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Link building in 2026
Latvia SEO Meetup 22.1.2026
Katarina Dahlin
Senior Growth Hacker at WHITEPRESS®
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● Senior Growth Hacker @ WhitePress®
● From Finland, living in Estonia
● Link building strategies
● Research about link building and SEO
● SEO & growth marketing since 2019, on
the Nordic markets and internationally.
Katarina Dahlin
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When we start with link building, this is our goal…
Organic traffic growth increase while
we build links
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But sometimes, this is what we get…
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One worked. One didn’t.
Why?
Both of these sites built
backlinks, in the same niche.
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What actually happened
● Only dofollow links
● Only exact-match anchors
● Linked only to the main money
page
● No branded links
→ Rankings dropped after a few
months.
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What actually happened
More holistic link-building
approach:
● different link types
● different anchors
● different target pages & home
page links
● branded links
● consistent link building
→ Sustainable & growing rankings
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I analysed clients who are actively investing
in link building, to see what they do
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No theory
Real
examples
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WhitePress®
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30,000
clients
34,000
publisher
websites
34
languages
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● What are they doing & why?
● What is actually working?
● What types of links are they building?
● What strategies do they use?
● What doesn’t work & what to avoid?
Clients actively investing in link building
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Let’s dig into it…
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Plan your link building
from your starting point
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Plan what keyword & page you want to rank
better
Avoid linking with the same keyword to
different pages on your site → makes Google
confused of which page to rank.
Use exact-match anchors and partial match
anchors on these, but also branded and other
types.
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Plan budget: Spread link building over time
Spread the budget across several
months.
It looks unnatural to get 10–20 links in
one month and no links for the rest of the
year.
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Competitor analysis
● How many referring
domains do top-ranking
pages have?
● What kind of sites are
linking?
● Where are they linking?
Understand what’s required to
compete → adapt it to your site.
Ahrefs
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Examples
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Case: Getting ready to rank in high season
A Swedish B2C company
wanted to rank when search
demand peaked. Very seasonal
niche.
What was done?
Dofollow links from 30 unique
domains over 5 months leading
up to the start of the high season.
Result
+150.6% YoY organic traffic
growth after link building
Link building period: 30 new links
Baseline Nov
2023
Baseline Nov
2024
Baseline Nov
2025
YoY Growth:
+150.6%
YoY Growth:
+7.5%
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Case: New sites need backlinks early
+41% top 3
positions
links for 56
unique domains
were built during
this 2 year period
My advice: Set apart 10-20% of
the marketing budget on link
building.
Links from 56 different domains
were built consistently over 2
years, with start 5 months after
launch.
Result
During a 2 year period, keywords
in top 3 grew 41%
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Publisher domain
& page relevancy
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Exclude domains linking to your site already
We care more
about amount of
unique referring
domains, than
same domain
linking many
times.
Use the filter in the WhitePress® platform
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Relevancy matters
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Relevancy matters
The domain must be topically relevant.
The article we get a link from and the surrounding
context must be topically relevant.
A gardening eCommerce can have links from flower or
gardening blogs.
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Find publishers ranking on relevant keywords
If a publisher site
ranks for your
keywords, Google
already see it as
topically relevant.
Use the filter in the WhitePress® platform
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→ casino, CBD, adult content…
Be careful with sites that heavily link to sensitive
niches, if you build for white hat niches
Latvia: 249 publishers that do not accept casino content
Lithuania: 715 publishers that do not accept casino content
Estonia: 167 publishers that do not accept casino content
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→ Check with
site search in
Google
News sites are
usually fine,
they are super
strong and
have many
topics.
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Domain authority
(DR)
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The stronger the referring
domain is, the more
powerful is the link you
get (Domain Rating)
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Sort by domain rating or organic traffic
Check also if the publisher offers dofollow links
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Check referring domains in Ahrefs yourself
Don’t blindly
trust DA
metrics
Spam links, no link juice
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Ordered publications per
DR in the Baltics in 2024
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Traffic & indexation
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The linking site has to have traffic
If it is already ranking, Google likes the site!
Aim for consistent traffic, avoid sudden drops
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The linking page has to be indexed
→ You can choose portals
where most of the articles
get indexed.
Use the filter in the WhitePress® platform
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Internal links to the article
→ helps with
indexation
→ makes it
crawlable and
findable
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Homepage links
vs
links to money
pages
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Homepage links are one of the
safest ways of building links.
