Many beginners find it difficult to build backlinks for new blogs, but backlinks are an important off-page SEO measure to rank faster in Google.

However, this off-page optimization often requires more work and is more difficult because you do not have everything under control and often have to proceed indirectly.

In the following article, I will give you off-page SEO tips that will help you get backlinks for your new blog. I will also address typical SEO mistakes and explore the question of whether backlink building is still relevant.

Can you rank high in Google without backlinks?

Off-page optimization is only about one thing, namely backlinks. These are links on other websites, blogs, directories, etc. that point to your blog.

These backlinks do indeed bring visitors directly to the blog, and there can sometimes be quite a lot of them, but the real value of these backlinks lies in their importance for Google. Since the beginning of Google, by far the most important search engine in Germany, backlinks have been seen as a measure of the popularity and “value” of entire websites or individual pages. So it’s not just the quantity that counts, but also the quality of the backlinks.

Although Google has now significantly refined the determination of search engine rankings and included many other hard and soft factors, backlinks still play a very important role.

Depending on the niche and the competition, you can be quite high up with just a few backlinks, but you won’t get much out of Google without any backlinks. This is simply because Google couldn’t find your blog at all without backlinks.

Backlink Building Tips for New Blogs

Blogs have a big advantage over other types of websites when it comes to building backlinks. Due to the regular publication of articles and the stronger community, blogs often get backlinks from other bloggers, readers, social networks, etc.

This means that blogs do not have to carry out off-page search engine optimization as intensively and time-consumingly as is the case with affiliate websites or online shops, for example.

In my experience, active link building is only necessary when starting a new blog, so that you can achieve a certain standing with Google and get the first visitors.

Later, the blog content itself and its marketing in various online marketing channels will ensure that backlink building takes place almost automatically.

Manual backlink building for new blogs

Especially in the initial phase of a blog, it is often useful to give it a helping hand and manually create the first backlinks. This means that you don’t wait for others to add a link of their own accord, but do it yourself on other websites.

Of course, this is not that easy and certainly not possible everywhere. However, there are many ways to build backlinks.

In the following list, I present some backlink-building measures that new bloggers can carry out:

Use your own projects

• If you already have a blog, a website or another internet project, you can of course put a link to the new blog there. This can give the new blog a big boost, provided that the existing project already has a certain level of trust with Google and ideally it should also be somewhat relevant in terms of topic.
• However, if the project itself has no backlinks and no good rankings, the backlinks will not do much good.

Guest article

• Guest articles are articles that you write yourself and then publish on other blogs. Many bloggers are happy to receive good guest articles and you can usually include a backlink to your own blog.

Blog comments

• Comments in other blogs are one of the easiest ways to get backlinks. Of course, the “Google guys and girls” know this too. As a result, they are of little value. Nevertheless, you can use them to create a certain basis of not-so-high-quality links, especially at the beginning. I explain why these backlinks are also important in the “SEO mistakes” section.

Link purchase/link rental

• Does it make sense to buy or rent links for a blog? Most of the time, definitely not. However, for a blog that is professionally oriented from the start, it can be a possibility to get some high-quality backlinks right from the start. Platforms like SeedingUp and Backlinkseller are well suited for this.
• You can also contact people directly and rent links. However, most bloggers will not need this method to build backlinks.

Link exchange

• It is relatively easy to exchange links with other bloggers. Bloggers are generally quite open when it comes to linking with “colleagues”. However, you shouldn’t be too blatant and beg every blogger for a link.
• It works best when you have already been in contact and know each other. It is also often more promising if the blogs are more or less equally successful. So, for example, you don’t need to ask a top blog for a link exchange with a new blog. You also shouldn’t overdo the link exchange, but that applies to every SEO measure.

Private Links

• If friends, relatives, family members, etc. have a website, blog, or social profile, you can of course ask them if they will put a link. This is also an easy method and can create good backlinks.

Backlink building with directories

• RSS/website/blog directories are past their prime. Nevertheless, I would still use at least the higher-quality directories today.

Social networks

• As a blogger, you can and should use social networks. I am particularly active on Twitter and Facebook and have built up a pretty good following there. Of course, I publish news about my new articles there, among other things, and these backlinks are increasingly being evaluated by Google.

As you can see, there are several ways to manually get backlinks for your new blog. I have compiled many more backlink sources in another article.

Automatic backlink building for new blogs

However, my focus in backlink building is on indirect measures that happen automatically later.

As a blogger, you have the great advantage of being able to draw the attention of many readers and other creative people to your blog with great content and a little advertising. And that always brings voluntary backlinks.

In addition to exciting and high-quality articles that are very interesting for the target group, you can create backlinks with special article types.

Blog parade

• I occasionally hold blog parades on my blogs. This is a joint effort by many bloggers, where one person sets the topic and everyone who wants to publishes their article on the topic in their own blog.
• Often the initiator of the blog parade is linked in it, which of course means a certain number of backlinks.

Free Downloads

• Free downloads that arouse interest among the target group are a good way to get backlinks. Many bloggers like to link to such free downloads and they are also often shared on social networks.
• For example, I once published a free eBook and it brought in a lot of backlinks and new ones keep coming.

