How to Build Unique Backlinks With Resource Page Link Building

Learn how to get powerful backlinks at scale using one of the easiest link building strategies in the book: resource page link building.
Unique links are tough to build. It requires you to create backlinks from different websites rather than multiple links from the same websites. At Ahrefs, we call them "Referring Domains."
In general, a link from a unique website will be more powerful than a second or third link from a blog that's already linking to you.
Some skeptics believe that link building is "useless." However, there are countless studies that suggest backlinks are one of Google's #1 SEO ranking factors.
And it will likely continue to be important for your SEO strategy in 2019 if you want to rank on Google.
Resource page link building is a link building strategy that I highly recommend for beginners to SEO.
And even if you’re an SEO expert, you can still use this tactic to get links at scale.
So what is a "resource page" in the world of search engine optimization?
A typical resource page usually lists a bunch of links to helpful resources on a particular topic.
And the reason why it’s effective is because unlike a lot of other link building techniques, the intention behind these pages is literally to link to other resources.
So by reaching out to these pages with solid recommendations, you’re contributing to the purpose of that page.
Whereas, when you try to get editorial backlinks from a blog post, you need to do a little more convincing since their goal is to deliver their own information, rather than link to external resources.
This link building technique is a simple two-step process.
1. Find resource pages.
2. Send an email to the person in charge of that page with one or more recommendations from your site.
To find resource pages, you can do a Google search using Google advanced search operators. Here are a few examples:
inurl:links.html “your topic”
inurl:resources.html “your topic”
inurl:.com/resources intitle:”your topic”
After you’ve entered one of these queries in Google, you can use the Scraper for Chrome extension to get the top 100 Google search results.
You can use this custom XPath code in the scraper extension:
//div[@class="yuRUbf"]/a/@href
Next, you can use a crawler like Screaming Frog + Ahrefs to get the SEO metrics on all of these URLs. It would be to your advantage to use your Ahrefs account so you can get metrics like Domain Rating and URL rating to get an understanding if these are pages are worth pursuing to get backlinks.
You can then use Excel or Google Sheets to speed up your backlink analysis and prospecting. A lot of tips and filters are shown in the video to make this very efficient.
Next, you can crawl the URLs of your final prospect list and download the external links on these websites.
From here, you can analyze their backlink profiles in bulk with Ahrefs’ Batch Analysis tool or individually in Site Explorer.
Just go to the backlinks report and type a footprint like “resources” in the include search box.
This will show you all the resource page backlinks that your competitors have gotten. You can then reach out to these websites and get your resources mentioned there too.
Timestamps:
0:50 What is resource page link building?
1:47 Find link prospects using Google search operations
3:20 Analyse your prospects using Screaming Frog and Ahrefs
6:15 Export the external link on the resource pages
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#linkbuilding #seostrategy #seo #seotips

[@AhrefsCom]

Have any additional tips for resource page link building? I'd love to hear about it. We also have a lot more videos on systematizing link building coming up, so be sure to subscribe / follow to get notified when they're up. kzbin.info

[@hayadarmolla7988]

you xpat code is not working anymore could you generate new one?

[@melissadelano9319]

agreed do you have a new xpat code?

[@monour2840]

Man, The SEO dose I get regularly, I'm learning a lot from you guys and I still don't have Ahrefs in my arsenal, but I'm gonna get it one day ... IT's gonna be my ultimate weapon 😎 ... Thanks, guys as always.

[@AhrefsCom]

We'll still be here :)

[@melissarey2760]

Okay, so. I am JUST learning about backlinks and I've learned more in an afternoon with Sam's video than a week's worth of research on my own. Especially as an auditory learner, this has been great for me and I'm so grateful I live in 2020 where I have access to such elegant content.

[@AhrefsCom]

Glad it was helpful!

[@JoeRobisonGFD]

This is so unbelievably epic. 10x better than what's out there! Chains together a bunch of different scattered methods I had into on vid, with some awesome new tactics too.

[@AhrefsCom]

Thanks, Joseph :)

[@BrendanHufford]

Same here, Joe!

[@federicoosorio3072]

Finally! A video with REAL tips on SEO techniques!

[@AhrefsCom]

Glad you found it helpful, Federico :)

[@BrendanHufford]

I'd be really keen to learn more about how to use this tactic outside the marketing niche. So many people who talk about doing outreach and show the effectiveness of this tactic uses it within the marketing niche. "All you have to do is reach out, pitch your resources, and hope to get a bunch of new quality links back to your site." What I've found at the agency level (obviously just a bad case study of n=1 and very anecdotal), is that even with really good outreach (highly informed by your two excellent posts on it), we're seeing a 3-5% ROI. What we're finding is that this tactic is dead unless you're well using go the spammy automation route for pitching.

