• Contextual: It means it should reflect the sentence where it is added.
• Relevant: Anchor text should have an appropriate placement, and the paragraph where it is added must refer to the page where it is going.
• If possible, keep it short: It is recommended that the anchor text be around 2-3 words. However, it is not a dogma, and there are no standards for it.
• Informational or navigational: If the link is going to the service pages or homepages, the link should navigate to the relevant page so people can purchase it. If the target link is a blog, guide, or article, readers should find more detailed information; as said, it should be informational.

Dofollow or Nofollow?

My recommendation regarding outbound backlinks, I would rather add nofollow backlinks. In this way, I reduce the risk of hurting myself and the website to which I add the link. However, there are no risks in adding dofollow backlinks if they are good content providers and very famous in their niche.

Regarding internal links, the value of the link is reflected by adding dofollow backlinks. If we separate internal links, then we only do backlinks. You just can not hurt your site via another page. You connect pages, and Google should find them to understand your website structure well.

Your inbound backlinks can be mixed. Dofollow backlinks are about link juice, but let’s figure out Google’s update about the importance of nofollow links and their impact on your page ranking. If you own only dofollow backlinks, that means you just buy dofollow backlinks. The thing that can be accepted as promotional in Google’s eyes. So, my recommendation is to focus on dofollow backlinks, but be sure not to overlook opportunities for getting nofollow backlinks.

Backlink quality and energy

There are several technical factors to consider when earning a backlink. This part is about page vetting. To understand the quality of the page you want to get a link from, you can check via Ahrefs’ UR or some alternatives from other third-party tools. Pages with high UR are pages with many inbound and internal links. However, besides links, other points give additional value to the link that appears on a page:

• Estimated organic traffic for the URL: Great when they have real and relevant traffic.
• Keywords it ranks for in positions: Preferably to be ranked 1-30 positions.
• Date of publication/update: Preferably, the last publishing or update date is one year ago.
• Outbound link quantity: Fewer other outbound backlinks on the page, better link juice for your link.
• Link position: The higher your link placement in the page, the better the impact.
• Human-written content page: The link added in the human-written content pages outperforms AI-written content pages. First, it looks natural and, of course, contextual.
• Unique content page: Make sure not to add your links in the pages where information is duplicated, or it is a part of the republishing of some content. At this stage better for you to disavow links if you can not delete them.

There are many link building strategies you can use for your campaigns. Let’s go forward with the points and their short descriptions. These are the link-building strategies that still work, and you can use them for future link hunting:

1. Focusing on quality content creation: This type of approach demands a lot of time. Most people add a link to your page when they find some statistics, research, or graphs related to the topic. So, if you want to get backlinks via your quality content sharing, make sure you do outstanding work.
2. Broken link building: Broken backlink building is a strategy of hunting broken links and replacing them with the live URL.
3. Unlinked brand mentions: This is a very relevant link building strategy. You just find your brand name mentions via Google or via third-party tools like Ahrefs, and ask them to make the links live.
4. Haro link building: Haro link building is a strategy to earn backlinks via the Haro platform’s communication with journalists, editors, and newsmakers, adding a relevant paragraph to the topic they plan to publish, and inserting your link there as a job done.
5. Press release link building: Sharing press releases with news owners can bring you benefits by getting a press release backlink from them. However, in this part, I want to mention that sometimes you will get nofollow links instead of dofollow ones.
6. Suggest free link exchanges: With the free link exchange strategy, you can get many relevant backlinks. The only thing you need to participate in these deals is the website where you can add their backlink, as Google is against direct link exchanges.

As a bonus thing, if you failed everywhere, I always suggest that people do competitor research and gather backlinks from competitors’ backlink portfolios.

When we say link building tools, we prioritize tools that can help to do link building, as there are no tools that can be used for full link building activities. All the tools solve some specific problems or are used mostly for tracking. However, here are the most useful tools that link builders can not avoid using:

• Ahrefs: Easy to use for beginners, position tracking, and website audits. Great tool for backlink monitoring. Popular metrics provided by Ahrefs are Domain Rating and UR. They help to understand the quality and quantity of the backlink portfolio. Updated the new AI monitoring.
• Semrush: Best alternative to Ahrefs. Better version for Digital PR activities. Recently, it has been providing an AI score metric.
• Moz: Suggest the same services. Mostly SEO’s use to track website domain spam score. That metrics guide on link builders to look at past added links and disavow some bad backlinks.
• Majestic: Popular metrics provided, like Trust Flox and Citation Flox. Trust flow is about the quality of the backlinks, and Citation flow is about the quantity.

