Organic backlinks are links from other websites that point to your pages because your content earned their attention. These links come from genuine editorial interest, not payment, link schemes, or automated tactics.
This makes them especially valuable: each link signals that your content brings something new, relevant, or useful to the industry. Search engines use these signals to evaluate trust, relevance, and authority across your site.
Organic backlinks play a critical role in long-term SEO growth because they strengthen your entire domain, not just a single page. When reputable sites link to your content, search engines recognize your brand as a trustworthy source, which boosts domain-level authority and lifts keyword rankings across competitive categories. Beyond visibility, these links also enhance your brand’s credibility within the industry and create momentum for future content to perform even better. The more relevant and high-quality backlinks you earn, the more your entire site benefits.
Manual, one-off link building campaigns are essential for going after specific “money” pages and keywords, especially for long-tail keywords with less competition. Guest posting can help in these individual URL scenarios, but this won't boost overall domain authority.
Your best play for a massive website is to run large link-building campaigns. We’re recommending full-funnel brand awareness campaigns that will earn organic links as you pull tons of visibility. But these aren't simple:
There's no formula for making these campaigns happen, but these principles put you in the best place for success.
Be curious. Ask yourself questions and go through the mental exercise of finding insights in data. These link building opportunities will not arrive pre-packaged. Be constantly exploring Ahrefs' Content Explorer, Google Analytics, or any other source of valuable data. We recommend scheduling time daily or weekly to do this.
Sam Oh, VP of Marketing at Ahrefs, has great advice for SEOs ready to get started with this practice: "SEOs should be regularly looking at really good data sources and asking themselves, what’s happening here? And why did it happen? You might not always have the right answer. You might not figure anything out for the first week. You just feel like you're looking at numbers and letters, but you are exercising that muscle of exploration and curiosity. Then all of a sudden connections start to make sense. We have everything in front of us and that data is painting a story that can inspire creative link building opportunities."
The heart of any successful marketing campaign is audience.
You need a pure and dedicated understanding of your audience so that you know what they care most about and can create link building campaigns combining this persona knowledge with current events and opportunities. This is where all of 97th Floor's strongest brand and linking campaigns have come from, including this one for sleep-deprived parents.
SITUATION
Our Mattress Industry Client (MIC) is an American mattress and bedding brand. At its launch in 2010, MIC was among the first online, bed-in-a-box companies to disrupt the brick-and-mortar industry.
MIC approached 97th Floor to increase organic reviews and organic market share for the online sleep space. While they do sell 3 main mattresses, they also sell bedding (blankets, pillows, duvets, etc) and other sleep-related products (furniture, noise-canceling machines).
MIC wanted their blog to generate more revenue from the high traffic numbers they were seeing. The sleep space is full of very competitive keywords which made this all the more challenging.
STRATEGY
"Sleep deprivation" is found in headlines everywhere. Large mattress companies pay lip-service to better sleep, but really only focus on getting you to upgrade your mattress.
Our teams decided to focus on possibly the most sleep-deprived group of all: parents.
With MIC, 97th Floor decided to shift the messaging by helping parents prioritize their rest and recovery so they can spend more time focusing on their family.
To accomplish this, we launched a Sleep Ambassador Program — a program where MIC would actually pay a select number of parents to improve their sleep health.
Of 331 applicants, 8 were selected. Aside from products to improve their sleep, each ambassador received a 1:1 sleep consultation with an expert and a personalized Sleep Course.
97th Floor teams then wrote 60+ newly researched, written, and designed blogs, infographics and micrographics to support parents in getting better sleep. Each piece of new content was informed by keyword research and optimized for maximum ranking and traffic potential.
Our teams created copy and design for 17 social media posts for MIC to use, and social media strategy and requirements for the ambassadors and influencers partnering with MIC for the campaign. Three separate email funnels and paid promotion and Linkedin and Meta boosted awareness and nurtured leads.
To increase the reach of this campaign, 97th Floor teams fulfilled outreach to a list of 2,000+ news media, websites, local media and blogs.
RESULTS
By taking an audience-centric approach and leaning into the power of earned media, this campaign won our client 100+ organic backlinks from authoritative and relevant websites.
And that's not all. MIC also benefited from:
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You need a group who understands the value of SEO that you can bounce ideas off of. This may include SEOs, but you can also extend this group to your PPC counterpart, to someone in development, or to a highly-supportive leader.
Get everyone looking at the data and exploring opportunities.
Sam Oh says it's best to "Refine your backlink-generation ideas with a small team of people who understand the value of SEO. This process filters out less impactful ideas, and the buy-in from the individuals involved increases the likelihood that your best ideas will ultimately see execution."
