How to Do Link Building: The Complete Beginner's Guide

A step-by-step guide to link building in 2026: what makes a good link, how to find the right publishers, and how to execute your strategy through a marketplace.

What is link building — and why does it work?

Link building is the work of getting other websites to link to yours. Google treats links as a form of endorsement: the more relevant and trustworthy sites that link to you, the more authority the search engine assigns to your domain — and the easier it becomes to rank for competitive keywords.

The short answer to "how do you do link building?" is: you produce content that relevant publishers want to publish, and you make sure there's a natural link back to the page you want to rank. The rest of this guide is about doing that systematically rather than randomly.

3-6 months typical time before results show

Relevance matters more than link count

1 page each link should point to one target URL

What makes a good link?

Not all links are worth the same. A link from a Danish publisher in your industry is worth far more than 50 links from random foreign link directories — and the latter can, at worst, damage your rankings.

Topical relevance: the publisher already writes about your field
A real editorial team and real readers — not a site built purely for links
A healthy link profile on the sending site (not flooded with sponsored posts)
Natural anchor text that describes what the user is clicking through to
A follow link in the body copy rather than in a footer or sidebar
An indexed page, so Google actually sees the link

Quality over quantity

Never buy cheap packages of hundreds of links. They typically come from networks Google has already devalued, and they make your link profile harder to clean up later.

How to do link building step by step

1. Choose your target URLs: Decide which 3-5 pages should rank: typically your homepage, your most important category or service pages, and a couple of strong guides. Spread links across several pages rather than only the homepage.
2. Find your keywords: Attach 1-2 primary keywords to each target URL. They guide both your anchor texts and which publishers make sense to be featured on.
3. Analyse competitors' links: See which domains link to the sites outranking you. This gives you a concrete list of publishers you should also aim to be featured on.
4. Build a media list: Filter by niche, authority (Domain Rating) and real traffic. Prioritise publishers where your target audience actually reads.
5. Produce content that can carry a link: Write an article that provides value to the publisher's readers, and place the link where it's natural to click through.
6. Publish and follow up: Check that the article is live, indexed, and that the link is follow. Log the date, publisher, target URL and anchor text.
7. Measure and repeat: Track rankings, organic traffic and conversions over 3-6 months — and scale up what works.

Anchor text: the most overlooked detail

Anchor text is the words the link sits on. A natural distribution is the safest approach: mostly branded or neutral, with a smaller share using your keywords.

Branded: "Linkfabrikken" — safe and trustworthy
Neutral: "read more here", "see the guide" — natural in body copy
URL: "linkfabrikken.dk" — well suited for sources and fact boxes
Partial match: "guide to link building" — use sparingly
Exact match: "buy backlinks" — only rarely, and never repeatedly

Rule of thumb

If you read the article aloud and the link sounds bolted on, the anchor text is wrong. Rewrite it so it fits naturally into the sentence.

Tiers: why not all links should cost the same

Publishers are typically grouped into tiers based on authority, traffic and editorial weight. A sound strategy blends the tiers so the profile looks natural and the budget stretches further.

Tier A/B — the heavyweight publishers

High Domain Rating and a real readership
Strong impact on authority and brand
Higher cost and longer turnaround
Use them for your most important target URLs

Tier C/D — niche publishers

Sharp topical relevance to your industry
Lower cost — good for volume
Faster publication
Use them for breadth and depth in your link profile

A common distribution for a smaller business is 1-2 heavyweight placements per quarter, supplemented with a steady flow of niche placements every month.

How to use a marketplace to execute your strategy

Classic outreach — finding editors, writing emails and negotiating — typically takes hours per link. A marketplace gathers publishers, prices and turnaround times in one place, so you can go straight from selection to order.

Filter the marketplace by niche, Domain Rating, traffic and price
Compare package types: brand mention, editorial guest post or feature
Choose your target URL and anchor text, and write a short, precise brief
Approve the draft during the revision round before publication
Save the published link in your own link log

How this works here

On this marketplace, you can freely browse and compare publishers. Placing the order and tracking it happens in the Linkfabrikken app once you've created an account.

5 classic beginner mistakes

✓ All links point to the homepage — spread them across relevant subpages
✓ The same exact anchor text used repeatedly
✓ Buying cheap bulk links from irrelevant domains
✓ No documentation of what was bought and when
✓ Impatience: abandoning the strategy after 6 weeks with no results

How do you measure whether it's working?

Links are an investment with a delayed effect. Track a fixed set of metrics every month so you see the trend rather than random fluctuations.

Rankings for your primary keywords per target URL
Organic traffic to the pages you're building links to
Number of referring domains over time
Referral traffic and conversions from individual publishers

Link building rewards those who work systematically for 12 months — not those who buy 20 links in one week.