Building white hat links is necessary for raising your website’s domain authority and search rankings.
You will learn about the three ways of link building, which you will discover when you understand more about SEO techniques. Black hat, white hat link building techniques, and gray hat link building techniques.
In summary, using white hat link building techniques does not result in Google. However, these link building techniques are regarded as “legal” as they do not interfere with search engine algorithms.
It’s important to know these link building techniques because they are used by many website owners all over the world. Plus, getting penalized by Google is a serious matter. Getting a manual penalty could cost you back months, or even years, of SEO optimization.
Let’s explore the “good” side of the spectrum and answer the question: what is white hat link building?
In this article,
- White Hat Vs. Black Hat Vs. Grey Hat Link Building
- How Does White Hat Link Building Benefit You?
- What Is the White Hat Approach?
- White Hat Link Building Techniques and Strategies
- Link building strategies that Google rewards
- Necessary Link Building Tools
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Final Word
White Hat Vs. Black Hat Vs. Grey Hat Link Building
The list of link building techniques shows the difference between the white, grey, and black hat link building techniques.
How Does White Hat Link Building Benefit You?
Implementing a white hat link building service to build links has many benefits. First, you’re safe from Google penalties. You won’t need to worry about getting penalized because you’re doing the right thing.
These methods are considered “future-proof” because these techniques are beneficial in the long run. These are golden link building standards – until someone decides to abuse them for SEO purposes.
The Dangers of Black Hat Link Building
If your site is involved in black hat SEO link building in link schemes, such as link farms and buying links, through black hat link building tactics then the site becomes prone to analysis and the search engine finds black hat links. These were once effective strategies until they were found by search engines that they were created for gaining links.
- Private Blog Networks (PBNs)
- Content cloaking
- Keyword stuffing
- Buying links
- Spamming comments
The results were low-quality, auto-generated content that brings low-quality links. Even more, these links are unreliable and search engines view these as practices of black hat tactics.
Once you’re flagged, your only solution is to do a full website assessment and fix all manual black hat link building actions on your site. Only then can you submit your site for reassessment. This usually takes a lot of time before they can process your request.
Grey Hat Link Building
Even though these techniques are in between white hat link building and black hat link building they are still illegal and punishable by search engines. It’s like playing with fire, but the fire will consume your whole site if you’re not careful. LinkDoctor™ doesn’t recommend using these techniques to build links.
- Web directories
- Link pyramids
- Duplicate content
Stick with white hat link building techniques to keep your site safe from penalties. You can look more into our blogger outreach services and experience the benefits of white hat link building.
What Is the White Hat Approach?
The White Hat approach to SEO concentrates on legal strategies that adhere to search engine standards. It emphasizes long-term approaches for improving a website’s ranking while maintaining user value and authenticity.
Backlinks and Link Building Techniques
- High-Quality Content: Create high-quality, captivating, and original content.
- Keyword Optimization: Integrate relevant keywords into your content, titles, and meta descriptions.
- On-Page SEO: Optimize title tags, meta descriptions, and headers, and make sure your site is mobile-friendly and fast loading.
White Hat Link Building Techniques and Strategies
Content Link Building
As we all know, good content is the key to establishing natural links. These links are valuable for search engines and increase your SERP ranking. By creating valuable content, you can attract readers to your site.
The secret to high-quality content is to make it about the reader and not your promotions. The more they can relate to what you’re saying, the more they will link back to it.
Using backlinks strategies helps the searcher’s intent, a plus factor for Google RankBrain. The more your content gives the users what they want, the higher you rank on SERP. Bloggers will see your site as an authoritative one, attracting more backlinks.
Guest Posting
Guest blogging involves producing content to be published on someone else’s blog. It’s a little challenging, but our guest posting services will gain you links from reputable blogs in your field of expertise that require following the host site’s guidelines.
White hat backlinks are generated from high-quality content that is interesting to the readers. This enhances the possibility that your guest post will be accepted. You can then ask for a do follow link to a resource page on your website.
Broken Link Building
When doing link building, some links expire, and break after some time. This can be because of a site overhaul or domains shutting down and changing ownership. These links are no longer functional and are considered broken.
This technique goes two ways. You can check for your broken links. After finding them, you can inform the site owner that the link is broken and should be fixed ASAP. Additionally, you can try using ahrefs broken link checker to fetch broken links. You’ll get the broken links back after the site owner fixes the problem.
Do a quick check using the Ahrefs Site Audit tool and see how many URLs have issues.
