How to get relevant and high quality mentions and backlinks

Whether you’re looking to buy quality backlinks from an agency or secure them yourself organically, link building is one of the most challenging, yet impactful, parts of marketing.

If you want to rank your own or a client’s website in search engines and feature consistently in AI Overviews, you will need reputable websites mentioning and linking to you from their own content. So, where do you start?

Here you’ll learn which types of backlinks have the biggest SEO impact, and how to get the most value from your link building efforts and marketing budget.

Do quality backlinks still matter in SEO?

The age-old question. The quick answer is, yes!

There are around 1.2 billion websites in existence, with over 250,000 new sites created every day.

The key for Google has always been to build an engine that understands the connection between domains and web pages, and then create a system that delivers the most relevant results for any given search term.

Earning high quality backlinks is a core pillar of search engine optimisation (SEO). A topically relevant link to your website from an authoritative source, also known as a referring domain, brings value to your business, both in the form of direct referral traffic and boosting your search ranking.

Backlinks feed into Google’s EEAT algorithm, which favours people-first content that displays experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.

The more relevant backlinks pointing to your website, the more authoritative and trustworthy it will appear to Google and LLMs. So, before developing your backlink strategies, it’s important to understand that link quality matters.

What to consider when earning quality backlinks?

What makes a quality backlink? There are standard rules that separate the good from the bad in link building, and understanding what these are can help you develop a link building strategy that drives relevant traffic and improves your position in organic search.

Let’s take a look at some quality link building tips to learn more.

How to establish topical relevance?

Start by asking yourself whether the context of your backlink makes sense and aligns with the source’s target audience.

The more topically relevant your backlinks are to the content they’re placed in, the better chance you have of attracting relevant traffic and creating topical authority.

Let’s say that you’re tasked with getting quality backlinks for a US-based SaaS client that sells project management software.

If you earn a backlink from an established tech blog that regularly reviews productivity tools, this would be a strong signal of topical relevance.

Now imagine getting the same backlink to your desired landing page, optimising it for the same anchor text, but the referring domain is a food blog that shares cookie recipes.

Even if the publication has authority and is established and respected online, the subject matter has nothing to do with your SaaS client. In this case, the backlink you’ve earned has very low topical authority and could even look suspicious to search engines.

Is link placement important?

Links that appear within the main body of a guest blog or blogger outreach article carry more weight than those placed in a footer or sidebar. The same goes for how high up in the content the backlink appears.

When a backlink appears naturally within the context of the content, it signals to both users and search engines that it’s relevant and has been included to serve the reader with an opportunity to:

• Explore a subject in more depth.
• Credit a source of information, statistic, or data point that supports a point being made.
• Download a template, checklist, or resource gives the user something actionable.

Search engines also pay attention to the surrounding text. The keywords and themes in the paragraph where your backlink appears help Google understand why the link is there and what authority it provides.

For example, a mention of your brand in a blog post reviewing the best meditation apps, supported by context about mindfulness, stress reduction, and wellbeing, is far more effective than a random link dropped into a website’s footer.

How to optimise anchor text for SEO?

Anchor text (the words in the content that hold the link) provides context for both users and search engines. Ideally, your anchor text should appear naturally on the page and be descriptive. We recommend using a mix of:

• Branded anchor text: This includes your company or product name and helps build brand recognition.
• Long-tail keywords: These are more specific phrases that relate to the content being linked to and can attract more targeted traffic.

Best practices for anchor text optimisation for backlinks:

1) The anchor text should clearly describe what the linked page is all about.

2) Aim for two to five words for an anchor text. Anymore than this becomes less optimised and feels overwhelming for users.

3) Generic anchor text such as “click here” provide little value to both search engines and users.

4) Never keyword stuff. For example, if all of Hive19’s links were using “best link building agency for purchasing backlinks” – Google is going to become a little suspicious.

To help with the do’s and don’ts of anchor text optimisation, here’s a quick snapshot:
 

What is link diversity?

A cornerstone of quality link building is diversity. This means securing backlinks from a variety of sources, like different types of websites, content types, and domains, all while using a mix of anchor texts.

It signals to search engines that you’ve earned your links naturally, reducing the risk of manual penalties and improving your chances of ranking higher in search results.

How to get good quality backlinks?

There are two overarching methods of securing high quality backlinks.

The first is to carry out link outreach. Your link building agency, or in-house team of link builders, will contact topical websites with reputable domains to:

• Pitch guest posts.
• Carry out link reclamation, guest posting, or blogger outreach.
• Identify broken links and offer yours as a replacement.

The second is to naturally attract more backlinks by creating content that other sources want to link to. At Hive19, we do this by creating 10x content – content that has 10x the value of what’s currently available to your target audience.

How many backlinks do I need?

If you’re looking to buy high quality backlinks, the topic of quantity will naturally come up.

This is a good time to note that there isn’t a set number of links you need to skyrocket your website up the rankings.

Instead, it depends on how competitive your niche is, your website’s existing domain authority and, most importantly, the quality of the backlinks you secure.

Let’s take a look at a couple of examples of how different brands get quality backlinks to learn more.

How many backlinks do you need for a SaaS brand?

SaaS is a notoriously competitive industry. Whether you’re growing a start up or scaling a small business, earning backlinks can help you compete with larger brands and drive visibility to your SaaS offerings.

Case study: Notion

Notion is a great example of a SaaS business that’s done this well. Positioned as a productivity tool, they’ve grown rapidly thanks to a focused content marketing strategy and a range of viral product features.

Since 2024, Notion has steadily generated a flow of new referring domains linking to their website with a total of 13,300 unique domains linking back to their pages. At the day of writing this blog Notion ranks in the top 3 positions for over 13.7K keywords.