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They look natural and lower risk
compared to direct money-page
links
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→ No anchor text risk
→ No over-optimization
→ No confusion about which page
should rank
Homepage links have:
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They strengthen domain-level
authority, and distribute link
equity across the site
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Of course also use inks to money
page.
Very effective. Just don’t overdo it
with only building links here with
exact match anchors.
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Links & Anchors
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Branded vs exact
match anchor texts
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Branded and partly branded anchors are safest
The stronger your domain is overall, the more
you can use exact match anchors.
If a new domain, start with branded anchors.
WhitePress®
whitepress.com
WhitePress® link
building platform
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Do not only build exact match anchors to
money pages
Specially if the keyword have
high search volume
Only exact match anchors
were built in the beginning.
The site increases in organic
traffic.
But it’s not sustainable.
The site tanked when
no branded anchors were
built. Has to look natural
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Example of a diverse anchor text profile
in a competitive niche
Branded 11%
Partial branded 6%
URL 13%
Exact match 20%
Partial match &
phrases 35%
Generic 17%
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If you buy 3 backlinks to the same page, use a natural
mix for sustainable results
1. Branded & partly branded keywords
2. Exact match and partly exact match keywords
3. Phrases, URLs, CTAs
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How many links in
one article?
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Start with one sponsored article per page
One topic, one article, 1-3 backlinks. Not an absolute rule.
Add 1–2 external links to other authoritative, non-competing
sources (to keep it natural), or internal links to other articles
on the publisher site.
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Dofollow, nofollow
& sponsored links
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Not all links are equal, but all can be useful
Dofollow links pass link equity (PageRank)
directly.
Nofollow links don’t pass PageRank, but can
act as authority signals. If relevant, they can
support rankings (e.g. Wikipedia links).
Sponsored links are generally treated
similarly to nofollow links.
A healthy link profile always includes
nofollow links. Keep it natural.
Number of nofollow links low
→ unnatural
Number of nofollow links higher
→ more natural
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Filter out dofollow links in the WhitePress® portal
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https://www.growth-memo.com/p/how-ai-really-weighs-your-links-analysis
Nofollow links are important for AI-search
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Nofollow links matter for LLMs
It doesn’t matter
whether links are
nofollow or dofollow.
→ Both are important for
visibility and ranking in
AI-driven search.
https://www.growth-memo.com/p/how-ai-r
eally-weighs-your-links-analysis
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Image links
perform better
than text links
for LLMs
https://www.growth-memo.com/p/how-ai-r
eally-weighs-your-links-analysis
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High Authority Score helps visibility in AI search
Your site must first reach
a certain level of authority
before it can appear in
AI-driven search results.
Getting links from multiple
different domains is very
important, not just the number
of links from a single site.
Quality links matter.
https://www.growth-memo.com/p/how-a
i-really-weighs-your-links-analysis
Semrush authority score:
Link Power (quality and quantity of backlinks)
Organic Traffic: estimated monthly average of traffic
Spam Factors (Natural Profile)
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Brand signals are
important in 2026
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Important brand metrics:
→ Brand mentions
→ Brand searches
→ Traffic from other channels
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Brand mentions in Google
Brand mentions without a link, in
topically right contexts, is an authority
signal to Google (E-E-A-T).
→ Google dare to rank your site on
related terms
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Brand mentions are
important for AI-searches
→ The brands with the most brand
mentions appeared most often in
AI Overviews
→ Branded anchor texts, brand
search volume, and DR are also
important
https://ahrefs.com/blog/ai-overview-bra
nd-correlation/
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The more often a brand is
mentioned online in
contextually relevant
discussions, the higher the
chance it becomes part of
AI-generated answers.
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Brand searches
An increase in branded searches signals to
Google that your brand is in demand in the
market.
→ Google ranks what people search for.
→ If people search for your brand, Google will
show your brand.
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Brand searches
Lot of searches on brand + product
→ Google will also rank your product on
non-branded searches for that product
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Traffic from other channels
Traffic from other channels than only Google
signals to Google (via Analytics) that this site is
real, it is a real brand, it has real traffic and
doesn’t only exist to rank in Google organic.
When a page get traffic from other channels,
specially viral traffic, it tends to give a ranking
boost in organic traffic too.
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To end this talk..
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● Plan your link building carefully
● Build topically relevant links
● From sites that has organic traffic
● And from high-authority domains (DR)
● Referring domains > amount of backlinks
● Keep the link profile natural and diverse
Quick link building checklist
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Thank You!
whitepress.com
Katarina Dahlin
Senior Growth Hacker, WhitePress®
[email protected]
linkedin.com/in/katarina-dahlin