Niche-Relevant Backlinks: A Mega Guide (+ Free Spreadsheet)

What Are Niche-Relevant Backlinks?

Niche-relevant backlinks are backlinks that point from sites in your niche to yours. 

We can distinguish between industry- and niche-relevant backlinks.

An industry is broader than a niche. For example, finance is an industry, while cryptocurrency can be considered a niche. 

However, the distinction between the two is not that straightforward. Cryptocurrency from our previous example can also be broken down into different niches: NFTs, AI-powered crypto trading, DeFi… 

💡 Our advice is not to get too caught up with the semantics. Backlinks from any site that is contextually relevant to yours will benefit your site.

A good rule of thumb, though, is that the closer a site is to your most specific niche, the more it can benefit you. Of course, there are other things to consider—like the hosting site’s authority and backlink profile.

Niche-Relevant Backlinks Vs. Niche Edits

Niche-relevant backlinks sometimes get confused with niche edits. 

Niche edits, or link insertions, are links that get added to existing content. For example, we’ve recently updated our post on the best blogger outreach tools to include a link to Respona: 

Niche edits are called ‘niche’ because you add them to content that is contextually relevant to yours—but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the website it is placed on is in the same niche.

Take Wikipedia backlinks as an example. 

As a comprehensive online encyclopedia, Wikipedia can’t really be considered in anyone’s niche. Still, if you add a backlink to your site to a contextually relevant article, that link would be considered a niche edit.

Niche edits and niche-relevant backlinks are not mutually exclusive. 

Your niche edits can also be niche-relevant if you place them on sites in the same niche as yours. 

Vice versa is also true; you can build niche-relevant backlinks by inserting your links to existing content on websites in your niche. However, this is just one of the many possible tactics you can use to build niche-relevant backlinks.

Niche-Relevant Backlinks Vs. Geo-Relevant Backlinks

Geo-relevant backlinks are backlinks that point to your site from websites that target the same geographic location as you. Building them can significantly boost your local SEO and help you reach local audiences. 

For example: 

• Backlinks from local business directories to your site are geo-relevant backlinks. 
• Backlinks from an NYC-based publication to your NYC-focused company are geo-relevant backlinks. 

Niche-relevant and geo-relevant backlinks aren’t mutually exclusive either.

You can build backlinks that are both niche- and geo-relevant at the same time. 

For example, let’s say you’re a financial advisor looking to boost your local SEO, but also your SEO in general. You’re also based in Boston and looking to serve that area. 

In that case, getting a backlink from a publication like Boston Financial will help you reach both goals, and count as both a niche- and geo-relevant backlink.

Examples Of Niche-Relevant Backlinks

Here are a few examples of niche-relevant backlinks: 

• If you’re a realtor, backlinks pointing from other real estate websites to yours could be considered niche-relevant backlinks.
• Furthermore, if you’ve niched down to investment properties, backlinks from finance and investment websites would be your niche-relevant backlinks.
• Backlinks to cryptocurrency websites from other cryptocurrency or financial websites could also be considered niche-relevant backlinks.

Why Are Niche Backlinks Important

Niche backlinks are important for several reasons:

1. From an SEO perspective

Search engines treat backlinks as votes of confidence from one website to another. You can think of them as referrals—in fact, any traffic coming from one site to another by following links is called referral traffic.

So, niche-relevant backlinks help you build credibility in the eyes of search engines. They help you build authority in your niche, which leads to better rankings and more visibility.

2. From a marketing perspective

Brands that partner with niche websites for promotions see a 44% increase in engagement. This is mainly because users tend to trust niche websites and their recommendations more.

3. From a conversion perspective

Finally, any type of backlinks should help you improve your conversions by getting more traffic to your site. However, niche-relevant backlinks are almost bound to get you the best results possible—because they attract highly targeted traffic to your site.

Think about it: isn’t it better if law firms got backlinks (and traffic!) from a legal education blog than from a blog on marketing? Which audience would be more likely to convert? 

The answer should be clear. 

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How To Build Niche-Relevant Backlinks

Now that you know what niche-relevant backlinks are and why they’re important, let’s see how you can build them.

Step 0: Create A List Of Niche-Relevant Keywords

Everything starts with keywords. To find sites that are relevant to yours, you should come up with a list of niche-relevant keywords you could use to find them.

