How to Build Backlinks for a New Website (2025 Edition)

Edward, can you make a video about a link building strategy for a new website? What would you do? Thank you,

website? What would you do? Thank you,

Oleg, for the question. I'm going to answer that. Just the basics out of the

answer that. Just the basics out of the way. If you don't know, link building,

way. If you don't know, link building, it means getting back links. And

backlinks are algorithmic authority.

It's it's like positive word of mouth. A

backlink is when one site links to another site. And this is basically that

another site. And this is basically that site telling Google that the site that is being linked to is reputable, positive word of mouth. So you tell your friend, "Oh my god, you need to try this

product or you need to check out this website." And that's what a backlink is,

website." And that's what a backlink is, except it's literally with websites linking to each other. And then Google interprets that as one website vouching for another website. So we should trust

the website that is being linked to, we should trust that website more. These

are basics of search engine optimization. The more backlinks you

optimization. The more backlinks you have, the more trust you have, the more you can rank for competitive keywords.

That's the basics out of the way. Now,

there's more basics because I do a different type of SEO than everybody else, which is I target keywords where people are searching looking to take action. They know what they want. They

action. They know what they want. They

don't know the brand that is going to give them what they want. So, they're

googling trying to find the brand that's going to give them what they want.

They're not trying to learn. They're not

trying to be educated. They already

know. They've already learned. Now

they're just literally trying to click a button that says buy now, try now, use now, contact somebody. They're looking

to take action. And these keywords, they are super overlooked. These purchase

intent keywords, they're super overlooked. And because they're

overlooked. And because they're overlooked, they're less competitive.

And that means you need less backlinks to rank for them. Now, you if if you're a new website, it's going to be a brand new website with no links. You're not

going to rank for them. You need to have some links. You always need to have some

some links. You always need to have some your website in general needs to have some links. You don't need to get links

some links. You don't need to get links for the specific pages that are targeting these high purchase intent keywords, but you need to have some links to your web to your home site, to

your root domain, root domain, home site. You need to have some links in

site. You need to have some links in order to rank for these keywords. So, it

is important to build backlinks if you are a new site. And what I like to do is I like to build backlinks over time. I

stick with businesses for years, for years and years and years. So, this adds up. My link building activity, my me

up. My link building activity, my me going out of my way to get back links.

It it adds up. You think of a new paradigm shift and then you get more backlinks from that. There all these things add up and add up and add up.

With that said, there are basically three things that I do at the beginning when I start a new site. There are three things that I do to start getting back links to it. And that's what I'm going to share on this episode of the show.

So, it's the three key ways that I build links that I get back links to a new site to answer Oleg's question. And you

know, Oleg's question, it got some other people giving it thumbs up. So, that

means the community wants to know.

Community wants to know. And that's

that's why I'm making this. Thank you

everybody for upvoting that comment.

Number one, I I launch it. I launch my product, my service, whatever it is, launch it in places. If if you have a tech product, launch it on Product Hunt.

I actually have a amazing guide on how to launch on Product Hunt on my on my website, edwardstrom.com. You can Google

website, edwardstrom.com. You can Google edward.com product hunt and that guide will come up. It's also going to be in the description for this episode. You

can also launch on betalist. In any

niche, whatever industry, there are always niche specific platforms. You can Google them or do chatpt deep research or ask rock. There's so many different ways. There are so many niche platform

ways. There are so many niche platform niche specific launch platforms to to launch on. But also what a lot of people

launch on. But also what a lot of people don't do which you should definitely be be doing launch on social media launch on launch on especially LinkedIn launch

on X announce it on Instagram with a link in your story having Google Analytics when you do this by the way so Google Analytics can see say the brand name because some people might just

Google the brand name. Make sure you are connected to Google Search Console and you've had a a few friends click on your link to your site. Make sure you've submitted yourself to Google Search Console so Google knows who you are. So

when people are actually searching the brand name, the brand name comes up. You

want like the easiest way to do that is literally when you make the site, just send it to a few friends all over the place so they can click on it and again make sure it is submitted to Google Search Console. Google Search Console is

Search Console. Google Search Console is Google's own tool for telling it for telling Google, "Hey, I exist. This is

me and these are the pages on my site.

You should index me. I'm going to click submit index. You actually have to click

submit index. You actually have to click submit to Google's index. There's a

button to do that. Super easy. Submit.

