More backlinks, less guesswork.
How many backlinks do you need, where do you get them from, and when is it enough? This guide sets out the honest answers: why nobody can promise you a number, how you spread your anchor text, what guest posting delivers and which route suits you. Earning them yourself, exchanging via LinkLoop, or outsourcing.
How many do you need?
reg. M.001The honest answer: it differs per keyword, and nobody can promise you a number. Anyone who names one anyway is selling certainty that doesn't exist. What you can do is read the answer off the pages that currently rank where you want to rank. Not the biggest name in your market, but the sites that resemble yours.
Yourself, via LinkLoop, or outsourced
reg. M.002There are three ways to get more backlinks without buying them. They don't differ in what makes a good link, but in who does the work and what it costs you. The bars are an estimate, not a measurement: they show the proportions, so you can choose what suits your time and budget.
Variation isn't a detail, it's the signature
reg. M.003Anchor text is the clickable bit of text in a link. Anyone arranging their own links wants to put the exact keyword in everywhere. That's precisely the signature of arranged links: natural references mostly use your brand name or a description, and only rarely the keyword you want to rank for.
One hour a week, every week
reg. M.004Getting more backlinks isn't a sprint or a campaign, it's a work rhythm. Treat it as an afterthought and you send three emails, hear nothing back and stop. Turn it into a fixed hour a week, and you build a list, an approach and relationships. The four steps below describe your work, not what Google does with it or when.
one hour a week, four stopsthe pointer doesn't stop
Four stops in that one hour. Choose a stop to read what you do there.
Guest posting and other work that earns links
The most reliable backlink is one you earn. A guest article can do that: you write a piece for a site in your field and get a mention on it in return. It works as long as you write the article for that site's readers, not for the link. An editor can feel the difference between a piece that adds something and a piece that's only there to point somewhere. The full approach, from choosing topics to writing a pitch that doesn't read as spam, is in guest posting for backlinks.
Besides guest articles, your own work can earn links too
A guide that explains something nowhere else does quite the same way, a free tool, a study with real data: that's the kind of material people link to on their own. For an online shop, that's rarely the product pages and often a good buying guide, as explained in link building for online shops. We do it the same way ourselves: the free tools and downloadable skills on this site exist because things that actually work earn mentions that a bought link never will.
And sometimes the most honest conclusion is that links aren't your problem right now
If your technical foundation isn't right, every link leaks away into a site Google struggles to read: start with technical SEO then. If your own pages are competing with each other, consolidating is the faster win. The free SEO scan checks in a few seconds whether your basics are in place, and the whole SEO structure shows where link building fits in: after technical work and content, never before it.
Buying, exchanging, and what it costs
Buying backlinks is the fastest route and therefore the most tempting. Google, however, explicitly treats paying for links that influence ranking as link spam, and detects it with automated systems and, where needed, a human reviewer. That can end up as a manual action, but it's often algorithmic: you just notice those links stop delivering anything.
So test every offer
What exactly can go wrong and how to check a link offer for quality is in buying backlinks: the risks NL. The four checkpoints from that page apply to every link, incidentally, including one exchanged for free: does the site match your audience, is the link in a logical context, does the page have real visitors, and would you want the mention even without the link.
Exchanging is the honest middle ground between earning and buying, as long as it doesn't become a reciprocal pattern
How that principle works is in peer-to-peer link building and in link exchange: how it works. LinkLoop is our own software for this: triangular exchange instead of pairs, ongoing link monitoring, and credits back when a link goes offline. Starter is free with 10 credits a month.
Then the costs
With us, link building isn't a separate subscription: if you're on an ongoing SEO programme at €250 a month, this work is included, and on its own it's charged by the hour at €65. Our service rates for SEO, Google Ads, social media and branding are on the pricing page NL, and the subscription prices for Jarvis and the MyParcel Dashboard are on their own product pages.
What the market around it does is another story
Prices vary widely; the overview is on what does link building cost NL and you can run the numbers with the cost calculator. Still torn between doing it yourself and handing it over, outsourcing or doing it yourself sets that trade-off out side by side. Want to build it yourself straight away, the complete DIY route is set out step by step in link building for website owners. And if you choose an agency, at least ask the eight questions from choosing an SEO agency NL: anyone who promises you a fixed number of links, a weight or a timeframe is telling you something they can't actually know.
Frequently asked questions
How many backlinks do I need to rank?
There's no fixed number for that, however often it gets promised. It depends on the keyword, on the pages currently ranking above you and on the quality of their link profile. For a local keyword, a handful of good links can already make a difference; in a busy market, much more is needed. So don't look at a number, look at your competitors: what's there is the yardstick, and it differs per keyword.
What makes a backlink good?
Four checkpoints. Does the site match your audience? Is the link in a logical context, rather than in a footer or a list? Does the page have real visitors, not just crawlers? And would you want the mention even without a link attached? If the answer is no anywhere, you're bringing in noise instead of value.
Should I use the same anchor text everywhere?
No, quite the opposite. A natural link profile consists mostly of your brand name and descriptive text, and only occasionally the exact keyword. The same optimised anchor text everywhere is a pattern that stands out, to Google and to readers. So vary it, and let the text fit the sentence the link sits in.
Does guest posting still work?
Yes, as long as the article is written for the receiving site's readers and not for the link. A guest article that genuinely adds something earns an editorial mention, and often a relationship worth more than that one link. Sending the same text out en masse doesn't work and falls under what Google calls link spam.
Can I rank higher without backlinks too?
In many cases, yes, especially if your technical set-up or content is currently the brake. A page that answers the search query better than the competition, with a strong internal link structure and clean technical foundations, can climb without a single new external link. So never start with links: check first that your basics are in place.
What does it cost if I outsource this?
If you're on an ongoing SEO programme with us at €250 a month, this work is included. On its own, it's charged by the hour at €65. Exchanging yourself via LinkLoop can be free with the Starter tier of 10 credits a month. What the market charges varies widely, and a fixed amount per link means nothing without knowing which sites are involved.
Start with your basics, not your counter
Getting more backlinks doesn't start with sending more emails, but with choosing better: one page, the right yardstick and a rhythm you keep up. Not sure whether links are your problem right now, let the free scan look at your basics first. If you'd rather talk through your situation out loud, we do that in a call, and otherwise you can always reach us via the contact page. Anyone tackling this themselves as a founder will find another variant of this approach in more backlinks as a SaaS founder, and all our own tools are listed under software NL. How an editorial placement comes about with us is covered by the backlink network NL.