Checklist
White-hat link building checklist
Twenty-six checks across the five stages of an outreach campaign. Work through it before your first send, then keep it next to you as a pre-flight check. Your ticks are saved in this browser.
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1. Your site is worth linking to
Editors click through before they add anyone. Make that click work for you.
2. You're pitching the right posts
Targeting decides most of the result. A great email to the wrong post still fails.
3. The email
Short, specific and easy to say yes or no to.
4. Sending without hurting your domain
Protect your main domain and the deliverability of everything else you send.
5. After the link goes live
The work isn't over when they say yes.
Not sure which methods pass the checklist? Our ranked list of backlink methods scores each one for effort and risk, and how to tell a good backlink from a bad one explains what to check on every link you win. For the pitching stage, start from the outreach email templates.
Questions people ask
What counts as white-hat link building?
Earning links that an editor chooses to give because the link is useful to their readers: getting added to relevant lists, replacing broken links, being cited for data or expertise. It excludes paying for links, link exchanges at scale, private blog networks and automated link placement.
Is guest posting white-hat?
Writing a genuinely useful article for a relevant publication is fine. Guest posting done at scale purely for keyword-anchored links is what Google's spam policies target. If the site publishes anything for a fee, treat it as a paid link.
How many links per month is normal?
There's no target number. A handful of relevant editorial links from real sites beats dozens from low-quality ones, and a steady pace looks more natural than a sudden spike.
Related
How to choose sites to pitch
Score a post before you spend time on the email.
Mailbox warmup calculator
Plan the ramp for a new outreach mailbox.
Link outreach email templates
19 short templates for listicles, alternatives posts, guest posts, link insertions, resource pages, broken links, unlinked mentions, media and podcast pitches, journalist requests, follow-ups and paid-link or swap replies, each with a worked example.
See where your next links could come from.
Paste your URL. The agent finds lists, comparison pages, resource pages and guides where your product fits, checks each site and finds the editor to contact. Free, no card.