Our guides may be able to help you: 

• 210+ best keywords for real estate
• 61 best keywords for financial advisors

Even if you do not provide real estate or financial advisory services, you can check out these guides to get a deeper understanding of niche-relevant keywords.

Otherwise, here are a few examples:

• best SaaS apps (for SaaS websites)
• personal financial advisor (for financial advisors)
• women’s party dress (for eCommerce websites)

We’ll show you how you can use these keywords to find niche-relevant link building opportunities below.

1) Do A Google Search

There are many advantages to using Google to find link building opportunities. The most important ones, however, are that Google is completely free to use and can serve you dozens or even hundreds of relevant results.

a) How to find relevant backlink opportunities

To find backlink opportunities with Google, you can 1) search for your target keywords, until you find relevant websites, or 2) use search operators to narrow down your search and get more relevant results faster.

Everyone knows how to google, so we’ll focus on using search operators, special commands that filter search results.

Here are some you could use: 

• Quotation marks (“ “) — Use this to search for an exact match to your keyword, i.e., eliminate results that contain synonyms or slightly altered versions of your keyword. Example: “best SaaS apps”
• site: — Use this to identify on which pages a specific site uses a keyword (can be super useful for niche edits). Example: site:prestigelinks.com seo for finance 
• intitle: — Use this to find pages with your target keyword in the title. Example: intitle: best real estate agents nyc

This should help you find niche-relevant sites. We suggest adding them to a spreadsheet (download it for free below👇) as link prospects.

b) How to build relevant backlinks

To actually build backlinks on these sites, you’ll need to 1) find the site owners’ or editors’ contact details, 2) choose a link building tactic, and 3) create a pitch.

There are many different link building tactics to choose from. Some most common one include: 

• Niche edits
• Guest posting 
• Broken link building (finding dead links on other sites and replacing them with your own)
• Scholarship link building

Which one you’ll use depends on your preferences, but also the opportunities that present themselves to you. For example, you can’t employ broken link building if there are simply no dead links you could replace with your own.

2) Find Relevant Directories

There are a number of different directories online—business directories, tool directories, app directories, people directories, B2B directories, local directories, event directories… 

These directories typically publish user-submitted listings together with the links to the users’ sites.

That way, they not only promote the businesses, but also help with their SEO.

It should be noted that these types of links are less valuable than links with higher contextual relevance, such as in-content links.

a) How to find relevant backlink opportunities

To find directories you could submit your profiles to, consider your “top” or “comparison” niche-relevant keywords—such as: 

• best X (e.g., best SaaS apps)
• top X (e.g., top perfumes for women)
• X companies in X (e.g., AI companies in NYC)

You can also directly search for directories, such as “startup directories,” “NYC company directories,” “eCommerce directory,” etc.

Add relevant directories to your spreadsheet.

b) How to build relevant backlinks

Building links from directories is usually very easy. All it takes is adding relevant information and submitting your profile. 

Some directories charge for their listings, while others will publish your listing for free. 

If you’re paying for a listing, we highly suggest checking out the site’s domain authority or domain rating scores first. This will help you decide if the value you’ll get is worth it.

3) Analyze Competitor Backlinks

Another way to find niche-relevant backlink opportunities is to check your competitors’ backlinks. Not all of them will be niche-relevant, but at least some should be. 

💡 This is to say: don’t blindly copy what your competitors do. Use common sense. 

With that said, peeking at your competitors’ backlink profiles can help you identify opportunities you would have otherwise missed. 

a) How to find relevant backlink opportunities

You’ll need a tool like Ahrefs or Semrush to find your competitors’ backlinks. 

For example, with Ahrefs, you’ll just need to enter your competitor’s URL in Site Explorer, and you’ll be able to see their backlinks, referring domains, anchor text, target pages, and even hosting sites’ metrics.

All of this will make it super easy for you to choose the best sites for your own links.

b) How to build relevant backlinks

First, check out what type of websites you’re dealing with — for example, publications, directories, or blogs — and from where they’re currently linking to your competitors. 

For example, is the link coming from a press release about your competitor, or is it placed in an otherwise non-related piece of content? 

This should inform your own strategy. 

