How I Built 5,660 Backlinks in 30 Days [New Strategy]

6 Steps to Get AI to Recommend Your Brand

I built 5,660 backlinks in March 2022.

(Without sending a single outreach email.)

My secret?

A strategy called Reverse Outreach.

And this case study I’m going to show you exactly how I did it, step-by-step.

The Big Problem With Link Building: Scale

Outreach-based strategies like The Skyscraper Technique still work GREAT.

But there’s one big problem with most link building strategies:

They don’t scale.

And if you’re in a competitive niche, you NEED to do link building at scale.

For example, take a look at Backlinko.

According to Semrush, I have 70.8K referring domains.

That sounds great. Until you look at some of my competitors.

Like Yoast (74.5K referring domains):

Search Engine Journal (113K referring domains):

Or other huge brands in the marketing space, like HubSpot (407K referring domains):

Let’s say I wanted to close my link gap with Yoast using email outreach.

I’m currently about 4K referring domains “behind” Yoast.

And let’s assume that 5% of the outreach emails that I send result in a backlink.

That means I’d have to send 80K outreach emails just to catch up to Yoast.

So when I did the math, I realized that I needed a different approach to link building.

One that could scale. Big time.

After months of testing, I think I finally found it.

It’s called “Reverse Outreach”.

Here’s how it works:

How “Reverse Outreach” Flips The Script on Traditional Link Building

Reverse Outreach completely flips the script on outreach-based link building.

Instead of reaching out to bloggers and journalists, you have them come to you.

Specifically, you target keywords that bloggers and journalists search for. And create content that they WANT to link to.

Let’s look at a real-life example.

A few years ago I published this post on my site:

This post was designed specifically to get backlinks from journalists.

I also made sure to optimize that post around keywords that bloggers and journalists search for.

Sure enough, that post now ranks #1 for “TikTok users”.

And started to rank for dozens of other keywords too.

The goal with this content was simple: get backlinks from authority sites.

And that’s exactly what happened.

That page now has editorial backlinks from Bloomberg:

Inc:

Business Insider:

And dozens of other authority news sites and blogs.

With that, let’s jump into the step-by-step process.

Step #1: Find “Journalist Keywords”

Your first step is to find a “Journalist Keyword”.

A Journalist Keyword is just like it sounds:

It’s a keyword that journalists use when researching or writing an article.

For example, this page from Backlinko is optimized around the journalist keyword “social media usage”.

Who searches for that keyword?

A blogger or journalist writing about how popular social media is!

When they do, my page gets in front of them with the data they need.

And they cite me as a source in their articles:

People Also Ask Boxes

Just search for a topic in your niche…

…and look for People Also Ask questions that are looking for data.

These are usually questions that bloggers and journalists want answers to.

Reverse Engineering

Next, look for a page on a competitor’s site with a lot of links.

Then, find the Journalist Keywords that the page ranks for.

Target Trending Topics

Specifically, trending topics that don’t have a lot of easy-to-find data sources.

That way, YOU can be the go-to source for data on this emerging topic.

For example, remember Clubhouse?

Well, when Clubhouse was poised to become “The Next Big Thing”, everyone and their mom was writing articles about it.

So I found every Clubhouse-related stat that I could. And whipped together this collection of Clubhouse stats.

That page quickly picked up passive links from The Guardian, Cosmopolitan Magazine and more.

Note: Interest in trending topics (like Clubhouse) can fall off the map. But the upside still makes the approach worth it. Even though Clubhouse is no longer relevant, that single page (which took about 2 hours to write) still brought in 1.6K total backlinks!

Now:

You can definitely target Journalist Keywords in your niche (or in related niches, as I did with my Clubhouse post).

Step #2: Outline Your Content

Your next step is to outline your article.

Specifically, you want to answer the most interesting questions that journalists have around the topic.

This means most traditional keyword research tools are out.

Instead, you need to think of the types of data someone would need when writing an article on that topic.

For example, take my post about Tesla:

Step #3: Collect Your Data

Next, it’s time to gather all of the data that you’re going to include in your stats page.

Where you find your data depends on your topic.

But in general, here are some great places to find data for stats pages:

Statista

Statista is a curated database of stats on pretty much any industry under the sun.

“Work for Us” Pages

If you’re writing about a brand, check out their job listings.

S-1 Filings

US public companies have to share key business metrics with shareholders each quarter.

Google News

Google News is a goldmine of industry data in the form of:

Step #4: Optimize Your Stats Page

Now it’s time to organize and optimize your stats page.

Snippet Bait

I’ve talked about Snippet Bait before.

Include Visuals and Charts

Visuals help your stat pages get more backlinks for two reasons:

Add Lots of Tables

Tables can help you rank as a table Featured Snippet.

Include “Crunchy” Stats

Crunchy stats are bite-sized stats that are easy to understand at a glance.

Step #5: Get Backlinks

Depending on your content, the keywords you targeted, and your Domain Rank it can take some time for your stats page to pick up some traction.

I also like to review and update these pages AT LEAST once per quarter.

That way, all of your data is up to date. And you keep getting that temporary freshness boost that comes from a legit content update.