SITUATION
eFileCabinet is a document management SAAS company that takes the pain out of complex filing and digitizing processes. Their software is cutting-edge and intuitive, but the document filing industry is stale.
eFileCabinet hired 97th Floor at a time when their stagnant market share was shrinking daily. Without a single marketing professional to manage the crisis, 97th Floor became the company's chief marketing force.
STRATEGY
After extensive customer research, 97th Floor teams built four target personas. We then synchronized all digital channels to target these personas, including intent-based keyword SEO campaigns; PPC on Facebook, LinkedIn and search; and content audits leading to new ebooks and blog posts. We built strong Hubspot workflows for the leads coming from this omni-channel strategy.
Our omni-channel campaigns were a success, but when eFileCabinet expressed that their trade show presence has been a little lackluster, we took that to challenge.
We dove back into personas to find out what would excite this audience. Our idea was simple: we would set up a room packed with old office equipment and a sledgehammer. Before handing these professionals the hammer, we would collect their information in Hubspot. Attendees were then unleashed to beat the ink out of printers, monitors, fax machines and copiers. In the background, Hubspot nurtured these new leads.
Our final deliverables for the campaign included:
RESULTS
The Rage Cage would go on to be an award winning campaign that would drive the highest influx in MQLs in a single month, which contributed to the following:
Not bad for one tradeshow, right?
97th Floor teams don't think in terms of tactics or services. What eFilecabinet needed was an omni-channel campaign supported by content, ads, creative, and SEO. By integrating all of these capabilities, SEO received a considerable lift as one component of this brand awareness campaign.
Organic search has continued to compound its success since we started with eFilecabinet. In the past year, leads brought in by organic traffic increased by 281%.
Want more? Here are seven link-building tips from our SEO experts.
Advanced Strategies for Scaling Backlink Acquisition
Still curious about backlink acquisition Here are seven advanced link-building tips from our SEO experts. These require a little more technical expertise to execute, but will yield great results.
Scaling your backlink strategy requires going beyond basic link-building techniques. To achieve substantial growth, you need to integrate multiple tactics and maintain a consistent focus on quality and relevance. Here, we’ll explore seven strategies for acquiring organic backlinks at scale, ensuring your website achieves a robust link profile.
By implementing these advanced strategies, you can scale your backlink acquisition efforts, ensuring your website benefits from a strong, diverse, and high-quality link profile. Consistency, creativity, and a focus on value are key to building sustainable organic backlinks that drive long-term SEO success.
Not all backlink tactics push your strategy forward. In fact, some can severely damage your long-term authority. Buying cheap backlink packages, overusing exact-match anchor text, or submitting your site to low-quality directories may seem like shortcuts, but they often trigger spam signals that weaken your domain. Link exchanges, private networks, and irrelevant guest posts can have the same effect, creating a backlink profile that looks manufactured rather than earned. Sustainable organic backlink growth happens when you prioritize consistency, relevance, and editorial value over quick fixes. By steering clear of risky tactics, you protect your authority and set the foundation for a strong, trustworthy link profile that compounds over time.
Building organic backlinks at scale takes creativity, insight, and a coordinated strategy that aligns content, PR, and audience behavior. When every channel works together, your brand earns the kind of editorial links that strengthen authority and drive long-term growth. If you’re ready to take your backlink strategy beyond the basics, 97th Floor brings the experience, data, and creative horsepower to help you make it happen. Let’s build something remarkable.
Organic backlinks are links earned naturally when another website finds your content valuable and chooses to reference it. These links come from genuine editorial decisions, which makes them far more trusted by search engines.
Organic backlinks signal credibility, authority, and relevance. When reputable sites link to your content, search engines view your domain as more trustworthy, which improves rankings, increases visibility, and drives qualified referral traffic.
You can earn free organic backlinks through high-value content, original research, linkable assets, digital PR, expert commentary, broken-link replacement, community engagement, and omnichannel campaigns that increase your visibility.
No, “buying organic backlinks” is contradictory. Purchased links often come from low-quality networks and can violate search engine guidelines, putting your domain at risk. Organic backlinks should be earned, not bought.
Content that introduces something new, like original data, deep research, industry reports, tools, infographics, or comprehensive guides, naturally earns more links because it provides value others want to reference.
Backlink growth compounds over time. Most brands start seeing measurable improvements in visibility and rankings within a few months, and even stronger results as high-quality links continue to accumulate.
Look for relevance, domain authority, editorial placement, natural anchor text, and signs that the referring site produces genuine content. A single high-quality link often outperforms dozens of low-value ones.