Ahrefs Site Audit tool results show how many URLs are with and without error.
Using the Site Explorer tool, check for broken links on your link profile and see which links should take immediate action.
Broken Link Checker shows no results, meaning that the domain is clear of broken links.
You can also search the keywords you’re using and find broken links that use the same anchor text. By letting the site owners know about the problem, you’re helping them with their SEO. You can suggest adding your link to the keyword and pitch what values your link can add to the website.
404 Link Reclamation
Just like broken link building, 404 link reclamation works on dead links. A 404 error means that the page you’re looking for no longer exists. You can search for a competitor’s 404 pages and use them to your advantage.
The idea is to offer a better linking opportunity than linking to a dead page. Make sure that your link is similar to the 404 page and provides the same (or more) value to the website. As the website owner, they’ll be inclined to say yes.
Unlinked Brand Mentions
Brand mentions are relative to the brand’s popularity. By creating linkable assets (like content, infographics, videos, etc.), you can get mentioned on someone’s blog naturally. These can be unlinked, thus offering an opportunity to build links.
What you need to do is search for brand mentions that don’t link back to your site. Reach out and thank the owner for mentioning your brand on their site. Give some compliments and humbly ask them if they could link back to your site.
Provide a reason why they should link back to you. A good one is because your link will give more value and insight to the readers. This tactic works wonders, depending on the popularity of your brand.
Press Outreach
Reaching out to the press is a challenging task. It requires you to make content that reporters and journalists would be interested in. Sometimes, you have to adjust your content just to make it newsworthy.
PR submission sites can be helpful. HARO, for example, is a well-known site for journalists searching for credible sources. You can also find opportunities manually.
For example, if you’re in the food business, you can look for news columns that feature food. From there, you can search for relevant news sites and reach out to them manually. You can then adjust your content and try to align it with the news column.
Link Building Strategies That Google Rewards
Use these strategies to get rewarded by Google’s algorithm through which you can recommend your content to readers.
Infographics
Infographics are visually appealing easy to understand importance they generate high-quality backlinks. Infographics promote sharing and referencing because they convey complex information clearly and interestingly. To optimize their impact, produce original, well-researched infographics and promote them using social media and outreach to relevant websites, improving the likelihood of receiving useful backlinks.
Example: Use visually appealing images that simplify and convey the information for understanding. The chart below from MarketWatch shows the major reasons for personal loans across the U.S.
Reasons for Personal Loans in the U.S – MarketWatch Guides
Google Search Console
Google Search Console is an important tool for effective link building. Monitoring your website’s performance helps you to find places for development and discover backlink sources. Analyzing data on referring domains, anchor text, and linking pages allows you to create tailored outreach plans, ensuring that your link building efforts follow Google’s criteria and increase your site’s authority.
Example: You can analyze the clicks, impressions, and performance of your website through Google Console and improve the CTR of your website. The below image depicts the performance of Altitudemarketing.
Guest Posts
Guest posting on other websites includes writing articles for other websites in your niche, and delivering useful information to their audience while gaining backlinks to your own. Concentrate on high-quality, authoritative websites with considerable audience. Create distinctive, relevant material that provides true value, and incorporates natural, contextual backlinks. This method not only increases backlinks but also improves your reach and reputation.
Example: Include anchor text inserting external links for other sites to redirect particular information. The below image represents the anchor text inserted in a blog by Bigcommerce.
Source – Bigcommerce
Build Backlinks
Building backlinks involves gaining links from other websites to your own, which improves your site’s authority and search engine results. Focus on gaining links from credible, relevant sources by providing high-quality material, participating in industry forums, and utilizing social media. Prioritize natural, organic links that follow Google’s standards to gain long-term SEO benefits.
Example: The below image shows a backlink for LinkDoctor given by Neil Patel showing the authority.
Source: Neil Patel
Necessary Link Building Tools
There are a lot of best link building tools on the Internet. However, there are only a few tools that you need for white hat link building. The only tools necessary for link building are:
| Link Building Tool | Content Optimization | Site Analysis | Outreach | Finding Opportunities | Broken Link Building |
| Ahrefs | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| PitchBox | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
| Hunter.io | Yes | Yes | |||
| LSIGraph | Yes | ||||
| AnswerThePublic | Yes |
Ahrefs
According to a link building survey made by LinkDoctor, Ahrefs is the most commonly used link building tool. The survey was conducted among link building experts.
The link building survey says that Ahrefs is the most commonly used link building tool.