The choice comes down to pretty much the tactics we’ve already mentioned: guest posting, niche edits, broken link building, digital PR… 

The process is also the same:

1. Find relevant contact info (for example, with Hunter.io) 
2. Decide on your strategy
3. Create & send your pitch.

Alternatively, if you’ve found a list of relevant, high-authority publications you’d like to be featured in, check out our next suggestion:

4) Work With Relevant Journalists & Reporters

Alternatively or additionally, you can also try collaborating with journalists and reporters who work for niche publications that are relevant to you. This usually implies providing expert commentary or advice that will be featured in news or opinion articles.

This strategy is a win-win for both sides: 

• Journalists and reporters need expert sources and quotes for their articles.
• You need exposure and backlinks.

You can also try pitching guest articles to your chosen publications.

Again, try to focus on publications in your niche. Here’s how to do that:

a) How to find relevant backlink opportunities

You can employ several strategies to find niche-relevant publications—-some of which we’ve already mentioned. For example, you can:

• Run a competitor backlink analysis
• Do a Google search using niche-relevant keywords
• Use sites dedicated to connecting journalists and reporters with expert sources — These include sites like Connectively, Help a B2B Writer, and Qwoted.

That last strategy is usually the easiest one to do. 

It typically requires you to fill out your profile with your work experience, education, and other details that can help you stand out and get more relevant offers. 

However, with some of these services, you may need to draft pitches and compete to be featured with many other interested parties. 

If you’d like to avoid this and get instantly featured in your chosen publications, you can work with a PR or link building agency instead.

Our link building agency can give you exclusive access to hundreds of publications. Check out some of the sites in our network.

b) How to build relevant backlinks

How you’ll go about building niche-relevant backlinks will highly depend on the strategy you choose. 

In most cases, though, you’ll need to:

1. Find contact information of relevant journalists, reporters, or editors
2. Pitch them your article idea or your expert commentary 
3. Write the article or your commentary 
4. Potentially go through several rounds of reviews 

You can skip these steps by working with PR and link building agencies like ours.

In either case, make sure that the publication is open to linking to your site, and isn’t just going to cite you or publish your article without a link.

5) Other Ways To Build Niche-Relevant Backlinks 

There are many other ways to build niche-relevant backlinks. Here are only some: 

Content marketing

Content marketing refers to a marketing strategy that involves creating, publishing, and distributing content in order to attract, engage, and retain an audience. This can include blog posts, videos, podcast episodes, and other types of content. 

Creating high-quality content can help you naturally earn backlinks.

The idea here is to create such stellar content that other people voluntarily link to you. 

Content that tends to attract links includes: 

• High-value infographics
• Comprehensive guides
• Glossaries
• Free tools (e.g., calculators or quizzes)

Since you want to attract niche-relevant backlinks, you should make sure that your content is niche-relevant, too. For example, if you work in real estate, consider creating calculators that compare the long-term costs of buying vs renting. 

While content marketing is definitely something you want to invest in either way, it’s often not the best link building strategy:

• ❌ It is slow. Earning even one backlink can take months or years, or it may never even happen at all.
• ❌ It is unpredictable. Getting backlinks solely depends on whether or not other people want to link to you.

That’s why we suggest combining content marketing with more proactive link building strategies, such as blogger outreach or paid link building.

Broken link building

Broken link building refers to finding niche-relevant dead links on other sites and replacing them with working links to your site.

Dead or broken links are links that lead to 404 pages:

However, this strategy has one huge disadvantage.

❌ It is very time-consuming. 

It requires you to manually go through a list of niche-relevant sites, find broken links, create relevant content if you don’t already have it, and work with site owners to replace the broken links with your own.

The good news is that it’s usually completely free—most site owners will be happy to replace dead links with links that work without charging for it. 

Buying backlinks

Finally, purchasing backlinks is the easiest way to build them. 

It doesn’t even have to be more expensive than other strategies, especially if you count the hours it will take you to manually build links or how much you’d pay a VA to do it. 

Besides, buying links is usually the only way to access more high-authority sites and publications—and these are the ones that will truly move the needle for your site. 

If you’d like to purchase backlinks from an agency you can trust, check out our available link packages.

