What is link building?
Link building (part of off-page SEO) is everything that leads other websites to point to yours. Each of those references is called a backlink.
Google reads a backlink like a recommendation: another site finds your content useful enough to send its readers to you. That’s why good backlinks are still one of the important ranking signals – alongside content that answers the search query and clean technical SEO.
There’s a second effect: sites that are mentioned and linked by reputable sources also show up more often as sources in AI answers from ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity. I explain how that fits together in GEO vs. SEO.
Why does link building matter so much for startups?
A startup starts from zero. The domain is new, hardly anyone links to it, and competitors have often been building trust for years. Even if your content is better, you lack outside endorsement at first.
Link building helps in two ways:
- With Google: your first relevant links show that your offer has arrived in the industry.
- With people: when customers, partners and investors find you in trade portals, media and partner sites, they take you seriously as a brand.
Order matters, though. Link building amplifies what’s already there. If your page doesn’t answer the query well, links won’t fix it. So check your content and technical setup first – for example with my free SEO Compass: enter your address, answer a few short questions and within a few minutes you’ll see where your biggest levers are.
Where can startups find good link sources?
The best links come from real relationships and content people want to share. These sources work well for young companies:
| Link source | Why it works | How to get it |
|---|---|---|
| Your own content (guides, data, studies) | Others cite it voluntarily | Pick a topic your audience has questions about and answer it more thoroughly than anyone else |
| Guest articles on specialist sites | Topical relevance and new readers | Only write for sites your audience actually reads, and bring real substance |
| Startup portals and founder directories | The right context, often edited | Create a profile, post job openings, pitch an editorial piece if you have a good story |
| Tech and business media | Reach and trust | Offer a story that goes beyond your product: numbers, lessons learned, a clear opinion |
| Customers, suppliers, partners | A real business relationship, high relevance | Ask for a reference or partner page, publish case studies together |
| Investors, accelerators, funding programmes, universities | Reputable domains linked to the startup scene | Check portfolio and participant pages to make sure you’re linked |
| Local media, industry and job portals | Regional and topical relevance | Actively share news, events and open positions |
| Events, talks, podcasts | Speaker and guest pages usually link out | Apply as a speaker or guest, write about your own talks |
How is B2B link building different?
B2B and B2C SEO differ a lot when it comes to links. For specialised technical products, there are fewer forums, blogs and comparison sites that could link to you.
In B2B it pays to work through your own network systematically:
- Customers: reference pages, joint case studies, testimonials.
- Suppliers and technology partners: partner and integration pages.
- Associations and chambers: member directories, expert articles, events.
- Trade fairs and conferences: exhibitor and speaker profiles.
- Trade and industry media: expert pieces on questions your audience genuinely cares about.
- Local media and job boards: company news, open roles.
How to set up a B2B website so it actually generates enquiries is covered on my B2B SEO page.
What makes a link profile look natural?
A link profile is the full set of links pointing to your website. Google can tell quickly whether it grew naturally or was built artificially. These rules keep it healthy:
- Quality over quantity: one link from a well-known specialist site outweighs many links from random pages.
- Relevance: the best links come from sites in your industry or close to your topic.
- Varied anchor text: anchor text is the clickable text of a link. If every link uses your exact target keyword, it looks engineered. A natural mix includes your brand name, the URL, topic terms and neutral phrases.
- Steady, not sudden: links should come in over time, not a hundred in one week and then nothing for months.
- A mix of sources: not only blogs or only directories, but different types of sites.
- Strong and weaker sites: Google stopped showing public PageRank scores in 2016. SEO tools estimate domain strength with their own metrics – useful pointers, not Google values. A natural profile has links from big and small sites.
- Nofollow belongs too: links marked
rel="nofollow",rel="sponsored"orrel="ugc"generally don’t pass ranking value, though since 2019 Google treats them as hints. They still bring visitors and are part of a natural profile.
Which links do more harm than good?
Some links look like shortcuts and get expensive later. Stay away from:
- Paid links without disclosure: Google’s spam policies classify them as link spam.
- Large-scale link swaps: “you link to me, I link to you” as a system stands out.
- Bad neighbourhoods: links from sites full of spam, auto-generated text or with no connection to your topic.
- Mass directory submissions: a few well-maintained industry directories make sense; hundreds of automated entries don’t.
- Guest post farms: sites that publish any article for money, increasingly generated with AI.
These days Google usually just ignores such links. In worse cases you get a manual action, which shows up in Google Search Console.
How should a startup get started?
- Check the basics: does your site answer your audience’s questions, and is the technical side clean? A quick way to start is the SEO Compass.
- List existing relationships: customers, partners, investors, universities, associations – who could link to you today?
- Create one piece worth linking to: a guide, a small data analysis or a tool that genuinely helps your audience.
- Set up profiles: in the startup portals and industry directories your audience uses.
- Tell your story: what makes you different? Take that to media and podcasts.
- Measure: the “Links” report in Google Search Console shows which sites link to you.
Where does link building fit into an SEO strategy?
Link building is one building block, not the whole strategy. In practice the first big lever is often content and technical SEO – good links then amplify the effect.
If you want to know where your biggest lever is, SEO consulting helps. For an overview of all building blocks, see my SEO solutions and how I work as an SEO consultant in Hamburg.