[@SamOhYT]

Hey Brendan, I've actually used this in the furniture space and health niche. I do agree that it may not work for all industries. But I've seen certain techniques work better depending on content format/industry type. Not 100% sure what you mean by the "spammy automation route," but I do use templates + an outreach software. But I have a handful of merge fields to keep them personalized for any campaign, really. Still testing different outreach strategies, which I'm sure I'll share once I have enough data :)

[@BrendanHufford]

@@SamOhYT Cool! It sounds like you have a smart approach and likely have thought of some things I haven't. I think I read you'll be at Traffic Think Tank this weekend?

[@SamOhYT]

@@BrendanHufford Yup :) Happy to chat IRL and bounce ideas off each other.

[@MrAndi1281]

@@SamOhYT Hi Sam, great Video! could you please tell me the name of the outreach software?

[@AhrefsCom]

Generally speaking, we recommend using Buzzstream, Pitchbox, or Mailshake. A lot of options out there and all are good in their own way.

[@sulavsapkota5517]

Wow, we need videos like these. Majority of SEO videos and contents are so repetitive. Everybody is talking about things but nobody is showing how it's done. But yours was different. Subscribed.

[@AhrefsCom]

Thanks! Glad you liked this video. More coming (Wednesday) to be exact.

[@bryansandiego]

This is insane!! I learn so much from Sam and Ahrefs... Bravo!

[@AhrefsCom]

Thanks, Bryan :) Glad you found this tutorial helpful.

[@ejalvin8286]

Great video! But for some reason the scraping process didn’t work the same way for me. Has there been any updates to that process I’m overlooking?

[@AaronAnderson22]

Wow Sam, awesome video. I didn't know about the ability to export the external links from a list of resource pages like that in Screaming Frog. I like resource link building, but I find that broken link building has a higher conversion rate and many resource pages end up having broken links on them. So, now I want to go take your idea, export those external links, and then crawl that list and sort for the broken links. Then plug those into ahrefs to find which of those broken links has the most referring domains :) Excited to go try this now, thanks for the great tips!

[@AhrefsCom]

Awesome. Big fan of broken link building too :) Scraping resource pages should definitely help. Have you seen our video on it? kzbin.info/www/bejne/f4C2o6tvaspnotE

[@AaronAnderson22]

@@AhrefsCom Yeah, I sure have, that's a great video. However, after spending the last 2 hours on trying this out, it doesn't appear that you can export "unique external outlinks" on resource pages with screaming frog. What you can do is export the "external links" from resource pages, but those are just the external pages that are linking into the resource pages, as explained here - www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/user-guide/general/#exporting It's too bad that the strategy doesn't quite work as advertised, but if I'm doing it wrong, I'd love to find out :)

[@AhrefsCom]

Correct. You can't export unique external links, which is why we recommended using some kind of tool to deduplicate the results. You can do that in Excel/Google Sheets or search for something in Google like "deduplicate list." When you export the "external links" from SF, in the top menu (see video), you should be able to get all external links on those pages. Does that make sense?

[@AaronAnderson22]

Yeah, I understand what you're saying, but I''m not sure that's how it works. According to the screaming frog website, "external links" are defined as: "All links to URI found under the All filter of the External tab." That would mean these are all of the inbound links from external sources, right? In order to get all of the unique external links, it appears as if you have to export "all outlinks", which screaming frog defines as: "All links the SEO Spider encountered during crawling. This will contain every link contained in every URI in the Response Codes tab in the All filter." So I exported "all outlinks" and it was a ton of freaking links. Which is why, as you suggest, you'll need to get just the domain and then de-dupe the list. It was such a ginormous, unwieldy list with so many different variations of subdomains on all of these university websites, that even if I tried to simplify the domain and then de-dupe - I would find it difficult to get the list down to a workable number to glean some insights. Just what I encountered, but I may be doing something wrong or completely misunderstanding Screaming Frog's website.

[@AhrefsCom]

I just tested it on one URL and Bulk Exports > External Links is the correct one.

[@priotoshkarmakar2588]

Thanks Sam for this amazing resource page link building tutorial.

[@AhrefsCom]

Glad it was helpful!

[@jonraynabua1932]

Oh WOW! This is a really straight forward guide! I am looking forward to more videos like this from you! Keep it up! Thanks Sam!

[@AhrefsCom]

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed 😊 P.S. Make sure you subscribed, so that you do not miss our weekly videos, that come out each Wednesday ;)

[@StartUpK]

Very practical and informative; well done 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼

[@AhrefsCom]

Thank you! :)

[@muhammadowais1445]

Great video Sam! Quick question tho, Can I find domain rating of all those URLs with screaming frog?

