How to Build Backlinks: Link Building Strategies That Work in 2026

You build backlinks by earning links and mentions on sites your buyers already read. The core methods are digital public relations (PR), list placements, stat updates, and partner content. Each one earns a link for Google and a mention readers can see.

Link building is offsite work. Offsite means content about your brand on sites you do not own, like publications, partner blogs, review sites, and forums. AI answers draw on these pages when they name brands. AirOps tracks which third-party pages ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity cite.

A few terms come up throughout. A citation is an AI answer linking to or footnoting a page as a source. A mention is an AI answer naming a brand, with or without a link.

A placement is a published link or mention of your brand on a third-party site. Guest articles and listicle inclusions both count. This guide covers 9 backlink building techniques for search engine optimization (SEO) and AI search. It also covers a link building plan and the metrics that show what works.

How does link building help SEO?

Link building helps SEO in two ways. Links help Google find your pages. They also help Google judge your relevance.

Google's link best practices name links as a relevance signal and a crawl path. That covers both jobs a backlink does in Google.

Discovery runs on crawling. Google's guide to how search works says Google finds new pages by following links from known pages. A link from a crawled page gives Google a route to yours.

AI answers follow different rules. Two AI metrics matter here. Mention rate is the share of AI answers that name your brand. Citation rate is the share that cite your own pages.

HubSpot checked backlinks against its own AI search data. Aja Frost, then at HubSpot, now Director of Growth Marketing at Mercury, wrote in a 2026 Mediaweek byline that HubSpot's study found zero relationship between backlinks and AI visibility. The study covered thousands of high-ranking Google pages.

Keep building links for Google rankings. Judge AI impact by the mentions you earn on cited pages.

Search rank still feeds AI answers. Kevin Indig, author of Growth Memo, ran research with AirOps on this. He said in an AirOps webinar that ranking first on a fan-out query earned 58% of citations. Fan-out queries are the sub-searches an AI engine runs to build one answer.

In this clip, Indig walks through who wins and loses in AI search.

Your own content earns citations. Offsite placements are how you earn mentions on the pages AI engines cite. Links do four jobs for you:

• Show Google new pages through crawl paths.
• Signal relevance to Google's ranking systems.
• Name your brand on cited pages when the link sits inside a mention.
• Send readers from the linking page to yours.

How do you build backlinks? 9 backlink building techniques

You build backlinks by earning editorial mentions on pages your audience and AI engines already read. The 9 backlink building techniques below each earn a link, a mention, or both. Each one helps you create backlinks and mentions together.

What are the best link building strategies?

The best link building strategies earn a link and a mention on pages people trust. Digital PR leads with practitioners. In Editorial.Link's March 2026 survey of 518 SEO professionals, 48.6% picked digital PR as most effective.

Editorial.Link sells link building, so read the result as practitioner opinion. The table compares the link building strategies for SEO covered below.

1. Run digital PR with original data

Digital PR pitches journalists a story built on your own data. Fresh data gives a reporter a finding no other source has. Ask for a link to the full dataset when the story runs.

• Publish one original dataset per campaign.
• Pitch journalists who cover your exact topic.
• Track linked and unlinked mentions.

2. Get into the lists AI engines cite

Listicles, comparison pages, and review roundups rank products in a category. Search Engine Land reported a March 2026 Wix Studio AI Search Lab study of 75,000 AI answers. Listicles captured 40% of commercial-intent citations. Your brand needs a spot on the lists AI engines cite.

You can check this yourself. Ask an AI engine a category question and read its sources.

• Record each cited list for your category prompts.
• Email the author current product facts and a reason to include you.
• Ask for a spot in the top three.

3. Update outdated stats on pages that already rank

You help an author refresh stale facts on a page that ranks or gets cited.

Stale stats give you a polite reason to reach out. You email the author and point out data points that are out of date. The author gets a more accurate page. You get a mention where your data fits.

• List cited pages with outdated pricing or stats about your category.
• Send the corrected data with a source.
• Ask for a mention next to the updated figure.

4. Reclaim unlinked mentions

You find pages that name your brand without a link, then ask for one. For AI answers, the mention already carries value. A reclaimed link adds Google value to a mention you already earned.

• Set alerts for your brand and product names.
• Prioritize pages AI engines cite for your category prompts.
• Ask for a link when it helps the reader.

5. Fix broken links on other sites

You find dead links on relevant pages and offer your page as the replacement. Broken links are common across the web.

Pew Research Center's May 2024 analysis of news and government webpages, using 2023 data, found broken links on 23% of news pages. Government pages were close behind, at 21%.

• Crawl resource pages in your niche for 404 errors.
• Match each dead link to a page you already publish.
• Send one short note with the broken URL and your fix.

6. Answer journalist requests on source platforms

Source platforms like Qwoted post journalist requests for expert sources. Each accepted answer puts your expert on a publisher's page. You earn a mention, and you can ask for a link where it helps readers.

• Answer only requests that match your expertise.
• Reply fast with one specific data point.
• Track which answers get published.

7. Guest post on relevant sites only

You write an article for another site your audience reads. Guest posts create backlinks worth having when the host site fits your topic.

