How to Get High-Authority Backlinks: 8 Proven Strategies

With a strategic link-building strategy, you can boost website traffic, improve your domain rating (DR), and establish yourself as an expert in your industry. 

But how do you actually get quality backlinks if you’re just starting out? Will publications even give you a backlink if you don’t already have a high DR?

In this guide, we’ll show you eight proven strategies for getting high-authority backlinks and some common mistakes that are seriously slowing your efforts. 

What Are High Domain Authority Backlinks?

High domain authority backlinks are links from websites with a domain rating (DR) of 70 or higher. Any site with a DR of 70+ will have a high volume of links directed back at it, meaning they’ve been around for a long time and are a trusted source. 

Getting a link to your website from a high domain authority (DA) website shows Google that you are a trustworthy source of valuable information. The more links you can get from high-authority websites, the better. 

Why Are High Authority Backlinks Important?

Getting links from high-authority websites is tough, so why should you bother? 

1. Boosted Website Traffic

Imagine you have a gardening brand and get featured in an article on the Royal Horticultural Society’s (RHS) website – the #1 website in gardening in the UK. 

With over 2.5 million monthly visitors, that’s an incredible opportunity to funnel new visitors to your website. Not all readers are going to click on your link, but you’ll almost always see a spike in traffic after landing a digital PR opportunity on a large publication. 

2. Better SEO

High-quality backlinks will boost your website’s SEO and help you rank better in SERPs. Google EEAT is a policy used to help identify and boost high-quality, trustworthy websites. The 160-page quality guidelines regularly reference backlinks as an EEAT signal, which shows how important high authority backlinks are in Google’s eyes. 

3. Higher DR

If you want to boost your domain rating, backlinks are among the most effective strategies. But quality is key; having a lot of backlinks from low DR websites can seriously harm your rankings, so it’s best to be strategic about which sites you target for linking opportunities. 

The higher your domain rating, the more opportunities you’ll get for sponsorships, ads, guest posts, and collaborations. You’ll also establish your brand as a thought leader, which is great for business. 

What makes high authority domain backlinks different from other links?

Anyone can get a link from a low-quality website, and there are even spammy offers online to buy dozens of backlinks from promotional websites. Don’t be fooled.

The DR of the website counts. If you have hundreds of backlinks from low DR websites, it won’t boost your website and could even harm your SEO.

It’s not a secret that getting a link from a top publication in any industry is a challenge, which is why they are like gold dust. 

Aim to get links from sites with a DR of 70+ for the best results, but use discretion when choosing which sites to target. 

You might find a niche website with a lower DR but highly valuable content. Chances are, that website will have a higher DR in the future, and by having a link already on the site, your DR will slowly creep up alongside theirs. 

How to Get High-Authority Backlinks in 8 Steps

Now you know why it’s so important to focus on link building as a marketing strategy, here’s how to get backlinks from high authority sites with our proven strategies. 

1. Create Highly Valuable, Linkable Content

None of the other strategies will work unless you focus on this one first. It doesn’t matter how fantastic your pitch is; no website will link back to you unless you have high-value, linkable content. 

As a starting point, your website should have twenty pillar blog posts that offer significant value to your audience. This shows you know what you’re talking about and gives visitors plenty of reasons to stay and click around your website. 

Next, create a highly valuable, linkable piece of content to use for your outreach:

• Choose a trending or popular topic that visitors want to read about. 
• Include stats, figures, and expert sources to boost the trust in your content. 
• Add high-quality graphics, infographics, videos, or other media to make it engaging. 
• Split your content with eye-catching headers, quote blocks, and short sentences. 
• Make it as shareable as possible with highlighted quotes, share icons, and interesting facts. 

The more shareable and relatable the content, the easier it will be to get links from high-authority websites. 

2. Find Outdated/Broken Links and Replace Them With Your Own

Make a list of the top publications in your industry (or more general publications that would be interested in your website), and look through some of their round-up posts. 

You’ll likely find broken or outdated links that you could get replaced with your own. Reach out to the editor and show them which article has a broken link and why they should replace it with your content. 

This is a time-intensive strategy, and you should be prepared for slow responses. To get the best results, you’ll need to find links in more recent articles that the websites are likely still circulating.

Although they might still use your link in older articles, it’ll take them longer to make the switch. 

3. Find Unlinked Mentions

Some publications might already mention your brand in their content; they just haven’t added a live link to your website. If you already have an established brand, you might find a lot of unlinked mentions you can easily turn into backlinks with a quick email.

Want to know the quick and easy method of finding unlinked mentions and turning them into valuable backlinks? Head to this guide. 

4. Create Pillar Pages

A pillar page is the cornerstone of a topic cluster. If you have a group of related blogs on the same topic, the pillar page is the central post to which all those pages link. It has a more general overview, tons of information, and evergreen content – meaning it’s not time-sensitive or able to go out of date. 

