When Should You Begin Building Backlinks?
By: Cassidy Richey
You should begin building backlinks once your website is fully operational, properly structured, and indexed by search engines. This ensures that search engines can crawl and understand your site before you start acquiring backlinks. Avoid rushing the process—starting too early can appear manipulative, so it’s best to wait a few weeks after launch before actively pursuing backlinks.
Key Points About When to Build Backlinks:
- After Website Launch: Don’t start building backlinks until your site is fully functional and indexed by search engines.
- Quality Over Quantity: Focus on earning backlinks from relevant, high-authority websites instead of mass-acquiring low-quality links.
- Gradual and Strategic Growth: Build links steadily over time to maintain a natural backlink profile and avoid being flagged as spam.
- Content-First Approach: Prioritize creating valuable content that naturally attracts backlinks rather than relying solely on outreach.
Backlinks are the necessary highways of the internet. With them, users can jump from one page to the next and explore new topics, ideas, and brands. In a nutshell, backlinks are one of the many reasons “the Information Age” is as powerful as it is. If you ignore them, their power, and the importance of link building, your website will have less traffic, a lower authority, and overall less attention for searchers — all of which can lead to fewer conversions and sales.
While backlinks are highly beneficial, they can be hard to build on your own. In an ideal world, high-authority sites would naturally link to your site. In reality, sometimes you have to put in more effort, which can take more time and work if you do it alone. Backlinks aren’t something you can put on the back burner, either. If you lag now, it’ll be even more challenging to build an established and healthy backlink portfolio later, especially if you’re in a circumstance that requires backlinks to boost your efforts. Let’s take a look at some of those situations.
You Want To Spread Brand Awareness
While backlinks are a major currency used in SEO, they’re also a prominent way to build brand awareness. Like other marketing tactics, backlinks help introduce your brand to new audiences. When another site links to your content, more readers will be exposed to your website, which can spread your brand name to audiences you wouldn’t normally target.
For example, if an industry blog references your article or a local news outlet mentions your business, their audience becomes aware of your brand. Over time, these mentions help establish your company as a trusted resource, making people more likely to recognize and engage with your brand.
You Want To Boost Your Website’s Traffic
Backlinks act as digital pathways that lead users from other websites to yours, naturally increasing your direct traffic. When you receive more direct traffic, Google and other search engines will assume that users find your site helpful. When organizing sites in the SERPs (search engine result pages) for specific keywords, web crawlers will analyze several factors on each website. For one, they’ll analyze the traffic on the website. They’ll also analyze each website’s backlinks portfolio.
If these web crawlers note that your website is highly connected with other high-authority websites through backlinks that are relevant to keywords in your industry, not only will they assume your site has credibility, but they’ll also see that your site is highly relevant to searchers using your industry keywords. Therefore, if you have a more established backlink portfolio and more traffic, Google will rank your website higher in the SERPs. This will also help you gain more organic traffic, creating a self-perpetuating cycle of traffic and SEO value.
Your Competitors Are Building Backlinks—Are You?
We analyze competitor backlinks to identify where they’re gaining authority, uncover high-value link opportunities in your industry, and craft a customized strategy to help you secure stronger, more relevant backlinks that boost your rankings and set you apart.
You Want To Build Your Website’s Authority
Everyone wants to be a trusted source of information. You can establish this kind of reputation by building a backlink portfolio filled with higher-authority websites that can share link juice. Otherwise known as “link equity,” link juice is any authority or value a site lends to another. If a high-authority website provides a followed link to your website, it shares any authority — link juice — it has with you. (Note that link juice is primarily shared through followed links — no follow links tell web crawlers to ignore the link, and as a result, they won’t pass value to the backlink).
Not only does link juice boost your credibility in the eyes of search engines, but it also raises it with real people. If people find you through a higher-authority backlink, they’ll be more likely to click on the link, leading to more traffic and, as a result, a higher domain authority. Because of this, it’s essential to prioritize link building if you want your site to boost its domain authority score, as you’ll run into more authoritative sites that are relevant in your industry.
You’ve Published or Updated New Content
There are many reasons why you may publish new content. Maybe you’re updating old pages. Maybe you’re publishing new content to target promising new keywords in your industry. Regardless of the reason, building backlinks to these same pages can help them become more impactful, as the act will amplify the traffic they receive on top of organic searches. If you establish your new content as a helpful resource through backlinking early on, your website will perform better in the SERPs now and in the future.
You’re Lagging in the SERPs
It can be discouraging if your website doesn’t appear at the top of the SERPs for top keywords in your industry, especially if you’re uncertain why. One notorious reason is that you are building backlinks in the wrong niche or focusing on the wrong keywords. However, if you scrutinize your competitor’s backlink profile and see where they’ve had success, you can hone in on keywords and sites that can help expose you to untapped audiences.
Your Website Was Negatively Affected by an Algorithm Update
Google’s primary goal is to optimize the average searcher experience. This goal means that, inevitably, they’ll update the algorithm, affecting most websites — for good or bad. Take the 2024 spam update, for example. To help users receive better search results, Google started penalizing sites that published too much low-quality content. As a result, many sites, even if they made a concentrated effort at publishing high-quality content, found their traffic dropping seemingly overnight.
While these updates can happen at any time, all is not lost. You may just need to revisit your SEO strategy and concentrate more on building backlinks, writing new content, and finding other ways to illustrate value to Google. This can help offset some of the effects of an algorithm update, which can help convince Google that searchers find your website helpful.
