Every guide about backlinks eventually reaches the same point: "publish great content and the links will come." That advice is almost useless for a new website. Nobody's watching yet. You can publish the best piece of content in your niche and wait six months for your first link — or you can be more deliberate about it.
This guide is for new websites specifically: sites with little domain authority, no existing relationships, and no press coverage. Here are seven strategies that actually work at that stage, in roughly the order you should try them.
Why Backlinks Matter Even More When You're New
Google uses backlinks as a trust signal. When another site links to yours, it's telling Google that your site has something worth referencing. For established sites with years of accumulated links, this trust is already built into how Google perceives them. For a new site, it doesn't exist yet — and that's the problem.
A site with zero backlinks is invisible to Google in a competitive sense. It exists, Google can crawl it, but there's no external evidence that it's worth ranking ahead of established alternatives. Even five or ten quality backlinks from relevant, legitimate sources can meaningfully shift where Google places you, particularly for the lower-competition keywords that new sites should be targeting first.
The other effect of being new: Google applies extra caution. The so-called "sandbox effect" means new domains often see delayed ranking gains even when their content is good. Building your first legitimate backlinks accelerates Google's assessment of whether your site is real and trustworthy. It's not glamorous work, but it's the work that unlocks everything else.
Why New Sites Struggle to Get Backlinks
The core problem is circular. Established websites get backlinks because people know them, and people know them partly because they have backlinks. Starting from scratch means nobody has any reason to link to you yet — not because your site is bad, but because it's unknown.
Cold outreach ("please link to my article") has low success rates for anonymous sites. Journalists don't cover products nobody's heard of. Bloggers don't link to competitors they've never encountered. Even a genuinely better product or a genuinely useful piece of content can sit unloved for months if nobody knows to find it.
The strategies below work precisely because they don't rely on existing reputation. Each one creates a path to a legitimate backlink that doesn't require you to already be known.
Strategy 1: Directory Submissions (Start Here)
Directory submissions aren't glamorous, but they're the fastest source of legitimate backlinks for a new site. For software products and SaaS tools in particular, several high-authority directories actively accept new submissions — and each listing is a real backlink from a well-indexed site.
The directories worth your time for a new product:
- BetaList — designed for early-stage products; free listing with strong SEO value
- IndieHackers — active community of founders; product page includes a do-follow link
- AlternativeTo — high domain authority, frequently scraped by other sites and shows up in "alternatives" searches
- Product Hunt — a launch can drive traffic directly, and the profile page is a strong backlink
- G2, Capterra, GetApp — if you have a product that can collect reviews, these carry significant authority
For non-software businesses: look for industry-specific directories relevant to your sector. A local business should be in Google Business Profile, Yelp, and any sector directories (legal directories for law firms, restaurant guides for hospitality, and so on). These carry additional weight for local search results beyond the backlink itself.
Time investment: 20–30 minutes per listing. You can get 8–10 solid directory backlinks in a single focused afternoon. Do this in week one — it's the most efficient first move for any new site.
Strategy 2: Guest Posting on Relevant Blogs
Guest posting means writing an article for someone else's website, in exchange for a link back to yours. Done well, it's one of the highest-quality backlink sources available to a new site. The key word is "relevant" — a guest post on a blog in your exact niche carries far more weight than a post on a generic business blog, and some of that relevance transfers to your site through the link.
Finding blogs that accept guest posts is straightforward. Search for: "[your niche]" + "write for us", "[your niche]" + "guest post guidelines", or "[your niche]" + "contribute". You'll find a longer list than you expected. Filter it to sites that have genuine readership — check whether they have social shares on recent posts and comments from real people.
The pitch matters more than people realise. A cold pitch that says "I'd love to write a guest post for you" gets ignored. A pitch that says "I noticed you published X last month — I have a different angle on the same topic that your readers might find useful, and I'd like to propose: [specific headline]" gets responses. Be specific about the topic, tie it to something they've already published, and make it obvious you've read their site.
What to expect: most pitches don't convert, especially from unknown sites. A 10–20% response rate is reasonable. Each accepted post will typically give you one do-follow link in the author bio and one or two in the body of the article. Budget 4–6 hours per post (finding the right blog, pitching, writing, editing).
Strategy 3: Create Something People Actually Link To
The most sustainable long-term backlink strategy is creating a resource so useful that other people in your niche naturally link to it. In SEO circles this is called a "linkable asset." The formats that consistently earn links:
Free tools and calculators. A free tool that solves a specific problem for your target audience will attract links from blogs covering that topic for years. If you run a finance site, a compound interest calculator will earn links indefinitely. If you're in HR, a salary benchmarking tool. The tool doesn't have to be complex — it just has to save someone a calculation they'd otherwise do manually.
Original research and survey data. Survey 100 people in your industry, publish the results, and you have something nobody else has: original data. Journalists and bloggers constantly need statistics to cite, and when they cite yours, they link to you. A simple Typeform survey and a one-page writeup of the results can earn more links than months of blog posts.
Comprehensive reference guides. A definitive guide to a specific topic — the kind of page that covers every question a beginner would have — becomes a resource that others link to instead of explaining the topic themselves. These take serious effort to write (2,000–4,000 words, well-structured), but they earn links passively once they rank.
The upfront investment for linkable assets is high. But the payoff compounds: a good tool or research piece earns links for years, not just in the week you publish it.