[@ugochukwuatu357]

Thanks for this tutorial. Please @6:56, what is the name of the tool used to convert the urls to domains and to remove duplicates?

[@AhrefsCom]

You can use any "URL to domain" tool you find. -Helen

[@phenomenomenon33]

I'm following the exact process for searching then using the scraper extension and it is not giving me a list of the searches. I'm not sure what I'm doing wroing. Is there an update to this video that I'm missing?

[@lnrdlai]

Hi Sam Oh, thanks for making this awesome resource page link building guide.

[@AhrefsCom]

Hey! You are welcome! I am really glad you enjoyed it!

[@sociallyevaded]

Solid video. I would expect nothing less :)

[@AhrefsCom]

Thanks! Glad you're holding us accountable for great content :)

[@shaneilrichards5456]

What tool did you use to convert url,s to domains

[@virtualmic6657]

The XPath code is not working for me. :( I noticed the code you showed in the video is different from what you posted in the description. Anyway, I tried both and both are not working. Is there an alternative extension or another way to scraping? Thanks

[@BackgroundNatureSounds]

Did you every get a reply on this?

[@virtualmic6657]

@@BackgroundNatureSounds I didn't

[@mmtkoyes]

Great video. Thank you Sam

[@AhrefsCom]

You're welcome!

[@SaiWen-m7j]

I can't find Scraper from Chrome, maybe it cannot be used anymore. Are other tools to crab URLS recommended?

[@DeepakKumar-eu4to]

Hello Sam, Thanks for the great video, Just want to know what was the website which converts URL into the domain and removes duplicate pages

[@AhrefsCom]

I think it was this one, Deepak - www.visiospark.com/url-to-domain/

[@DeepakKumar-eu4to]

@@AhrefsCom Great Help Thank you Sam!

[@AhrefsCom]

You're welcome :)

[@misterl9850]

thanks a zillion, time! I'm not a newbie in SEO and linking stuff, but this video open my opportunities!

[@AhrefsCom]

Glad you enjoyed the video!

[@renishtw7956]

Hi Sam, Great Video. Which is the tool you mentioned in 6:54

[@angelamorris7249]

Did you find out the name of this tool? Great video, this is the only part I am stuck on! :)

[@Kalpanagowda7]

I didn't understand the last step. did you get backlink?

[@AhrefsCom]

Are you asking whether we got the backlink? - SQ

[@osmansirin7122]

Hey Sam, Thanks for the video, learned everything from scratch, mostly thanks to your tutorials. For outreach/backlink, I use hunter, mailshake, and i send personalized backlinks. Response late is quite low and people often ask for money. I'd like to ask, what is the best backlink strategy. I'm afraid, google sheets/hunter/mailshake outreach is not satisfying. I am looking for something more practical and efficient. Thanks

[@AhrefsCom]

ahrefs.com/blog/link-building/

[@diaryeat9202]

What was that tool or extension where you have removed all duplicates?...pls reply

[@mohammadazim7942]

Hi @samhgoh I need to know which tool you have used to remove duplicates & page url to domain url. please let me know

[@AhrefsCom]

You can use this tool - www.orangefox.com/cleaner/ - Max

[@AjahDivine-r4j]

I love Ahrefs

[@AhrefsCom]

😍

[@yellowdoor7956]

So informative, thanks. You mentioned a tool within the clip when you recommended reverse engineering the Urls. The logo shown on the screen was an A symbol but you didn't mention the tool you were using. Can you enlighten me?

[@AhrefsCom]

Would you mind letting me know a timestamp? There were a few tools mentioned in this tutorial :)

[@yellowdoor7956]

Time Stamp - 6.52@@AhrefsCom

[@miamiano4514]

hi! how do you reverse engineer the vetted sites just by using ahrefs, since I don't have screaming frog. thanks! :)

[@AhrefsCom]

What you do mean by "reverse engineer the vetted sites"? - SQ

[@feverpitch82]

Thanks for the video, im a paid subscriber learning how to use the system. Is there an automated way to scrape the websites email address? Thanks

[@AhrefsCom]

Try this video to learn: kzbin.info/www/bejne/fnKYpX9-fJ1joNU -Helen

[@davenilsson5443]

Sam!!! great as aways mate

[@AhrefsCom]

Thanks, Dave!

[@dimitarmargaritov]

I was just today wondering whether these are still viable or not. Thanks for the video. Will definitely use what I learned to build some of my first resource page links. PS: congrats on the bigger desk lol

[@AhrefsCom]

Next up, new computer :)

[@samsamo1191]

Are forums backlinks good for landing pages, or they will help very little?

