DEEP DIVE

Relationship link building

When I first started link building 10 years ago, my mentor (s/o Brian I know you’re reading this ❤️) made me read a powerful book called Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. You see, you need to persuade people to link to your site if you want those big juicy backlinks your competitors can’t get.

The persuasion principle I always return to is reciprocity. You know, “I scratch your back, you scratch mine.” Nowadays people call this “relationship link building,” but the concept is the same.

So how do you invoke reciprocity? First things first, you need to review my previous articles to get a full understanding of what we’re doing here. 

1. You need to create a legit persona.

2. You need to build contributor slots on websites, not guest posts.

3. Then you follow the outline below.

Got it? Good. Now that you understand we’re trying to get contributor slots on websites, we need to effectively utilize our hard earned slots.

Step 1: Secure strategic contributor positions

Taking the example from last week, let's assume I’m an SEO at Gymshark and just landed a contributor slot on BarBend. Now I write once a week for their news section related to all things bodybuilding.

I’ve hired a ghostwriter, and “I” produce one article per week for BarBend. Now yes, I could send some backlinks to my brand throughout these articles and be happy. But what I really need are links from more referring domains, not just the same old site linking to me over and over.

This is where reciprocity comes into play.

Step 2: Find other websites in your niche

Next I’m going to find other brands in the fitness industry, specifically those that offer products/services not directly competing with mine. Since Gymshark primarily sells fitness apparel, I’ll look for brands that sell tangentially related products:

• home gym equipment

• protein

• pre-workout

• testosterone replacement therapy

• and about 100 other options

From here I’ll start building an outreach list by searching these keywords in Ahrefs and finding brands with high organic traffic and a high domain rating—those clearly investing in SEO.

Step 3: Create value before asking for anything

Next up, you find the SEO or content manager’s email address and shoot them a simple message. You can do this in one of two ways:

1. Be straight up and immediately ask for a link. 

This is the simplest way to do things and will get you amazing results. If you can offer them a link on a DR 70+ site that’s related to their niche, almost everyone will say yes. This is hands down my best cold outreach strategy, full stop.

What’s more, since they are manually adding your link to their site, you can typically choose your preferred anchor text.

But if you want a bit more long-term focus, you can . . .

2. Give them a link and wait. 

I recently read an old article by Jon Cooper, and I found his idea of buffer zones extremely powerful.

To make this feel more like a relationship than a one-off transaction, give them a link in your article and then in two to four weeks, follow up asking for one in return.

You’ll get a response 9/10 with them thanking you and typically asking about you and your brand. Many virtual coffees happen at this point.

Now, when I finally make a request in two to four weeks, it's reasonable and comes with more value:

See what I did there? I'm offering MORE value (another feature) while making a simple, reasonable request. I'm not demanding a link exchange or complicated partnership.

Step 4: Scale without sacrificing quality

Doing the exact strategy outlined above has earned me hundreds of backlinks. If you want to take it further, you can.

Rinse and repeat the entire process and get more contributor slots on tangentially related websites as well. Instead of a bodybuilding site, try and get one on a CrossFit-focused site or a yoga-focused one.

You can then go back to people you’ve previously worked with and make the same deal. Or continue expanding your network by reaching out to new brands in these niches. 

The beauty of this system is that it scales naturally. As you build more genuine relationships, you get introductions to others in the industry. Your network expands.

One brand you feature introduces you to three others. Those three lead to seven more. Your link acquisition rate grows month over month without having to send 10,000 emails.

Step 5: The long game that actually works

This strategy isn’t fast in the beginning. This approach takes patience. You won't get 50 links in your first week. 

But six months in, you'll have links from high-quality, relevant, authoritative sites that actually drive traffic. If you want links your competitors can’t get, then you must do what they won’t.

What’s more, you'll have actual relationships with people who see you as valuable, not another irritating SEO in their inbox.

The irony is beautiful: By focusing less on getting links and more on providing value, you end up with more high-quality links than the desperate "Please link to me!" crowd could ever dream of.

Your next steps

Reading articles and theory is cool, but you know what will actually move the needle for your business?

Action. Don't just read this.

Implement it or send it to a team member.

Here's what to do next:

1. Build out a proper persona in your niche.

2. Identify 1–3 publications in your niche where you could realistically secure a contributor position.

3. Reach out with a personalized pitch offering specific article ideas that would benefit their audience.

4. Once accepted, create a list of 15–20 brands/websites you want to build relationships with.

5. Write content that naturally incorporates these targets in genuinely valuable ways.