It’s an all-around toolkit for SEO and marketing. If you need to check the backlink profile or the organic traffic of your competitor, Ahrefs has the tool for it.
You can also do broken link building using the Ahrefs Site Explorer tool. Find broken links, unlinked brand mentions, and so much more using this multipurpose kit.
| Pros | Cons |
| Easy to use. | Lacks free trial. |
| Helps in organic traffic and keyword research. | Not Compatible for Mobile |
| Provides efficient tools such as Site auditing, Backlink Analysis, etc. |
PitchBox
Although it’s been some time since its first launch, this old-timer still packs a punch. PitchBox is the tool used by link building agencies, like us. And it’s been a huge help because you can see other SEO metrics needed to see the quality of a website.
You can streamline and monitor your progress for each outreach campaign you do on PitchBox.
You can also make templates that are useful for blogger outreach. From here, you can talk to your prospects and pitch ideas to gain links from them. You can ask them for a guest post or a niche edit.
| Pros | Cons |
| Create email templates for campaigns and projects as per your interest. | Beginners may need some time to understand the tool. |
| Helps in tracking the email outreach campaigns. | Compatible issues. |
| Good customer support and service. |
Hunter.io
If you want to get the email address out of a website, then you should shop hunter io which Hunter.io is the tool that you need. It helps you find professional email addresses from a website. All you have to do is enter the domain on the search bar and wait for the results.
The Hunter io is an easy tool, but it requires a paid subscription to see the email addresses. This tool could be helpful, especially in email outreach.
| Pros | Cons |
| User-friendly. | Lacks social media research tool. |
| Search email addresses through the domain name and contact information. | No personal email searching. |
LSIGraph
If you’re looking for keywords to rank your page, you can use LSIGraph to generate LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) keywords. These are “secondary” keywords that are contextually related to your primary keyword. LSI keywords make search engines understand your content on a deeper level.
Just place your keyword on the search bar of lsigraph and let the tool find LSI keywords for you. You can do 10 keyword analyses per day if you sign up with your email address.
| Pros | Cons |
| Resolves synonymy issues. | Beginners might find difficulty in understanding. |
| Helps in performing automated document categorization. | Dense representation. |
AnswerThePublic
AnswerThePublic is a social listening tool that you can use to know what people are talking about. It lets you know what people ask about a certain keyword. Knowing what people ask gives you a general idea of the questions you need to answer on your content.
This tool gives you a good insight into the things you should include in your content. For people to find your content helpful and backlink-worthy, you should provide information that answers their questions. If keyword difficulty arises you can also look for answerthepublic free alternative. This would also optimize your content for web crawlers.
| Pros | Cons |
| Helps in keyword data in CSV format. | Lacks keyword research volume data. |
| User-friendly. | Lacks some keyword metrics like CPC, and keyword difficulty. |
| Efficient in brainstorming and Keyword researching on new topics. |
FAQs
1. Difference between white hat and black hat backlinks?
Black hat link building prioritizes immediate gain in traffic, whereas white hat link is helpful for long-term improvements at both the page and website stages. The white hat strategy can be more time-consuming, but the results are excellent.
2. How to get white hat backlinks?
One of the most common methods to earn white hat backlinks is to provide valuable content that people naturally gravitate toward. By creating high-quality, engaging content, you can develop an effective white hat link building plan that will increase your SEO efforts and drive referral traffic for years to come.
3. Why should I use White hat link building techniques?
White hat link building techniques keep the site safe from penalties and it is one of the best ways to rank your site in search engines. White hat techniques include guest posting, broken link building, 404 Link Reclamation, etc. It helps form a relationship with publishers in the industry and it also helps in long-term strategies and rewards.
4. What are some of the best White hat link building techniques?
Some of the best white hat link building techniques include:
- Content link building.
- Guest posting.
- Press outreach.
5. Why should I choose Ahrefs as a necessary tool for link building tools?
Ahrefs is one of the best tools due to the following features:
- Keyword research.
- Site auditing.
- Backlinking.
- Competitive analysis.
- On-page optimization.
These features make Ahrefs a necessary link building tool.
Final Word
White hat link building is an ethical and successful approach for increasing website rankings. Focusing on high-quality content and genuine relationships, ensures long-term success and adherence to search engine criteria, resulting in continued traffic growth and an improved online reputation.
LinkDoctor™ recommends white hat link building for effective SEO, which provides high-quality backlinks and enhances your website’s authority and search engine ranking. Avoiding black hat SEO techniques ensures long-term, valuable results for your online presence.