Google's spam policies list optimized anchor text in guest posts as a link spam example.

• Pitch sites your buyers already read.
• Use branded or natural anchor text.
• Write the piece for the host's readers.

8. Build partner and podcast placements

Partners, podcasts, and industry media mention you to their own audiences. These placements grow from relationships you already have. Co-published research gives both brands a reason to link.

• Co-publish research with a partner.
• Pitch podcasts your buyers listen to.
• Ask hosts to link your resource in show notes.

9. Analyze competitor and citation gaps

You compare the pages that mention competitors with the pages that mention you. The gap list shows where AI engines find your competitors. You pitch specific cited URLs and skip mass outreach.

• Run your category prompts and export the cited URLs.
• Flag cited pages that mention competitors and skip you.
• Pitch those publishers first.

Budget and brand risk differ by channel. Use this trade-off view to pick where to start. The ratings reflect our editorial judgment, not measured data.

How to build a link building plan for SEO and AI search

A link building plan picks a few topics and targets the pages AI engines cite now. It checks each placement before it judges each topic.

Every step aims at one goal: more mentions on pages that matter. Those are the pages AI engines cite for your prompts.

A plan turns that goal into a target list. It also shows where your effort pays off.

1. Pick a handful of topics with many category prompts each.
2. Use category prompts, because branded prompts name you by default.
3. Cover every funnel stage, awareness through evaluation.
4. Rank citation domains by how often AI engines cite them for your prompts.
5. Prioritize recent citations, because citations change often.
6. Judge prospects by whether AI engines cite them, and treat DA as secondary.
7. Cover the long tail of smaller, topic-specific sites.
8. Ask every provider whether AI engines cite the pages they pitch.

Steps 6 and 7 break old habits. Moz's Domain Authority (DA) scores a site's link profile. Moz describes DA as its own score, not a Google ranking factor.

AirOps' March 2026 fan-out study analyzed 548,534 pages ChatGPT retrieved across 15,000 prompts. About 74% of ChatGPT citations went to sites with DA under 80. A lower-authority site that AI engines cite can do more for you than a high-DA site they ignore.

A large share of AI citations comes from smaller, lower-authority sites.

That spread rewards precise targeting. Ali McCarty, VP and GM of Managed Services at AirOps, describes this approach as careful work on specific pages rather than broad outreach. You pick specific cited URLs and pitch each one with care. Bulk outreach to unrelated sites wastes budget.

A focused plan also makes results easier to attribute. Pair blog content and placements on the same topic, then measure them together. That focus separates link building strategies for SEO from scattered outreach.

Patience pays here. In BuzzStream's February 2026 survey of 150+ digital PR pros, 85.2% reported measurable results within six months. The figure is self-reported, and BuzzStream sells outreach software.

How to measure whether your backlinks work

Measure mention rate, citation rate, and share of voice for each focus topic. Share of voice is your share of all brand mentions across a tracked set of prompts. Track links too, since Google still counts them.

Benchmark against your top competitor's mention rate for each topic. Competitors keep publishing, so recheck the benchmark each month.

Count unlinked mentions on cited pages alongside links, since a link-only report misses them.

Mentions on cited pages add up over time. See how offsite brand mentions compound into AI citations.

Traffic data needs context. Use three checks:

• Track AI-referred sessions in GA4. Read them as a floor, since people who never click from the chat don't show up.
• Add a "where did you hear about us?" field to your forms.
• Watch organic and direct traffic for lifts on your focus topics.

Measure trends across many runs instead of single snapshots. AirOps' analysis of 45,000+ citations across 800 queries found only 30% of brands stayed visible in back-to-back responses.

Common link building mistakes to avoid

These mistakes waste budget or put rankings at risk. Check your plan against each one before you build backlinks at scale.

• Buying links to create backlinks that pass ranking credit. Google's outbound link guidance says to mark paid links rel="sponsored".
• Chasing inauthentic mentions. Google's AI optimization guide says seeking them "isn't as helpful as it might seem."
• Mixing up citation rate and mention rate. Offsite work earns mentions, and your own pages earn citations.
• Judging prospects by DA alone. Check whether AI engines cite the page for your prompts.
• Reading topic-level results too early. Wait until enough placements are live.
• Tracking too few prompts per topic. Thin prompt sets produce baselines you can't trust.

What to do next to build backlinks

Start with one topic. Work through these steps in order:

1. Write the category prompts your buyers ask about that topic.
2. Run them in ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity, then export the cited URLs.
3. Mark cited pages that name competitors and skip you.
4. Pick two techniques from this guide that fit those pages.
5. Record mention rate, citation rate, and referring domains before outreach.

Revisit that baseline once enough placements are live. Add a second topic when the first shows movement.

AirOps for building backlinks AI engines cite

The plan above starts with one input: the third-party pages AI engines cite for your prompts. AirOps tracks those pages, along with your mention and citation data.

AirOps External Content brings strategy, intelligence, measurement, and execution to earning presence in the third-party sources AI engines cite. The next step is mapping the cited pages in your category.

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