A Guide To Link Building For Startups

Startups need link building because they have no online presence and need to outrank established competitors. 

A startup is a fresh new site, meaning it has no reputation. It is competing with tens to hundreds of already established brands for attention. In this state, It’s extremely difficult if not impossible for a new website to show up at the top of a given search engine results page, as search engines will continuously favor older, more established sites over yours. This can cause problems, as most startups prioritize a growth-first model which cannot sustain itself without at least some results to incentivize funding. 

This is where link building comes in.

Link building is the process of earning a link pointing towards your site from a reputable, relevant and trustworthy website. These links are called “backlinks,” and they act as a stamp of approval for search engines, leading to them trusting your website more than your peers without any backlinks. 

When you accumulate a steady stream of backlinks, search engines start paying attention, and appropriately raise your website up the rankings, allowing you to appear at the top of the results page for queries surrounding your organization. 

With how industry giants dominate any given results page, coupled with the amount of clicks that Google’s AI overview takes away from websites, getting backlinks is the only way you can ensure that your startup site will catch the attention of fresh eyes.

Link building for startups brings higher search engine and AI visibility, referral traffic, and a better reputation. 

On the technical side, the primary purpose of backlinks is to boost your startup site’s search engine rankings. However, one could easily wonder what even is the benefit of that higher ranking beyond visibility. Link building is a time consuming task, and you want the boons that it’ll give you to compensate for that time. 

The benefits of link building for startups are:

Search Engine Visibility: The most obvious benefit of link building for startups is the higher visibility on search engine results pages. Backlinks act as signs of quality if they’re from trustworthy websites, and search engines in turn raise your site once you get them. 

• AI Visibility: Brand mentions are direct references to your company name or product and they’re a big part of link building. More importantly, they’re the anchors that AI models latch onto when researching for company related queries. This is due to the fact that AI engines work on semantic understanding, and they formulate their responses to queries by analyzing how and how often brands within an industry get named. 
• Improved Authority: Your authority doesn’t just refer to the perception of the general public, backlinks directly form your site’s reputation, and the more backlinks you get the higher your authority. Search engines always evaluate the authority of websites, and favor sites with higher authority. Improving this authority with link building will help sustain long-term benefits, as additional content you publish will be favored by search engines in the scenario where your authority is high. 
• Referral Traffic: The traffic you earn from visitors who pressed on your link on an external site is known as referral traffic. Links at their core are meant to improve the user experience. As a result, if a backlink pointing to your website is placed on a page with high viewership, chances are a lot of those users will flock to your website as well. 
• Brand Recognition: Finally, the visibility that link building provides will cement your company as a legitimate option within your industry.

Prior to link building for your startup, there’s a few boxes you should check regarding your website, its content, and an evaluation of the sites you’ll want to get links from. 

There’s a lot that goes into link building, and preparations before earning a backlink are just as important as the outreach process. Your website needs to be in optimal condition for your link building to yield results. This is particularly important for your startup website, as your state as a fresh company with not much to hang your hat on makes setup crucial for success. 

Before link building, take the following steps:

• Audit Your Website: Your startup’s site should be in tip top shape for SEO. Meaning, it needs to be readable for search engine bots, mobile friendly, have the right HTTPS configuration and should run well. Otherwise, search engines will outright ignore your startup’s pages regardless of your link building.
• Create Linkable Content: Search engines love content, and you need to create content so your backlinks will actually point somewhere. For content, your startup’s product/services aren’t enough to rank well. You’ll have to put effort into making additional content in order to actually succeed, making a blog is the usual step organizations make. 
• Form a Content Plan: Once you’re set on what type of content you’ll consistently publish, it’s important to form a plan. Your link building will coincide with your publishing schedule and your content itself, so it’s key to keep that in mind when forming your plan.
• Pick Target Websites: A common mistake startups make is having all their backlinks point towards their homepage. This can cause issues as it raises red flags in search engine security systems. Instead, focus on a wide variety of pages to link to. Of course, you should avoid ignoring your money-maker pages, but try to maintain balance, while still giving the bulk of your backlinks to your homepage and product page. 
• Analyze Competitor Backlinks: You can think of analyzing competitor backlinks as a way to guide yourself. More specifically, looking at the backlinks of competitors who are already ranking allows you to surmise what approaches you should take and from which websites you can potentially earn a backlink from.