Submit your site maps so Google knows who you are. Make sure that you are showing up on Google for your brand name. My SEO course, it's called compact

name. My SEO course, it's called compact keywords. I made it so when people

keywords. I made it so when people search compact keywords, my page shows up number one for compact keywords on Google. Very easy to do that. Make sure

Google. Very easy to do that. Make sure

you do that and then announce it with the brand. Have people literally search

the brand. Have people literally search your brand name and then click on it in Google. And I'll get back to this more

Google. And I'll get back to this more in a minute, but you you can do this with social posts, LinkedIn, Instagram, X, Threads, whatever. And then actually linking to your site as well. So that's

number one, launch, launch, launch and all these different ways. Launch

platforms and social media. Number two,

directories. I love directories. The

thing is, if you are a real business, you got to think about this. If you are a real business, you are submitting yourself to directories. If you if you're a real business and you don't know about SEO, you are submitting yourself to directories. That's

something that businesses that don't know about SEO, they do. That is just a normal business activity that you put yourself in directories within your niche and then overall general directories. And there are directories

directories. And there are directories for everything. There are directories

for everything. There are directories for every niche and then there are general directories. If you're a

general directories. If you're a construction company, you're you would go in construction company directories, but then you also create a LinkedIn page. You also have a have a social

page. You also have a have a social handle for your company. You're also in Crunchb. Like there are so many

Crunchb. Like there are so many different directories, general directories and niche directories to submit to. There are literally dozens

submit to. There are literally dozens and dozens and dozens of directories that you should be submitting to.

Alternative to that's another common one, alternative to.net. When I submit to directories, I have a template that I use because if you change something major, something like if if you're

changing the entire direction of your company, for example, you want to reflect that in your directories. So

whenever you submit yourself to a directory, just really quickly have a spreadsheet that tracks the email username and password and what you write as the description as the main

description for those directories four columns. Track this and if you're ever

columns. Track this and if you're ever making a big change, then you can spend a few hours changing that in all the directories that you submitted yourself to. But submit to directories. There are

to. But submit to directories. There are

local directories if that's relevant.

Again, there are dozens of directories.

That is number two. Number three, this is number three is more of an ongoing effort. Actually, one is kind of an

effort. Actually, one is kind of an ongoing effort, too. I I'll talk about this a little bit more in a second, but like whenever you make whenever you do anything with your business, announce it on social media. That's back to number

one. Number two, you're always finding

one. Number two, you're always finding new directories, but you're going to probably submit to the bulk of them at the beginning of your business. Number

three, I love I love expert quote platforms. These are platforms where journalists are looking for an expert for their stories to quote in their stories and they are writing a story

about X Y and Z. They need an expert to agree with the premise of their story or to help them write the story. They post

to a place like source of sources or help a reporter out. They say, "Hey, I'm looking for an expert for my story." You

answer, "You are the expert for that story." They choose you. You get a link.

story." They choose you. You get a link.

Bada bing, bada boom. And that's how it works. I would do one of these for one

works. I would do one of these for one of these per day. I would use source of sources, helper reporter out and feature.com. I have a so the founder of

feature.com. I have a so the founder of featured.com Brett Farmallow, he just bought helper reporter out which for a long time kind of was the gold standard.

It was the most popular of these expert quote platforms. On feature.com I have a 76% acceptance rate there. Whenever I

respond to a journalist on feature.com, there's a 76% chance that a journalist will use my quote and I will get a link from that. However, I think the most

from that. However, I think the most valuable you'll get the most valuable backlinks from in this order. Source of

sources, then help a reporter out and then feature.com. So, I would respond to

then feature.com. So, I would respond to just I I like to do things I I think it's a lot easier if you spread things out than trying to do things all at

once. So I would just respond to one

once. So I would just respond to one journalist a day and do that for a few months. Aggregate quote requests from

months. Aggregate quote requests from sources sources from help reporter out and from feature.com in a separate folder. And the way that it works these

folder. And the way that it works these these platforms work is they send out every day they send out emails. Hey,

these reporters are looking for quotes.

Can you answer them? If yes, here is their contact. So, I send all of these

their contact. So, I send all of these to a single folder on my email inbox and then I read through them each day. I see

what I can answer. I only again I only answer one a day. I prioritize source of sources above everything. I think it has the best journalists. Help a reporter out is second and then feature.com is

third. But you gen generally want to

third. But you gen generally want to look for the biggest publications especially ones that are in your niche.

