An e-commerce site with an active blog and solid content can stagnate at the bottom of the second page of Google for months. The reason often lies in a backlink profile that is too thin or poorly targeted. Improving your link-building strategy is not just about accumulating links: it involves targeting, prioritizing pages, and regular monitoring, which directly affects a website’s online visibility.
Link Building and Visibility in LLMs: A Signal That Google Doesn’t Capture Alone
When we talk about backlinks, we first think of traditional search engines. Since 2024, the game has changed. Large language models (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity) draw their answers from sources they deem reliable, and editorial links on authoritative sites enhance a brand’s citability by these AIs.
A link obtained from a recognized media outlet or an institutional site no longer serves only to pass PageRank. It places your brand within the reference corpus that LLMs use to formulate their responses. Semjuice also distinguishes between links that send a strong signal to Google and simultaneously to LLMs, and those that have only a classic SEO effect.
For an SME, this means that a backlink from a generic directory carries less weight compared to a contextualized editorial mention. When planning link-building campaigns, tools like buzzstream.fr help organize the prospecting of these editorial links and track exchanges with editorial teams, which structures daily work.
PR Link Building: Obtaining Backlinks Through Press Relations
PR link building involves using press relations techniques to secure editorial links from recognized media, with a significantly greater impact on domain authority than guest blogging or purchasing links on platforms.
Develink outlines this approach around several operational steps:
- Compile an up-to-date press list by identifying journalists and bloggers who cover your sector and accept pitches
- Tailor the content to the format expected by each editorial team (exclusive data, field angle, reusable infographic) rather than sending a generic press release
- Respect each journalist’s contact preferences (some only accept pitches via email, others prefer LinkedIn or a dedicated form)
PR link building takes more time than buying a link on a platform, but feedback varies on this point: some sites notice an effect on their ranking within weeks, while others must wait several months. The constant is that links obtained through this method are more resilient to Google updates because they integrate into real editorial content.
Tailoring the Pitch to the Targeted Media
A pitch sent to a tech news site does not resemble one intended for a lifestyle magazine. Time is saved by segmenting the contact list by theme and by the type of content accepted. A media outlet that publishes case studies expects figures and concrete results. A generalist blog prefers a practical and simplified angle.
Choosing the Right Pages to Push with Your Backlinks
Sending all your links to the homepage remains a common mistake. In practice, better results are obtained by distributing backlinks to pages that have real ranking potential on identified search queries.
First, identify your pages that rank between positions 5 and 15 on Google. These are the ones that will benefit the most from an influx of links because they already have a relevance signal but lack authority to move up to the first page.
Foxglove Partner emphasizes this point: before buying or requesting a link, you need to know precisely which page you want to strengthen and on which keyword. A link to an informative blog page will not have the same effect as a link to a conversion page.
Varying Anchors for a Natural Link Profile
The anchor of the link (the clickable text) influences how Google interprets the theme of the target page. A backlink profile composed solely of exact anchors on the same keyword looks manipulative and can trigger a penalty.
- Brand anchors: the name of your company or site, without added keywords
- Partial anchors: a natural variation of the main keyword, integrated into a sentence
- Generic anchors or naked URLs: “this article,” “this resource,” or the raw URL of the link
The goal is to aim for a mix where no type of anchor exceeds half of the total incoming links. This ratio is not scientific, but it reflects what we observe in the link profiles of well-positioned sites.
Monitoring Backlinks and Cleaning Up the Link Profile
Obtaining links is not enough if their status is never checked. Backlinks can disappear when a partner site removes a page or changes its CMS. Other toxic links can appear without being solicited.
A quarterly audit of the link profile allows you to spot losses and harmful links before they affect SEO. You check that the acquired links are still dofollow, that the source pages are still indexed, and that the theme of the source site remains consistent with yours.
When detecting links from spam sites or site networks (PBN), disavowing them via Google Search Console remains the recommended procedure. This regular cleaning protects the domain authority built over the months.
The most profitable link-building strategy is not the one that generates the most links, but the one that targets the right sites, pushes the right pages, and monitors what happens after publication.