Your website should have a pillar page for each content category you write about, and each one should be ultra-valuable to readers. Links are more likely to come from these pages, so put effort into going above and beyond for your readers. 

5. Run Digital PR Campaigns

A well-crafted digital PR campaign is the fastest way to get high-authority backlinks to your website. Fortunately for you, our team at Linkifi specializes in creating winning PR campaigns that secure high authority backlinks from websites with an average DR of 79. 

When you invest in a professional digital PR campaign, all the hard work we’ve talked about so far is done for you:

• We’ll fix your forward-facing web pages to ensure you present yourself as an expert in your industry. 
• We’ll craft high-value, engaging articles that top publications love to publish. 
• We’ll pitch the leading publications in almost every industry, including the New York Times, Forbes, HuffPost, and more. 
• We’ll secure high authority backlinks for your website over a three-month campaign, with guaranteed results!

We are passionate about getting our clients the best backlink opportunities, and we’re here to take the hard work out of building your domain rating. 

6. Tap Into Guest Posting

If you want a more DIY approach, guest posting is a great opportunity. Find high-value publications accepting guest posts and pitch them a new idea. Here are a few tips for getting this strategy right:

• Websites will want unique content, so don’t publish the same post on multiple guest post sites. 
• Quality is still important – look for websites in your niche with a high DR. 
• Write an interesting email pitch that conforms to the website’s specific guest post guidelines. 
• Ensure you only pitch websites that include a backlink (not all websites do).

Guest posting can be hard work, but if you have a flare for content creation and craft a winning pitch, you could get your articles featured in some fantastic publications. 

7. Create Skyscraper Content

If you do a quick Google search for a trending topic in your niche, you’ll notice the top results are usually long-form articles that cover a lot of information. If you do a quick DR check using a tool like Ahrefs, you’ll also notice they likely have a high DR. 

To knock those websites off the top spot, you need to write longer, more valuable content that “beats” what they’ve already done. This is known as a skyscraper post and is a great way to get links from high-DA websites. 

Start with some research on the topic you’re going to write about and figure out what other websites have already written about. 

Next, expand on what’s already out there with a longer post, more stats, better resources, more value, and better graphics. 

Yes, it’s hard to create skyscraper posts, but when you have the best content on the topic, websites have no choice but to start using you as the expert resource. 

8. Promote Yourself on Social Media

Although social media promotion isn’t a direct strategy for getting backlinks, it does help with brand awareness. The more well-known your business is, the easier it becomes to pitch publications for guest post opportunities, and the more likely others are to link back to you. 

Plus, you are more likely to get links from publications if you’re doing well on social media. Don’t forget, the promotional aspect works both ways – if you’re getting mentions on social media, your brand is more likely to generate buzz online, so publications might want to feature you just to piggyback off that buzz. 

Common Mistakes To Avoid When Link Building

We’ve been securing high authority backlinks for our clients for a long time and have seen every mistake in the book. If you’re just starting out on your link-building strategy, here are some common mistakes to avoid. 

Not Focusing On Relevancy

Google’s ranking algorithm focuses on content categories, and your website can rank for multiple categories. For example, if you write about both photography and flower arranging, you might have a great SEO score for one and a terrible one for the other – it just depends on your content. 

When looking for link opportunities, make sure they are relevant to your brand. There’s no point pitching a high authority website in a category totally different from your own, and it could even damage your SEO and brand reputation. 

Over-Optimizing Anchor Text

The text used within the link is another ranking factor, so it must be relevant to the page it links to. However, constantly using the exact keyword in your anchor text can be seen as keyword stuffing, violating Google’s policies. 

If you get multiple backlink opportunities, vary the anchor text to optimize your backlink profile. 

Forgetting Internal Linking 

Your website should have an optimized internal linking strategy that connects relevant content and helps users navigate around your website. Without proper internal linking, you’ll only have a few pages that rank well with Google, which will limit your visibility and traffic. 

Make sure each blog post has at least 2-3 relevant links to other pages and articles, and create a simple site map that keeps your visitors exploring your website for longer. 

No Monitoring System

You need a process of monitoring your backlink strategy and analyzing progress. As part of your system, you should:

• Monitor for low-quality backlinks and get them removed if you can. 
• Keep an up-to-date record of your current backlinks from high-authority websites. 
• Track unlinked mentions and your efforts to get these changed to backlinks. 
• Monitor the DR of websites with backlinks to ensure they are active and high. 

You should also monitor your website traffic to see if you get increases following links going live on different websites. If you do get spikes, think of ways to nurture the relationship with the publication to replicate results. 

How to Get High-Authority Backlinks – Takeaways

Finding great PR opportunities, pitching editors, writing great content, and monitoring progress is a time-consuming and challenging process – but we’re here to do it for you. 

At Linkifi, we specialize in securing high authority backlinks from the leading publications on the internet. We’ll pitch editors, write the content for you, and boost your DR with almost zero effort from you. Get in touch today to get started!