Strategy 4: Broken Link Building
Every website has broken links — links that used to point to a useful resource that no longer exists. When you find a broken link on a relevant site and have (or can create) a replacement for that resource, you can reach out to the site owner and suggest your page as a substitute. You're offering to fix their problem; they're giving you a backlink. It's a genuine value exchange.
Finding broken links used to require paid tools. Now you can start with the free Check My Links Chrome extension, which scans any page and highlights broken outbound links in red. Ahrefs Webmaster Tools (free for verified sites) shows you broken backlinks pointing to competitors. Start with resource pages and link roundups in your niche — pages titled "Best [topic] Resources" or "Useful Tools for [audience]" are rich with links that may have gone stale.
When you email a site owner about a broken link, keep it short: tell them exactly which page has the broken link, which link is broken (include the dead URL), and offer your page as a replacement with a one-sentence explanation of why it's relevant. Don't lead with asking for a link — lead with offering to help them fix something broken on their site. The response rate on well-targeted broken link outreach is meaningfully higher than cold outreach.
Strategy 5: HARO and Journalist Request Services
HARO — Help a Reporter Out, now rebranded as Connectively — connects journalists who need expert sources with people who want press mentions. Three times a day, you receive a digest of journalist queries. When one is relevant to your expertise, you respond with a quote or insight. If the journalist uses your response, you get a mention and often a backlink in the published article.
The publications that use HARO range from small blogs to major national outlets. A single placement in a high-authority publication carries more backlink weight than dozens of directory listings, and the traffic effect of a press mention compounds your brand's visibility in ways that passive link building doesn't.
The key to HARO success is speed and specificity. Journalists work to deadlines — they often need responses within two to four hours of sending the query. Be in your inbox when the digest arrives. When you respond, give them a quote they can use directly: a specific data point, a counterintuitive insight, or a clear take on a contested question. Vague responses ("it depends on many factors...") get ignored. Specific, confident quotes get published.
UK-based? ResponseSource works on the same model and connects you with British journalists and publications. Qwoted is another alternative worth signing up for alongside HARO.
Strategy 6: Build Genuine Relationships With Other Founders
This is the slowest strategy on the list and the most valuable one long-term. The founders, bloggers, and creators in your niche who are building audiences in parallel to you are also building sites that will eventually link to things they find useful. If they know you and respect what you're building, your content gets shared, referenced, and linked to in a way that pure outreach never achieves.
Where to find these people: IndieHackers, Twitter/X, LinkedIn, and the Slack or Discord communities for your sector. Show up consistently, be genuinely helpful (answer questions, give feedback on people's projects, share things that aren't yours), and don't approach these spaces as a link-building exercise. The links come as a byproduct of having real relationships — trying to manufacture them by asking strangers for favours doesn't work.
Practically: leave thoughtful comments on posts from people in your niche, share their content when it's good, send a DM when you found something they made genuinely useful. Over three to six months of consistent presence, you build a network of people who know you exist and are inclined to reference you when they write about your topic area.
Strategy 7: Get Listed in Roundup Posts
Search for "best [your category] tools" or "top [your niche] resources" and you'll find dozens of listicle articles ranking in the top results. Each one is a potential backlink. Many of these posts were written months or years ago, and the authors are open to updating them — especially if you offer a better alternative to something they've already listed or fill a gap they haven't covered.
The approach: find the roundup, check whether you'd genuinely be a useful addition to it, and send a short email to the author. Introduce your product or site in one sentence, explain specifically how it fits the article (not just "I'd love to be included"), and make it easy for them to say yes by providing a short description they can use directly.
The same logic applies to "alternatives to [competitor]" pages. If you're a competitor to an established product in your space, search for "[competitor] alternatives" and you'll find sites that specifically cover this comparison. These pages are warm audiences — readers are already looking for what you offer — and getting listed there is both a backlink and a source of qualified traffic.
Where to Start: A Realistic First Month
Week 1: Directory submissions. Spend a focused afternoon on BetaList, IndieHackers, AlternativeTo, Product Hunt, and any industry-specific directories. This gets you 6–10 backlinks quickly and establishes your site's presence across the web.
Week 2–3: Sign up for HARO and respond to every relevant query. Identify three blogs in your niche that accept guest posts and send your first pitches. Start looking for broken link opportunities on resource pages in your industry.
Month 2: Begin building one linkable asset — a free tool, a survey, or a comprehensive guide. Start showing up consistently in community spaces where your potential audience and peers spend time. Identify five roundup posts you could realistically be added to and reach out.
None of these strategies produce overnight results. But worked consistently across two to three months, they create a legitimate backlink profile that compounds — each new link makes future links easier to earn.
Before You Build Backlinks, Audit Your Site First
Here's the thing most backlink guides skip: backlinks work best when the site they're pointing to is technically sound. A slow site with broken pages, missing title tags, and thin content benefits less from each backlink than a clean, well-optimised site does. You can spend months building backlinks and see disappointing results if the underlying site has fixable technical problems that are holding back your rankings.
Before investing serious time in any of the strategies above, run an audit on your site. Find out whether Google can properly crawl and understand your pages, whether your on-page SEO is giving it the right signals, and whether there are any technical issues that are limiting the impact of every backlink you earn.
GoogleGain audits 100+ technical and on-page SEO factors on any public URL in 30 seconds — free, no account needed. Fix the foundation first, then build your backlinks on top of it.