You Have a New Website
When you first build a website, you’re starting from scratch. You don’t have a credible history or an established backlink portfolio, and as a result, you won’t have a high domain authority score. This is because domain rating sites like Moz or Ahrefs calculate your domain authority with machine learning that analyzes your website’s backlink profile. With no portfolio, you’ll naturally have a low score. However, if you hit the ground running with backlinks early on, your domain authority will rise much quicker. As a result, you’ll be able to catch up with your competitors and maybe even surpass their ranking in the future.
Key Considerations for Building Backlinks
Before you start contacting website owners to build backlinks, know that all backlinks aren’t created equal. Only the best backlinks can help you see any change on your website. Additionally, you can’t just thoughtlessly reach out to guest posting sites and expect immediate results. Instead, your backlinking efforts should be a lot more strategic. Learn more below.
Backlink Relevancy
The last thing you want when building links is to confuse readers — that’s why relevancy is key. Any backlink you build should be on a page or a site that aligns thematically with your website. If it isn’t relevant, Google may flag the link as spam or manipulative. Not only will this flag affect your backlink, but it could also harm your site’s ranking and reputation. Avoiding this possibility starts by looking at the relevancy of each site you build links with.
Backlink Amount and Frequency
Just like Google will flag any backlinks irrelevant to the target site, Google may also label your website as spam if you build too many backlinks too quickly. Google has been very transparent about the fact that they’ve been trying to crack down on inorganic or unnatural results that aim to boost backlinks. This means that if you create content or backlinks that aren’t humanly possible to create in a given amount of time, Google will consider them artificial and flag your website, which could lead to lower traffic and authority scores, and even remove the page entirely from the SERPs.
Link Quality
Even if your site doesn’t have an extensive backlink portfolio, your website will perform better if you invest more in building high-quality links. But what makes a link high-quality? Here are some factors Google considers when evaluating the merit of a backlink:
- Relevance: Building backlinks with websites relevant to your website and content indicates that your links are helpful to readers.
- Trust: Backlinks from trustworthy websites with a history of accurate, reliable content help establish your site’s credibility. Search engines value links from sources that demonstrate expertise and reliability.
- Authority: Links from highly authoritative websites carry more weight and are more substantial endorsements of your content. Websites like well-known publications, educational institutions, and industry leaders typically have strong authority.
Track Your Backlink Performance
Building backlinks isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it activity. It’s something you consistently have to work at to see any results. Start by monitoring key performance indicators (KPIs) like referral traffic, domain authority, search engine rankings, and the number of new backlinks, which helps you assess the effectiveness of your backlink strategy. Tools like Google Search Console, Ahrefs, or SEMrush can provide insights into where your backlinks are coming from, which pages are gaining the most links, and how those links influence your search performance.
If you find any of these metrics lacking, you may want to change your approach. For example, if your backlinks are leading readers to pages they’re interested in, you may want to write more linkable content that could interest them. The best way to evaluate this is to look at the traffic and click-through rates on specific pages.
Likewise, if website owners aren’t responding to your inquiries about guest posts with backlinks, you may need to change up your outreach methods and be more personable, send better pitches, etc.
The key is not to stagnate. The only way to see results is to keep moving forward.
Outreach Exhausting You? Leave it to the Experts.
Successful link-building isn’t just about sending emails—it’s about building real relationships with high-authority websites, crafting compelling pitches, and securing quality backlinks that actually move the needle. Our team handles everything, from prospecting and outreach to negotiation and placement, so you can focus on growing your business while we strengthen your SEO with high-value links. Let us take the work off your plate and deliver results that matter.
FAQs About When to Build Backlinks
What Are Backlinks and Why Are They Important?
Backlinks are links from one website to another and are crucial to search engine optimization (SEO). Users who click them can drive direct traffic to your website, which will help with your search engine rankings.
How Do I Know If My Website Needs Backlinks?
Your website may need backlinks if you’re struggling to rank for competitive keywords, experiencing low organic traffic, or aiming to establish authority in your niche. Backlinks can help amplify your content’s reach, especially for new or underperforming pages.
Can I Build Backlinks For a New Website?
Yes, you can build backlinks for a new website, but it’s essential to approach this strategically. Begin by creating foundational content worth linking to, such as blog posts, guides, or tools. Then, focus on earning backlinks from reputable sources within your industry.
How Often Should I Build Backlinks?
Building backlinks is essential for maintaining steady growth. However, avoid building excessive backlinks in a short period; otherwise, search engines may consider the link spam.
What Type of Content Works Best For Backlink Building?
Content that is educational, unique, or solves a specific problem tends to perform best for backlink building, otherwise known as “linkable content.” Linkable content could include detailed guides, how-to articles, or informative studies.
How Do I Measure the Success of My Backlink Building Efforts?
You can measure success by monitoring key metrics, such as your website’s domain authority, rankings for top keywords in your industry, and organic traffic over time.
Can I Stop Building Backlinks Once My Site Ranks Well?
No, maintaining your rankings requires ongoing efforts, including backlink building. Competitors may continue to acquire new links, and search engines update their algorithms constantly, affecting your website performance.
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Content & Outreach Specialist
Cassidy Richey is a master cartographer of SEO content. In particular, she specializes in mapping out, writing, and editing onsite content. She also has plenty of experience with link building after building her career around it. Outside of her work, Cassidy likes to read (yes, even more), swim, and escape to the Idaho mountains.