Now, you might be wondering, how do startups get high quality backlinks? There are a lot of strategies out there that can help you fill up your backlink portfolio, but the right ones for your startup are more specific, and should be deployed in a specific order.

If you’re just starting link building for your startup, you should build a foundation for your backlink profile with the following:

Getting Backlinks From Investors

Your investors who are funding your startup are willing to help you out as much as they can. Additionally, they’re also likely already in connection with multiple other companies like yours. These other companies are what are important, as in the scenario where they’re already established and relevant to your own startup, you can ask your investors to place a link pointing toward your site on them, immediately giving you a supporting backbone. 

Getting Backlinks From Conference Websites

As a startup, you’re probably used to networking and spreading word of your company during conferences. These conferences are a great opportunity for link building, as they usually have their own websites which list out the visiting companies and organizations. If you’re able to get in contact with their webmasters, developers and editors, you can request for the link to your webpage be added to their list, preferably on your website’s name. 

Getting Backlinks From Directories

Website directories surrounding your industry are helpful not just for backlinks, but could also bring in some new customers for your startup by being an option in a large catalog. To find these directories, you can search up the right keywords next to your industry, like “site list for” “association listings” “resources” “directory” etc. Then, all you have to do is get in contact with the directory editors, your details, describe how the addition of your site can provide a value for them, and simply give them your details. 

Getting Backlinks From Podcasts

If you’ve gone on or been featured on podcasts, they’re another prime opportunity for a backlink. Podcasts, successful ones in particular, have huge cult followings thanks to their informational and entertainment value. As such, if you’ve been featured on a popular podcast in your industry, there’s a good shot that you can get a backlink from them quite easily. 

 

Once you’ve already built a solid foundation, it’s time to widen your backlink profile with the following strategies:

 

Guest Posting

Guest posting is the process of writing an article but publishing it under a website not your own for a backlink.

Guest posting is one of the oldest and most reliable methods of link building. It involves getting into contact with sites with high authority and writing an article for them in exchange for a backlink. As a startup owner, you immediately demonstrate a level of competency that most others do not have, making it slightly easier to get sites to accept your trade. 

Here’s a step by step guide on how to do guest posting for your startup:

• 1: Find Host Websites: Try to find successful, healthy and industry-relevant websites that you’d like a link from. 
• 2: Pitch Your Article: Contact the host website owners and pitch your idea(s). In this phase, it’s incredibly important to emphasize the value of your article, and how it can help the host website. 
• 3: Write Your Article: Once you’re able to sell your pitch, write your article. Make sure you keep it high quality, as your startup will be viewed by many new users, and you don’t want them to think lowly of you. 

Listicle Insertions 

Listicle Insertions are instances where you add your brand to an already existing catalogue consisting of companies within your industry.

You’ll often see listicles structured in the format of comparison, alternative and “best of” articles that provide a (you guessed it) list of websites and organizations within an industry. They’re a top candidate for earning a backlink for your startup, as high-quality listicles get viewed constantly, and your startup could benefit from that visibility. 

Here’s a guide for adding your company to a listicle:

• 1: Find articles: Using SEO tools or certain search terms such as “best of” “alternative” “top 10,” find successful listicle articles that are relevant to your industry. 
• 2: Contact publishers: After you spot the right listicle(s), get in contact with their editors, and explain why the addition of your website will benefit them. 

Unlinked Mentions

Unlinked brand mentions are references to your company’s name or product/service without a link added on to it.

Once you’ve already slowly established yourself as a player within your niche, there will come times where your startup will start to appear in content outside of your own. In these scenarios, you’ll oftentimes find that despite your startup being named, there are no links attached which point to your site. Fixing that should be prioritized in order to make the most out of your brand name. 

Here’s a guide for adding links to unlinked mentions:

• 1: Find Unlinked Brand Mentions: Either by searching for your brand name manually or by using SEO tools, search for your startup’s name across the internet. 
• 2: Contact Editors: Once you find content with your unlinked brand mention in it, contact the page’s editors and request your link to be attached. 

Skyscraper

Skyscraper link building is the process of finding content with a number of backlinks, creating superior content, and asking websites which are linking to the original piece to link to yours instead. 

Skyscraper link building is a method that is time consuming, but can yield great results. Not only will you have a great way to get backlinks, you’ll also heighten your reputation by displaying your knowledge and competency. 

