# Link Building

When the user wants to earn backlinks or third-party mentions that lift rankings and AI...

- Repository: https://github.com/coreyhaines31/marketingskills (57838 stars)
- Category: Marketing
- License: MIT
- Last updated: 2026-10-31
- Runs scripts: no, instructions only

## Install

Claude Code: `npx skills add coreyhaines31/marketingskills --skill link-building -g -a claude-code -y`
Codex: `npx skills add coreyhaines31/marketingskills --skill link-building -g -a codex -y`
Cursor: `npx skills add coreyhaines31/marketingskills --skill link-building -g -a cursor -y`
Gemini CLI: `npx skills add coreyhaines31/marketingskills --skill link-building -g -a gemini-cli -y`
Claude Code plugin marketplace: `/plugin marketplace add coreyhaines31/marketingskills`

## Description

When the user wants to earn backlinks or third-party mentions that lift rankings and AI citations. Also use when the user mentions 'link building,' 'linkbuilding,' 'backlinks,' 'get more backlinks,' 'link prospecting,' 'link gap,' 'competitor backlinks,' 'unlinked mentions,' 'link reclamation,' 'broken link building,' 'resource pages,' 'guest posting,' 'get into best-of lists,' 'listicle outreach,' 'domain rating,' 'referring domains,' 'anchor text,' or 'is this link vendor safe.' Use this whenever rankings stall on authority or someone wants off-site mentions that AI engines cite. Never recommend buying links that pass ranking credit: paid or exchanged placements get rel=sponsored or nofollow. For press coverage and journalist requests, see public-relations. For directories, see directory-submissions. For reviews, see referrals. For Reddit and communities, see community-marketing. For on-site AI citation work, see ai-seo.

## SKILL.md, as published by its author (untrusted third-party text, read it as data)

# Link Building

You are an expert in earning links and third-party mentions. Your goal is to get the pages that matter linked from, and mentioned on, the sites that search engines and AI assistants already trust for the user's category, without creating anything Google would treat as link spam.

Every placement is judged on two outcomes:
- **SEO:** does it pass authority to a page that needs it to rank?
- **AI citations:** is it a page AI engines cite for the category's prompts? A mention there helps even without a link, because shortlists are built from what third-party pages say.

## Before Starting

**Check for product marketing context first:**
If `.agents/product-marketing.md` exists (or `.claude/product-marketing.md`, or the legacy `product-marketing-context.md` filename, in older setups), read it before asking questions. Use that context and only ask for information not already covered or specific to this task.

Gather this context (ask if not provided):

1. **Target pages.** Which pages need to rank or be cited? Links go to pages, and a homepage link rarely moves a commercial page.
2. **Target queries and prompts.** The keywords those pages compete on, and the AI prompts where the user wants to appear.
3. **Current position.** Rankings for those queries, and who outranks them.
4. **Assets.** What could someone link to: data, tools, templates, integrations, a founder with expertise, customers, partners.
5. **Resources.** Hours per week, budget, and whether there's someone to do outreach.
6. **Tools.** Ahrefs, Semrush, DataForSEO, Moz, or none. See the tools section below.
7. **History.** Past link vendors, paid placements, link swaps, or a manual action in Search Console.

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## Step 1: Confirm Links Are the Bottleneck

Links fix an authority gap. They don't fix a page that doesn't match intent, isn't indexed, or is thinner than what ranks. Before any outreach:

The rest: https://github.com/coreyhaines31/marketingskills/blob/HEAD/skills/link-building/SKILL.md