[@HolisticTreatsLondon]

Genius!

[@AhrefsCom]

Thanks! Hope it comes in handy.

[@mohitsharma9189]

the best tool ahrefs.

[@AhrefsCom]

Thanks! :)

[@rikkic5117]

Great Video.. Can I ask when you export in Screaming frog using the ahrefs link clipper my excel opens it but I don't seem to see the field at 5:32 I see others such as Ahrefs RefDomains - Exact , Ahrefs URL Rating - Exact but there doesn't seem to be an Ahrefs Domain Rating column is this something I should activate somewhere??

[@AhrefsCom]

This would be a question you would have to direct to Screaming Frog :)

[@aswinkrishnan2900]

As soon as I enter the xpath code, all results disappear in scraper!! 🤔🤔🤔

[@camillechou5742]

there is no data for unique extenal links in my seo tool bar?

[@AhrefsCom]

Please clarify, what do you mean by that?

[@hoanglanngonguyen6623]

need help, I can't use plugin scraper to get the list of link, it only gives me 3 lines of 1 link that I right-click to. Anyone meets a similar problem? Please tell me how to fix it, I'm a newbie

[@martinterskin9009]

gotchu bro: /html/body/div[8]/div[2]/div[9]/div[2]/div/div[2]/div[2]/div/div/div/div[*]/div/div[1]/a/@href

[@Birch.performance]

Not sure why use another paid tool (Screaming Frog) if you could do all the analysis within Ahrefs Content Explorer?

[@AhrefsCom]

Not all of these pages will show in Content Explorer as we have a set of criteria that needs to be met before we add it to that database.

[@MizanulHasan]

How to Build Quality .Edu & .Gov Backlinks? Please make a tutorial on this topic

[@slimmerfitterstronger2978]

Do you need a free or paid version of screamingfrog?

[@AhrefsCom]

To integrate with Ahrefs, you'll need a paid version of ScreamingFrog. If you're already an Ahrefs' user, you can use Batch Analysis tool to get the metrics and run a VLOOKUP in Google Sheets to match them up with URLs. -Sam

[@narendrakumar8228]

what is new technique for make backlink now.

[@AhrefsCom]

It depends on what you already know :) We have a couple playlists on link building that I recommend watching :) kzbin.info/www/bejne/hafYY42PjMyCgLM kzbin.info/www/bejne/f6CXppqopKmYmtE&list=PLvJ_dXFSpd2vQNygbg5Uo1sMDs8aqRc4z&index=2

[@janistech3238]

Hey sam can I check plagiarism content through Ahrefs

[@AhrefsCom]

Right now, we don't have any kind of "plagiarism" checks between websites. Site Audit can show you duplicate content between pages that it crawls from a website though.

[@janistech3238]

Is site audit show only internal duplicate contents or external duplicate content? I mean, site audit compare our website content with other sites content or it only scan internal our sites content .

[@AhrefsCom]

It shows internally.

[@syed.taha1]

2:06 (search operators)

[@Cat-to]

xpath //div[@class="srg"]/div/div/div/div/a/@href is not working can anyone help me on this also the one provided by sam is not working either //div[@class="r"]/a[1]/@href

[@harrisroberts]

Big desk = bigger links!

[@AhrefsCom]

You spoke. We listened :)

[@rs2hotteam337]

Is the backlinks still important in 2019?

[@AhrefsCom]

It's tough to make predictions, but it's something that we still focus on here at Ahrefs and our traffic is steadily growing.

[@darrenwilliams582]

Nice recommendation, however it is still an out reach method " contact site owner". Does not always work, you're spending a lot of time to get no garunteed responses. Also it looks very complicated. This is not simple. No one really does this right? I absolute hate.. in thought it sounds good.. too much leg work.

[@AhrefsCom]

Firstly, these sites specialize on publishing information about other resources. So this is not a cold outreach where you try to offer something, that might not be interesting to a site owner. Secondly, without outreach I doubt you can generate a strong backlink profile. Finally, this is one of the easiest ways to get backlinks with minimum efforts. Moreover your outreach e-mail does not need to be personalized, which makes process much more simple. As a conclusion, I still recommend linkbuilding using resource websites. You can get a decent amount of potential contacts with, probably, highest conversion rate comparing to other methods. That is just a personal opinion. Thank you. - Max

[@SeoYass]

Up

[@AhrefsCom]

👆

[@zubairahmed4010]

Who like ahref? Like here

[@StartUpK]

Very practical and informative; well done 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