Alternatives include buying backlinks from online marketplaces, but this is usually a riskier way to go about it. Marketplaces can sometimes be filled with spammy backlinks, while the sellers rarely guarantee that your links will stay live after you pay them.

Strategy: Niche Relevant Backlinks In SEO

So, now you know what niche-relevant backlinks are and how to build them. Before you do so, however, you should take some preparatory steps + make a strategic link building plan.

Follow these guidelines:

Find Your Niche In SEO

Niching down can be helpful not just in business, but also in SEO. The process refers to putting a deliberate and strategic focus on a specific market or segment.

Here is an example of what niching down can look like:

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In SEO, niching down can help you:

• Establish topical authority faster
• Rank faster (if you’re targeting niche keywords)
• Boost your credibility

But how do you find your niche in SEO? Well, it starts by finding your niche in business by considering three main factors: 

• ✅ Your specialty (e.g., what makes your product or services special) 
• ✅ Your ideal audience
• ✅ The broader category you’re currently in (e.g., real estate or residential property) 

You can then combine all of those three things together to come up with your niche — for example, “luxury homes abroad for founders.”

Finally, research some keywords related to your newly-chosen niche to establish what the current demand looks like. Niche keywords typically have lower search volumes, but they shouldn’t be entirely not-searched-for.

Focus On Tier 1 & Tier 2 Backlinks

There are three types or tiers of backlinks in SEO:

• Tier 1 — Tier 1 links point directly from an external website to your site with no intermediate link between them.
• Tier 2 — Tier 2 links point from an external website to a page on another website that is linking to your site. There is one intermediate link between a tier 2 link and your site.
• Tier 3 — Tier 3 links are links that essentially point to tier 2 links. There are two intermediate links between tier 3 links and your site.

When building niche-relevant backlinks, focus on building tier 1 and tier 2 backlinks. This will maximize “the link juice” that gets passed on from linking sites to yours.

Create A List Of Backlink Opportunities

We’ve already said you should write down any backlink opportunities you come across during your search. Remembering them all will be difficult and ineffective. 

Besides, creating a list of potential prospect sites will help you track your progress later. More on that in the next step.

For now, try to add any potential prospect sites into a spreadsheet or another document you’ll use for your list as soon as you find them. We also recommend taking some quick notes that will help you build links faster.

For example, you may want to: 

• Note if a site charges for links (and how much) 
• Write down your login details
• Jot down any content ideas, etc.

Create A Pitch

Once you’ve taken the time to research your potential prospect sites, it’s time to create your pitch.

Note that creating a pitch isn’t always necessary.

For example, if you’re submitting your listing to a business directory, you likely won’t need to pitch it. Chances are, you’ll just need to add relevant details to your profile.

However, with most link building strategies, including guest posting and niche edits, you will need to create + send your pitch. 

Here are some best practices for doing so: 

• ✅ Address the recipient by name; 
• ✅ Explain how your article/link will benefit them and their audience; 
• ✅ Build credibility, i.e., explain why they should trust you and feature you on their site.

Track Your Progress

Finally, make sure to actually track your progress: 

You should regularly update your list of prospect sites for a few important reasons:

• ✅ It will help you prevent double-pitching. There’s nothing more embarrassing than forgetting you’ve already pitched a prospect. 
• ✅ It will enable collaboration between team members.
• ✅ It will give you a clear idea of how your link building campaign is going.

We recommend using a simple spreadsheet and adding just the most important details there—you don’t want backlink tracking to become another time-consuming task on your to-do list. 

The most important details usually include: 

• Your prospect site’s name or URL
• The site’s domain authority (DA) score
• Project status
• The URL of the page hosting your link 
• Additional notes

Free Backlink Tracking Spreadsheet

You can add all of these details to our done-for-you spreadsheet. Make a copy of it completely free of charge. Click here!

Get Niche Relevant Backlinks In Under 5 Days

Building any type of backlinks yourself is challenging. Building niche-relevant backlinks is even more difficult. 

Considering the hours it may take, as well as potential insider connections, you may want to work with a link building agency instead. Our agency can help!

In 99% of cases, we can build niche-relevant backlinks in under 5 days. Our links also come with lifetime guarantees, ensuring your links never go under. 

Sounds good? Order your backlinks today or contact us to discuss the details.