Start where the math is best, not where the tactics are loudest
The fastest way to get backlinks for a new site is to convert the mentions you already have before you pitch a single stranger. People name your brand, quote your data, or list your tool in text without ever adding a link. Turning those into links is warm work: the person already decided you were worth naming, so you're only asking for the hyperlink. That converts several times better than cold outreach, which is why it belongs at the top of your list.
This guide ranks backlink methods by effort-to-payoff so you spend hours where they pay. It sits under our link building pillar, which maps the full strategy. Here we stay narrow: where links actually come from, and the order to chase them in.
Rank your methods by how often they convert, not by hype
Most "50 ways to get backlinks" lists treat a Reddit profile link and a national press feature as equals. They aren't. Here is a realistic ordering for a site with little authority, based on how often a given effort ends in a live, useful link. Treat these ranges as working estimates from practitioners, not lab constants; your niche will shift them.
| Method | Typical conversion | Effort | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unlinked mention reclamation | High | Low | Any brand with some awareness |
| Lost-link reclamation | High | Low | Sites with existing backlinks |
| Niche directories + citations | High (manual) | Low | New local or vertical sites |
| Community + profile links | Medium | Low | Referral traffic more than rank |
| Broken link building | Low | Medium | Content-heavy niches |
| Guest posting | Medium | Medium-high | Topical authority |
| Digital PR / linkable assets | Low | High | Scaling to hundreds of links |
| Cold outreach (generic) | Low | High | Later, once you have proof |
The pattern is consistent: the cheapest wins sit at the top, and almost everyone skips them because they aren't glamorous. Start there anyway.
Method 1: Reclaim unlinked mentions and lost links
An unlinked mention is any place your brand, product, founder, or a stat you published shows up in text with no hyperlink. Ahrefs, describing this same tactic in its guide on link reclamation, notes that recovering links you almost have is "easier, less time-consuming, and ultimately less costly than building new links."
How to find them: search your brand name in quotes on Google and exclude your own domain with a site: operator. Set a Google Alert for your brand and your founder's name. If you run a backlink tool, pull a mentions report. Then send two lines: "Thanks for mentioning us in [article] — would you add a link to [URL] so readers can find us?" Short and specific wins.
Lost-link reclamation is the same idea for links you already earned that vanished. Ahrefs lists the four usual causes: the linking page removed the link, deleted the page, redirected it, or noindexed it. A 301 redirect or a polite email often recovers these in minutes, because the relationship is already warm.
Method 2: Niche directories and citations that pass real traffic
Most directories are dead weight. A handful still do two jobs at once for a new site: a genuine editorial link plus real referral clicks. Prioritize:
- Your industry's trade body or association directory
- Curated "best tools in [category]" lists maintained by real editors
- Local citation sources if you serve a place: Google Business Profile and structured local directories
City-level and vernacular queries are exactly where a small niche citation still moves the needle. A search like "SEO agency in Pune" or a Tamil-language service query has thin competition for citations, so one relevant directory link carries more weight than it would in a saturated national SERP.
Skip anything that lists 400 unrelated businesses per page or demands a reciprocal link. Google's link best practices are explicit that links should be crawlable standard anchors, earned through merit rather than swapped in bulk. Reciprocal-link schemes are named in Google's spam policies for a reason.
Method 3: Community and profile links (chase the traffic, not the rank)
Profile and answer links on Reddit, relevant Slack or Discord groups, Q&A sites, and niche forums are usually nofollow, so treat them as referral-traffic plays, not ranking signals. That still helps a new site. A genuinely useful answer that links your resource sends buyers directly, and those visits build the brand awareness that later makes mention reclamation and outreach convert better. The rule is contribution first: post something useful ten times before you link once, or you'll get removed as spam.
Methods 4 and up: the effort-heavy tactics, worth it later
Once the cheap wins are exhausted, move up the effort curve. Each has its own deep playbook, so here's the tight version with a handoff:
- Broken link building — find dead pages that sites in your niche still link to, then offer your resource as the replacement. Steady but slow. See broken link building.
- Guest posting — earns topical, contextual links when you write for genuinely relevant publications, not link farms. Full method in guest posting.
- Digital PR and linkable assets — original data, surveys, or free tools that earn links at scale. BuzzStream's link building statistics report digital PR as the single most-cited effective tactic among practitioners, which is how sites go from dozens of links to hundreds. See digital PR.
For a company starting from zero, that sequence — reclaim, list, contribute, then invest in assets — is roughly what our link building for startups guide recommends.
Don't skip the audit and the on-page work
Two things quietly decide whether any of this pays off.
First, watch your anchors. Link text should read naturally and vary; over-optimized exact-match anchors are a classic spam footprint. See anchor text optimization. And keep an eye out for spammy links you didn't build; our guide to toxic backlinks covers when a disavow is actually warranted (rarely).
Second, links are wasted if your site can't distribute their authority. Solid internal linking passes the equity you earn to the pages that need to rank. Before a campaign, run a backlink audit to see what you already have, then study rivals with competitor backlink analysis. The domains linking to three of your competitors but not you are your warmest, highest-probability targets.
How many links, and do you pay?
Ignore monthly link quotas. Backlinko's guide to high-quality backlinks frames a good link by topical relevance, source credibility, editorial placement, and whether it passes authority — not by raw count. Set a target of two to five genuinely good links a month for a new site and let reclamation and directory work backfill the rest.
On paying: buying links violates Google's spam policies and risks a manual action. Paying for tools, data, or PR distribution is fine. Paying for the link itself is the line you don't cross.
You'll need to measure all of this: which links are live, which competitor backlinks you're missing, whether new links move rankings. That's the job of a backlinks tool, paired with rank tracking to see the payoff. DeployFlare does both from ₹499/month with UPI and GST billing, which is why teams switching from pricier suites often weigh it as an Ahrefs alternative. Start by checking a page's current rank on the free rank checker, then work down the method list top to bottom, cheapest math first.