Here’s a step by step guide on how to do skyscraper link building:

• 1: Find Content With Links:  Scour through the internet for well-performing articles, studies, guides etc. in your niche. Then, use SEO tools to filter out the ones with a healthy backlink profile.
• 2: Create a Superior Version: Improve upon the older article by adding fresh updates, new studies, and better structure. 
• 3: Make Your Pitch: Reach out to the sites linking to the older article. Then, explain how your piece improves upon it, and suggest that they link to yours instead. 

Outsource The Process 

Finally, you can always entrust third party teams by outsourcing the link building process. 

As a startup owner, you have a lot on your plate. While the initial phase of link building is a lot easier, later on trying to get more is mightily time consuming and difficult. As such, you can always entrust freelancers and link building agencies for startups with your link building needs. Of course, you do have to pick between two options:

• Link Building Freelancer: Freelancer link builders are usually not as pricey as big agencies. Nevertheless, they’re lacking when it comes to scale and long-term benefit, and could be unreliable due to the fact that you’re collaborating with one person.
• Link Building Agency: A link building agency, though not as cheap as a freelancer, employs an entire team of link builders. For your startup goals specifically, they may be more appropriate for long-term plans and consistent schedules. Additionally, ensure they’re a white-hat link building agency specifically, in order to guarantee your site’s safety. 

Link building mistakes can cause issues, but those issues are exacerbated for startups since they have very little reputation to rely on. 

There are a ton of manipulative practices and methods in link building, but the thing about them is that they never last. Search engines work on the clock to take these manipulative practices down. Eventually, regardless of how successful, they intervene and apply due penalties to those sites.

However, there are certain aspects of link building that a startup with little experience in the field may try to take advantage of without even knowing that the method/tactic is manipulative and will bring upon penalties. As a startup, you can’t afford to get hit by these penalties, as recovering from them requires a ton of resources and time, which you may not be able to afford given your state as an externally funded company. Nevertheless, if you pay close attention and avoid these methods, you can rest easy at night knowing that your site isn’t at risk.

Some link building mistakes you should avoid are:

• Ignoring Relevance: It’s easy to see the traffic and success a site is receiving its way, and trying your hardest to get a backlink from it. What you should be paying more attention to is the relevance of that site to yours. A backlink from a smaller but relevant site will help you more than a large one that has nothing to do with your startup’s niche. 
• Linking To One Page Only: While it’s important that your product/service page and home page receive a good amount of attention, hyperfocusing on only one page can hurt your site. Search engines associate a mass amount of links going to just one page with manipulative practices, so make sure to spread your backlink targets carefully.
• Using Same Anchor Text: The anchor text is the text your page is hyperlinked on. Though you may be eager to constantly show off your startup’s name, repeating the exact same anchor text is a quick way for search engines to penalize you. Make sure you diversify your anchor text to avoid such problems. 
• Using PBNs/link farms: PBNs (private blog networks) and link farms can be easily seen as quick and straightforward ways to build links for your startups. These types of websites create low-quality links which seek to compensate for their quality in scale. However, they also become glaring for search engines, and are quickly spotted and punished accordingly.

You’re likely already pouring a decent amount of funds into marketing for your startup. But, if you’re ready to outsource link building, how much of your funding should go to it specifically? 

According to GTM8020, seed-stage startups typically allocate 10–20% of funding to marketing, while for Series A companies the number looks more like 25-40%. As such, if you’re one or the other, you should focus on not surpassing those percentages, and trying to fit link building within your already existing investments into marketing, only making its share bigger or smaller depending on how much your startup needs search engine visibility specifically. 

Furthermore, the amount of funds needed to be dedicated to link building also has to do with your industry. For example, casinos and betting websites require more funding than average given their competitive scene. Meanwhile, medical and healthcare sites rank based on their physical location, trust, and credentials, so they won’t need link building as much as others. A link building agency like GoPeak has experience with a wide variety of industries, so try to contact a team like them to guarantee flexibility. 

Finally, if your startup is oriented more towards functioning on a local scale, though link building is still very useful and should be paid attention to, you’re probably better off depending on your Google Business Profile and PPC.

Link building for startups is crucial for visibility and an establishment of identity. In the modern age, people rely on search engines and AI responses to gather their information, and though other methods of marketing like collaborations with influencers or standard advertisements are still incredibly valuable, for digital visibility, link building is a key part of helping your brand grow.