The biggest journalists in your niche and you want to respond to them. Start

your response with why you are an expert. Then give them the quote that

expert. Then give them the quote that they are looking for. Don't try to pitch your business. You can do it if it's

your business. You can do it if it's relevant, but your about section is going to have a link to your to your site with language around what your site does. And so I would do that one one

does. And so I would do that one one time a day. And then over time, you get a bunch of links from that and it builds your authority that way. Those were

three ways. I also want to say, and I talked about this a few episodes ago, that was episode 659 of this podcast. I

just I genuinely believe linkable assets are the best thing ever for for link building. Linkable assets are creating

building. Linkable assets are creating something so cool, useful, or interesting that people can't help but link to you. I shared this story on episode 659 of the show of dothing.com.

Dothing.com is a simple web app that promoted the comm app. And on

dothing.com, you literally you don't move your mouse, you don't type. You do

that for 2 minutes and that's it. It's

it's it's meant to to promote mindfulness. This went so viral that it

mindfulness. This went so viral that it got links from I think 7.1,000 websites, 384,000 backlinks. You can't pay for

384,000 backlinks. You can't pay for those results. You could spend the same

those results. You could spend the same amount of time testing different linkable assets, launching them all on Product Hunt or in different places, seeing which ones stick and gamble that

virality game. Or you could do this like

virality game. Or you could do this like one a day, submit to directories, all of this thing, all this stuff. I personally

think the best way to do it is to actually do everything. Launch on the launch platforms, launch updates for your business whenever you have them.

That's what I I I want to stress that whenever you have any update for your business, launch it on LinkedIn, launch it on on Instagram, la announce it on social media. The thing about

social media. The thing about announcements on social media, blogging isn't as common as it used to be. So

normal backlinks are not as common as as they used to be which means Google is looking at other sources of engagement for that algorithmic word word word of

mouth. So actually having clicks to your

mouth. So actually having clicks to your site is really important. Google is is looking at that as another form of engagement. Google is looking at social

engagement. Google is looking at social media shares as another form of engagement. Now, the signals are not as

engagement. Now, the signals are not as strong as as backlinks, but they're strong enough to be worth considering, especially for new websites. Sharing

every update and being it being in other places, this also helps with topic modeling. It helps tell Google what you

modeling. It helps tell Google what you are about, helps Google understand what your what your website's expertise is, which then helps you rank for keywords

within that expertise, search terms in that expertise. So share every update

that expertise. So share every update and then do directories and and it doesn't take long to respond to a journalist a day, respond to one journalist a day and then try to think

of linkable assets that will go viral.

And if you if you think of one that's good, make it in a weekend and launch it on on a launch platform. Linkable assets

all about creativity. So I shared on that episode of this of the show 659. I

am I think now 7 days into this creativity challenge. The challenge is

creativity challenge. The challenge is use a random object generator. You can

Google random object generator. It will

give you five random objects every day and then just spend five minutes each day writing a a short story or an idea about how they're related. And it's not about the spelling. You just kind of

just let your mind vomit the story or the idea onto the page connecting all five of these random object objects.

Creativity is like a muscle. You can

increase creativity just like you can increase the muscles in your arm. is is

practice. And so I'm spending five minutes a day just working on improving my creativity because the best results that you can get with anything are usually the most creative. So I'm doing

that. I hope you all will join me for

that. I hope you all will join me for that. Share your results if you are.

that. Share your results if you are.

Again, I'm 7 days in without missing a single day. And then if you want to

single day. And then if you want to learn more about link building on my website, edwards.com, if you go to my article section, there's a big SEO button. I write about SEO, organic

button. I write about SEO, organic social, paid media, miscellaneous marketing, but there's a huge SEO button and I have more articles about link building there. And the last thing is

building there. And the last thing is for my SEO course, compact keywords. I

literally have a 2hour section showing me doing link building for for websites, showing what I use and messages that I send and all these different tactics that I have. It's a five video section

just on link building within the overall compact keywords course. I also have a template in that. So if you want to go even deeper, you can check out compactkeywords.com. And that is all for

compactkeywords.com. And that is all for episode 665 of my daily digital marketing show. 665 days in a row doing

marketing show. 665 days in a row doing this podcast. Thank you so much Oleg for

this podcast. Thank you so much Oleg for the question and everybody else who gave Oleg a thumbs up on that question because helped me to know that people really want an answer to this. So those

are the three things that I would focus on. Again, launch platforms,

on. Again, launch platforms, directories, expert quote platforms. Think about linkable assets. Announce,

announce, announce on social media whenever you have something to announce.

And I will talk to all of you again tomorrow. Bino.

tomorrow. Bino.