Types Of Link Building Services And Benefits (James Dooley Chats With Craig Campbell)

James Dooley: Types of link building services and the benefits. Today I’m joined with Craig Campbell, who is going to go through all the different types of link building.

Let’s start with a link building strategy that is working well right now.

Craig Campbell: Guest posting.

We will start with the easiest one first. For anyone watching who does not understand link building, a guest post is where you pay someone to place content on their website with a link back to your website. You can write the content yourself or get them to write it. There are marketplaces, agencies and vendors selling guest posts everywhere. One of the easiest wins at the start is buying the same guest posts your competitors already have. If I see that your competitors bought links, I know I can probably buy 70% of the same ones. That gets the wheel moving quickly.

James Dooley: The first thing for me would be business listings.

I want the company name, NAP consistency and the same business description repeated across all the major directories. I want to explain exactly who we are, what we do and why we are awesome. Most of these are nofollow naked URL links, but they are brilliant foundational links. I also load them into an indexer to get crawled by Googlebot and Bingbot. That helps build trust and the initial backlink profile.

Craig Campbell: Another thing I would do if I was entering a competitive market is look for aged domains.

I want to acquire domains with existing backlink profiles. That could be through redirects, PBNs or rebuilding old assets. Power is usually the biggest shortfall for a new website, so aged domains can give quick wins. There are marketplaces everywhere for this stuff.

James Dooley: The next thing for me is the social fortress.

That means Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Tumblr, Medium and all the social profiles around the brand. It is not really about power. It is about defining the entity and repeating who you are and what you do. Again, I would index all of them to help build the foundational profile.

Craig Campbell: Another strategy I like is niche edits and tier two links.

They are cheaper and can provide more power.

James Dooley: For people watching, what is a niche edit?

Craig Campbell: Honestly, whoever coined that term is a genius.

For me, a niche edit is basically a link inserted into an existing website. Some people use hacked sites or injected links as niche edits too. You are essentially leveraging existing authority at a lower cost than digital PR.

James Dooley: I see niche edits slightly differently from link inserts.

For me, a link insert is when you reach out to a journalist or site owner whose page is already ranking or being cited in LLMs. You show them your case studies, reviews, awards and proof that your business deserves inclusion. Then you offer compensation for them to update the article and include your brand. That is link insertion for me.

Craig Campbell: Yeah, I do not class that as a niche edit either.

That is more outreach and editorial placement.

James Dooley: What about PBNs?

Are you still a fan of homepage PBN links?

Craig Campbell: Absolutely.

PBNs give you something competitors cannot easily replicate. Anyone can buy guest posts or PR placements, but PBNs are private assets. I still think they are a fantastic edge if used properly. I would not build thousands of them, but I absolutely still use them.

James Dooley: Another strong strategy for bigger brands is digital PR.

You might spend five or six thousand pounds on a campaign and only get ten links, but those links come from massive trusted websites. Even if they are nofollow, they still move the needle for trust and branding.

Craig Campbell: Completely agree.

Another strategy I like is parasite SEO. Leveraging sites like Reddit and other high authority platforms still gives benefits. Even if the links are nofollow, you are getting traffic, trust and brand exposure from huge sites.

James Dooley: Podcast syndication is another great one.

You can distribute podcasts to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and dozens of other platforms. You can also create IMDb profiles and get links from very trusted domains. It repeats who you are and what you do across the web.

Craig Campbell: Press releases are still massively important too.

Not necessarily because of the direct link power, but because of indexing, branding, entity building and feeding large language models. The syndication and mentions still provide value.

James Dooley: One thing I like about good PR companies is quality control.

They make sure the press release includes images, maps, videos, NAP details and entity signals. That means the press release can also rank images and videos alongside the website itself. Quickfire questions then. Blog comments. Worth it or not?

Craig Campbell: Yes.

People laugh at blog comments, but I think they are useful for indexing and crawling. If you understand how the internet works, they still have value.

James Dooley: We actually tested blog comments recently.

Forty percent of the force indexed comments ended up being cited in AI overviews because of the semantic structure inside them. That included citations in Claude and Gemini.

Craig Campbell: That is interesting.

James Dooley: What about Wikipedia citations?

Even if they are nofollow.

Craig Campbell: Absolutely.

Wikipedia is a monster authority site. I would take that all day long.

James Dooley: What about Web 2.0s like Medium or Blogspot?

Craig Campbell: Absolutely.

Not just for link equity, but also brand protection. I do not want someone else controlling my brand name on those platforms.

James Dooley: Exactly.

It is also about repeating entity signals, videos, images and business information. Final question then. How important is diversification in the backlink profile?

Craig Campbell: Massive.

You want it to look natural. Nobody has a backlink profile with 99% dofollow exact match anchors. You need branded anchors, naked URLs, partial match anchors, nofollow links and natural velocity. I care about dofollow links, obviously, but if I get a nofollow from The Sun, I am still taking it. The goal is making everything look natural and holistic.

James Dooley: Completely agree.

Consistency and natural link velocity matter just as much as the links themselves.

Craig Campbell: One thing I do love is that people naturally troll me with anchor text anyway.

Things like “Is Craig Campbell gay?” apparently get linked naturally, so it probably helps diversify my profile for free.

James Dooley: I know nothing about that.

Craig Campbell: Convenient answer.

James Dooley: To anyone watching, what other link building services or strategies do you think we missed?

Make sure you check out the link in the description. Craig Campbell, it has been an absolute pleasure.

Craig Campbell: Cheers, mate.