Besides these tools I suggest using, you will definitely use tools for email outreach, email finders, LinkedIn Scrapers, and many more to increase the possibility of response rate on your backlink campaigns.

Outsource link building or hire in-house link builders? That is the question. This is the question that every company owner asks. This question can be discussed from two sides.

The first side is about the company’s size and its priorities. Mostly, companies that have enough budget do not keep link builders in-house. They understand the value of time and keep their energy in tonus, not involving themselves in link building activities, as it is a very stressful process for big companies. Priority things they keep in-house are SEO managers or Growth managers who communicate with outsourced freelancers or companies.

Another side of this question is about the money spent. We are facing many companies where content managers and even marketing managers dare to do the job of link builders. Of course, that is not the best solution for them, however, because of the lack of enough budget, they spread the tasks among their teammates.

Concluding, my final verdict is that better to outsource link building, whether you dive into the sphere that is very complicated for new enthusiasts.

How to choose your dream link building agency? 🎖️

In case you decide to outsource the backlink building process to an agency, of course, you need to figure out what to consider when hiring them and how to choose the best backlink agency. Here are the points you can take into account when outsourcing this service:

• Check their case study: On each backlink service provider website, you will notice a section about their link building case studies. If you find relevant projects in your niche and they have succeeded, the story can be repeated.
• Ask if they can provide a trial link: This will help you understand which type of backlinks they can provide, looking at the anchor text, the website from which they get a link, and also the quality of link placement.
• Check the results of their past clients: Scrape the backlinks they earned from that agency, so you will understand how many backlinks they can provide within a month, and whether they are unique or you notice many repetitions.
• Book a Call with them and ask your troubling questions.
• Compare link building package prices and act as soon as possible

There is no dogma you should consider adding links there or not; however, there are some fundamentally accepted standards we can look at.

Website backlink portfolio (DR, DA, or AS)

When the website is rich with its backlink portfolio, you can hope that getting a backlink from them will give your website some part of power to your website. Different platforms measure this by their own technologies. You may be listening to Domain Rating by Ahrefs, Domain Authority by Moz, and Authority Score by Semrush, and many others.

By the way, Majestic SEO suggests two different metrics for checking a website’s backlink portfolio- citation flow and trust flow. “Citation flow” shows the score of the quantity of backlinks, and the “Trust flow” – their quality.

In the link building sphere, professionals follow the rule that your performance with these metrics matters; it’s better to focus on the higher ones if possible. For example, if your Domain Rating is 20, backlinks with higher metrics than 20 will have a stronger impact, as they help pull your site upward toward their level.

Another level of checking backlink portfolio that is widely used is using the same metrics, but taking into account page authority. Accordingly, you may have listened about UR by Ahrefs, PA by Moz, and so on.

Traffic

This is the most important metric all SEOs work for. Does not matter what third-party tools show you on you should focus on organic traffic growth. To check the real traffic better, you can check your keyword positions via Search Console, and you can integrate a tool like Hotjar to monitor all the actions on your website.

Also, third-party tools like Ahrefs or Semrush show the organic traffic of any website automatically based on the data of monthly volumes and your page positions. I would probably recommend not focusing on it, as they do not provide accurate data. However, they are great for understanding the trends of the competitor websites and making proper decisions.

Diversify your content by writing articles that have low keyword difficulty and high keyword difficulty. Starting from low difficulty articles and working on adding backlinks for them can be a start to your website traffic. Starting from small wins to big wins is the best strategy in SEO. Just make sure the content is relevant to the keyword intent, work on backlinks, and raise your rank positions.

Traffic value

Mostly, SEOs recommend getting backlinks from companies that have over 1000 monthly visitors. Some agencies also track traffic value, that is, the metrics that are calculated with the value of the keywords. If keywords have a higher CPC, so the traffic value will be higher too. Companies that have traffic but no traffic value are mostly the companies that picked easy keywords just to generate any traffic, or the niche websites where competition is very low.