Organize a competition

• A competition can generate a lot of attention and, in doing so, a lot of backlinks. However, it should be a prize that is really well received by the target group and, of course, you have to “beat the drum” yourself so that the target group even finds out about the competition.

High-quality items

• The best way to get lots of voluntary backlinks is to write high-quality articles. I explain exactly what I mean by that in this article.
• In short, if readers are excited about an article, some of them will link to it.

Conduct interviews

• Interviews are a good way to make contacts with other blog and website operators and, among other things, to get backlinks.
• For example, I regularly interview publishers and authors for my board game blog via email. Many of them give me a voluntary backlink in return, as they naturally refer to the interview.

Linkbait

• There is content that is specifically designed to generate backlinks. Such articles are called linkbait.
• There are many different types of link baits, but they all have in common that they are so great, exciting, controversial, helpful… that many blogs and websites link to them.

RoundUp article

• One type of link bait is the RoundUp article. In it, I get answers from various experts on a specific topic.
• This round-up article not only provides great content for your blog but also provides attention, builds new contacts, and generates backlinks.
• social networks
• Today, the social web is like a parallel world to the “normal” internet. Your blog articles can be widely distributed there, although you do have to help them along a bit. But then it can take on a life of its own and the odd backlink can drop off on normal websites.

Indirect off-page optimization primarily involves building backlinks through attractive content. But you also have to do something yourself and distribute your content, for example, via your social channels. Over time, your readers will do the same.

Top 5 SEO mistakes when building Backlinks

When it comes to a topic like search engine optimization, there are of course not only light but also shadows.

Below I present the most common SEO mistakes when building backlinks for new blogs.

• Just think about Google
• Anyone who works intensively with SEO runs the risk of optimizing everything for Google or writing articles that primarily appeal to Google and are extremely controversial. That is a mistake. The focus is on the visitors to your blog or the target group. They should read the articles, like them, and come back.
• SEO is important, but you should never lose sight of who you are blogging for and think of your readers first and foremost when writing. This also applies to building backlinks, which is why you should primarily write articles that readers like.

Use SEO tricks

• There are many different ways to go about search engine optimization. I rely on the basic optimizations that are also permitted by Google. Others try to find loopholes in the system and use tricks to rank higher in Google than they should.
• However, such tricks usually only work for a certain period. As a blogger, however, you are looking for long-term success and therefore you should not use such SEO shortcuts and risk penalties from Google.
• When building backlinks, you should therefore focus on high-quality and relevant links.

Unnatural backlink structure

• Especially at the beginning, when you are manually helping with backlink building, you should make sure that a natural backlink structure is created. This means that you have a relatively large number of low-quality backlinks and relatively few top-quality backlinks.
• A natural backlink structure resembles a pyramid, with weaker backlinks at the bottom. If, on the other hand, you have just as many top backlinks from large websites as weaker backlinks, then that is unnatural and Google will take a closer look at it.

Backlink building too quickly

• Likewise, you shouldn’t overdo it in the beginning. If you spend hours a day manually building backlinks on a brand-new blog, Google will be skeptical. New blogs tend to collect backlinks slowly, so you shouldn’t overdo it and try to do too much too quickly.
• This will become noticeable at the latest when you build a lot of backlinks manually in the first week and then no more.

Money keywords as anchor text

• Bloggers like to link to their blogs using the main keywords when manually building links, but this is only partly the case with naturally created backlinks. More often, links are made using the domain as the link text or other terms such as “here” or similar.
• Therefore, you should not only link with the most important keywords but also use phrases such as “to the blog”, “read here” or the domain name as link text.

Of course, these are not all the mistakes you can make when building backlinks and optimizing your search engines.

I have presented many more in my article about typical SEO mistakes.

How far should you go when building backlinks?

As I said, blogs are in the fortunate position of being able to generate backlinks and visitors simply through high-quality articles and a little marketing. That’s why I wouldn’t recommend investing too much time in actively building backlinks.

You should not try to circumvent Google’s rules to get ahead using black hat tricks. Long-term success and a stable basis can only be achieved if you stick to the rules.

How much time should you invest in building backlinks?

You should take some time to do this and, especially at the beginning, manually create backlinks. You should also take on-page optimization seriously and regularly check whether it is OK or whether there is anything that needs to be improved.

Overall, you shouldn’t invest too much time, but rather spend most of your time on new content, communicating with readers, and marketing.

A blog lives above all from great articles and that is why you should plan most of your time for them.

Is backlink building still relevant?

There are always discussions about whether search engine optimization is already dead or not and whether backlink building is still up to date.

From my experience and my view of current developments, backlinks are still very important today. Google is trying to include more and more factors and become more independent of backlinks, but that is not the case today. At some point, backlinks may no longer be used as a ranking factor, but in the foreseeable future, you will not get very far without building backlinks and other SEO measures. On-page optimization has, however, become more important and should be taken seriously.

Search engine optimization has changed a lot in recent years, moving away from cheap manipulation and towards real and honest optimization. Overall, I think this is a good development.