A Practical Guide on How to Build Links for Zero Dollars

Backlinks are a pillar to an effective SEO marketing campaign. In Google’s eyes each link is a vote of confidence that your content is worth being displayed in the search engine results page (SERP). But, for small businesses linking buildings can be expensive. In this guide we will discuss how to build links for zero dollars that can help get your website to the top of search results.

Start With High-Quality Content That is Worth a Link

The first step in building links for free is making sure your website has quality content that is worth linking to. From your homepage to each blog post, your website should be aesthetically pleasing and communicate a clear, concise message that explains who you help and how you help them.

Next, focus your efforts on creating a single piece of content that has unique information. This could come from first-party data, internal reporting, or even customer usage data. Turn this data into a valuable asset, such as a free PDF, an ultimate guide, or an industry report.

The only limit to content creation is your imagination. For one of our clients, we collected first-party data by scraping hundreds of companies on LinkedIn to identify staffing trends in the Managed Services industry. We then assembled this data into a guide that highlighted the top-rated MSPs in a specific city. Because we had data that no one else had on the makeup of these companies, including the number of technicians, cybersecurity experts, and other roles, other site owners in the industry found it interesting and naturally linked back to the asset.

The better your content, the easier it will be to earn high-quality links. Your mindset as a marketer should be to help people first, with earning links as a byproduct that comes naturally over time.

Use Broken Link Building to Earn High Quality Backlinks

Another strategy that you can take to build backlinks for free is by reaching out to site owners who have broken links on their web pages. Since broken links are bad for the user experience, website owners are likely to use your content to replace the broken resource so long as your content aligns with the original document that has the broken link. If you aren’t currently using a backlink monitoring tool for your site, it’s worth understanding why use a backlink monitor tool and how it can protect and improve your SEO performance. Here’s a step-by-step process to uncover broken backlinks using SEMrush:

Step by step: Broken link building using SEMrush

1) Create your replacement asset first

1. Pick the topic you want links for.
2. Create a page on your site that can act as the replacement resource (guide, report, checklist, glossary page, etc).
3. Make sure it matches a common “resource page” intent so it aligns well when you propose it as a replacement.

Why: Broken link building works best when your content aligns with what the site originally meant to link to.

2) Find broken pages on a competitor that already earned links

This is the fastest way to surface real opportunities because you are starting from pages that already had backlinks.

2. Go to the report that lists the competitor’s pages.

3. Filter for Broken pages (these are pages returning errors like 404).

4. Click into a broken page to view the sites that link to it. Filter by Active and Follow links.

SEMrush documents this competitor's broken backlinks flow and how to use it with the Link Building Tool.

Pro tip: Do this for 3 to 5 competitors to build a bigger prospect list.

3) Load the prospects into the Link Building Tool

1. Open the Link Building Tool and start a campaign for your domain.
   
2. Upload or add the list of referring domains you exported (the sites linking to the competitor’s broken page). Review the prospects list and remove anything irrelevant.
   

4) Verify the exact broken link and the context

Before you email anyone, validate what you are asking them to fix.

For each prospect:

1. Open the page on their site where the broken link appears.
   
2. Confirm the link is actually broken (404 or similar).
   
3. Note the anchor text and the surrounding paragraph so your outreach can be specific.
   

Broken external links are a known user experience issue and can be flagged in SEMrush site auditing.

5) Write an outreach email inside SEMrush

1. In the Link Building Tool, move a prospect into In Progress.
   
2. Connect your mailbox (Gmail or other) in the tool.
   
3. Send a short note that includes:
   
• The exact URL on their site with the broken link
  
• The broken URL
  
• Your suggested replacement link to your website
  
• One sentence on why it is a good match

6) Follow up and track outcomes

1. Follow up once after a few business days.
   
2. In Link Building Tool’s monitoring, track whether the link becomes active, lost, or broken.

Build Links Through Relationships and Guest Posting

The final strategy to build backlinks without spending a dime is to network with local business owners to create mutually beneficial linking opportunities through a guest post. A guest post is exactly what it sounds like: one party writes a blog post for the other on their website. In this scenario, it is a mutually beneficial link-building strategy, as you obtain a link and the host site receives a piece of content that will help drive website traffic and aid in their search engine optimization efforts as well.

Existing customers with whom you have a close relationship are great candidates for guest posting. Similarly, vendors or business partners that sell different offerings to the same target market would be strong candidates. The strongest links are the most natural, and what’s more natural than supporting businesses you already work with?

Conclusion

Learning how to build links without spending money comes down to being intentional with your time and consistent with your approach. When you focus on creating valuable content, helping other site owners fix issues, and building real relationships, you are no longer guessing at how to build a link that matters. Instead, you are earning quality links that support long-term growth.

Effective link-building efforts are not about shortcuts or volume. They are about relevance, usefulness, and trust. When done correctly, these efforts compound over time, improving your authority, increasing referral traffic, and positively influencing your search results in a sustainable way.