Spam Score

Moz is providing a spam score for each website. If the website’s spam score is high, it means that the website has been affected by some issues connected with content structure, domain factors, or a backlink portfolio. Agencies try to avoid high spam websites, as added links on those platforms can be accepted as promotional.

Again, there is no dogma for what can be named as “high” spam score, and there are no standards. However, we facilitate the process by giving an opportunity for each 10 Domain Authority or a Domain Rating, one a spam score. So, as Domain Rating is not over 100 and the spam score too, the provided backlinks from our side will not be over 10% potentially.

Link building pricing is influenced by numerous factors, ranging from market inflation to niche-specific complexities.
One of the most important variables is the niche itself. Each industry has its own challenges, content standards, and link opportunities, which significantly impact pricing.

For example, building links for educational websites is generally more affordable, while links in the crypto industry tend to be much more expensive due to stricter editorial policies, risk factors, and limited high-quality placement options.

Pricing can vary wildly, from as low as $5 to upwards of $20,000 per link. However, the average price of a quality link is around $150-200.

At the low end, links are often risky, commonly sourced from PBNs (Private Blog Networks) or spammy sites. On the higher end, premium pricing often reflects the cost of press releases or placements on globally recognized media outlets, where brand visibility and authority are part of the value.

Contextual links in the ERA of AI

AI is transforming every market and industry. Link building industry is not an exception. With the rise of AI, people now want to appear not only on search engine pages but also want to be the source of AI answers. The fundamentals of link building and the strategies are mostly the same, but we can be ready for the changing world, and here are the small differences in doing link building:

• Brand mentions: Nowadays, it is the biggest discussed theme in link building. The first service each link building agency can suggest to clients to promote the website and the company in the AI era is providing brand mention services.
• Listicles: There are many people searching for products and services, asking AI chats to find the best of them. Of course, AI can not separate one company telling that as the best, as it will be very promotional and not so true. That is why AI is mostly searching for sources where companies are listed to provide multiple companies, and after that provided information they can do a comparison. So, AI can list companies, but to decide which one is best is a people’s choice. That is why,

Switching from website links to platform links and mentions

Nowadays, it is essential to understand from which platforms AI chats gather the information, make conclusions, and give it to you. As AI companies need data to answer your questions, they need a bread for a life. First, they have trained with the massive data sources.

• A big part of ChatGPT’s answers is from platforms like Reddit, Quora, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, TripAdvisor, and many more.
• Grok, as a part of the Elon Masks product xAI it is said that get the information from Twitter.
• Claude is Google’s product, so a big number of resources it is logical they are from Google’s data.
• Perplexity brings the information from the whole web searches, and each information that can be valuable, combines and introduces it to you.

As you notice, this AI brings attention to the answers that are closely connected to human-based information. Real reviews, real answers, and real quotes give the value of the answers of AI. So, being very active in these platforms, having your brand mentioned, especially with the links, will give you additional value.

Being linked everywhere, being mentioned gives another value for all AI chats. In short, as long as you are linked to companies and real people,  AI platforms admit that as a sign of authority. Once you are authorized, you will appear in AI answers.

Concluding we can say without doubt that there is no chance to appear in AI answers if you do not do link building.

Can AI kill link building?

In my opinion, AI will not kill link building. In contrast to this, link building is more valuable nowadays as companies are very interested in brand mentions, the thing that is much more difficult than simple link placements. I did an experimental article about Will AI kill SEO, and the conclusion is that the future of search is hybrid. So, you can not ignore either Google or AI chats.

Here are the key points I want to introduce for a conclusion:

• Link building is still a key strategy to rank higher on Google.
• Link building still exists in the era of AI, and you can not be featured by AI chats if you are not working on your external link portfolio.
• You’d better outsource link building to focus on your business perspectives
• The best impact on Google ranking from all types of link building is contextual link building
• The best impact on AI stemming from all link building strategies is brand mentioning
• Link building pricing can vary from $5 to $20.000, but do not buy cheap backlinks as they can be PBNs and hurt your site
• You do not focus on metrics like Domain Rating or something else, your most importnat metric to monitor your link building campaigns is the traffic you gather and how you can convert them
• Look at the page performance when you make any link placement
• My link building formula is simple: quantity+quality+relevancy