In terms of how many backlinks you need for a SaaS website, Notion highlights the need for both quality and volume.

To learn more, we’ve taken a look at their link building techniques:

High profile media coverage and PR

One of the methods Notion uses to avoid buying high-quality backlinks is gaining media attention.

By consistently attracting news coverage, they’ve secured natural links that position their brand as an industry leader. They’ve been featured on sites like Forbes, and TechCrunch, and are ranked as a top productivity tool.

Content marketing and thought leadership

Notion’s marketing team knows how to publish content that other sources want to link to. Their articles are evergreen (they’re not specific to a time period), in-depth, relevant to their niche, and provide unique insights into popular topics.

For example, their piece on ‘Introducing Notion AI for Work’ has received over 90 referring domain links.

Partnering with CEOs

Their blog features their First Block podcast series, in which the Notion team sit down to talk with other tech CEOs. This helps establish their place amongst leading tech businesses, while also encouraging those brands to link to their content.

Product updates and special features

By frequently updating their tools and releasing new features, Notion garners more PR attention.

For instance, when they released their AI toolkit, the upgrade was discussed across tech and education blogs, earning them relevant, high-quality backlinks.

Notion’s backlink portfolio

We used Semrush to conduct a backlink analysis and check the quality of Notion’s backlinks. We found that they have over 15,000 domains pointing in their direction, with 1.2 million backlinks.

Notion has an excellent Authority Score of 73, highlighting how their hard work earning quality backlinks has paid off.

How many backlinks do you need for a lifestyle brand?

Link building strategies can vary from industry to industry.

As a comparison to Notion’s SaaS marketing, we’ve taken a look at Bumble, the dating app focusing on relationships, self-care, and mental health.

Case study: Bumble

Bumble has carved out a space for themselves in the incredibly competitive online dating industry, and we’ve taken a look at how they’ve tailored their marketing to boost backlinks.

Bumble’s quality link building techniques include:

Thought leadership

Bumble’s ‘The Buzz’ content hub is full of insightful relationship advice, wellbeing topics, and even the odd astrology article.

This high-value, shareable content is super relevant to their niche and presents the brand as an authority on healthy relationships, which earns them plenty of natural backlinks.

Content partnerships

Bumble’s relationship experts often contribute to content on authoritative lifestyle and relationship blogs. These expert insights and guest posts earn them natural links from highly relevant domains.

Bumble BFFs

By partnering with content creators – coined ‘Bumble BFFs’ – Bumble encourages backlinks and site visibility through their network of users.

Working with non-profits

Bumble frequently partners with non-profits, like Bloom and Panorama Global, to support causes that align with their brand image. While bringing wide-reaching benefits to society, this also drives backlinks from charity websites and the media.

Educational resources

Their content dives deeper than generic relationship advice. Well-researched topics on abusive relationships and mental health issues make them more likely to be cited by health sites and universities, known for having high domain authorities.

Bumble’s backlink portfolio

Just as we did for Notion, we checked out Bumble’s backlinks using Semrush and Ahrefs.

They have over 3,000 domains pointing to them, with over 44,000 backlinks. While smaller than Notion’s profile, that’s still very impressive, and highlights that you don’t need over a million backlinks to become a notable player in your industry.

They have an Authority Score of around 69 and are labelled by Semrush as a reputable domain.

Avoid the pitfalls of chasing link volume

We’ve established that, when it comes to link building, quality is more important than quantity.

To help you avoid the pitfalls of poor quality links, ask yourself these questions before you go after a guest post or buy quality backlinks:
 

Rather than wasting your budget on low-impact links, concentrate on getting quality backlinks with a focused strategy.

How to scale link quality without sacrificing volume?

While you should never focus solely on quantity, it’s true that the more quality backlinks you secure, the more reputable your site will appear in the SERPs. Luckily, you can have the best of both worlds.

With the right strategy and industry expertise, it’s possible to earn a high volume of backlinks while still maintaining high standards.

How? Let’s take a look at real examples from our own Hive19 backlink profile.

Advertising Week x Hive19

“Advertising Week is a worldwide gathering of marketing, advertising, technology and brand professionals.”

Here, Head of Content & Outreach Maxine Bremner (me!) provided an expert piece for Advertising Week, sharing insight on understanding the risks and opportunities for marketers adopting AI:

This is a great example of focused link building, using branded anchor text to link to the homepage of Hive19.

I wrote this article was and incorporated all of my years learning, experience and expertise of AI marketing. The link between the content and our website is natural and topically relevant.

Pitchbox x Hive19

“Pitchbox is an Influencer Outreach & Content Marketing Platform for brands, digital marketing agencies and growth hackers.”

Another very natural link, this time from industry-leading software provider Pitchbox. Here, we shared insight via an interview on our use of the Pitchbox platform and how it has helped us scale Hive19 and provide quality link building services.

Naturally, a reference back to the website was included, highlighting how partnerships can be a great route to securing citations.

Buzzsumo x Hive19

“BuzzSumo is the go-to content marketing tool for creators worldwide. Today, thousands of businesses use BuzzSumo to create brilliant content, monitor their brand and industry, and discover growth opportunities.”

I provided a thought piece for Buzzsumo on the topic of relevancy being the number one focus for link building, this time highlighting our HiveRank® system alongside the best tools for PR link building. Not only does this earn us a quality backlink, but it also positions our team as thought leaders in the world of high-quality link building services.

Earning quality backlinks FAQs

Link building can be a complex marketing strategy. To guide your next steps, we’ve answered these FAQs.