A brand-new small business website has no history, no authority, and usually no backlinks — which makes it hard to rank, which makes it hard to earn backlinks, which keeps it from ranking. It’s a real chicken-and-egg problem, but it’s solvable without buying links or gambling on a link-building service you can’t evaluate.
Table of Contents
This guide walks through ten realistic, mostly free ways a new site can earn its first backlinks in the early weeks, plus how to reach out to people so it doesn’t read as spam. None of it requires existing traffic, existing authority, or a budget — just a little time and a willingness to ask.
Quick Answer
Your first backlinks will almost always come from places where you already have a legitimate reason to be listed: your Google Business Profile and other local directories, a Chamber of Commerce or trade association you join, suppliers and partners you already work with, and a guest post or expert-quote opportunity in your niche. Layer several of these at once rather than waiting on one big win.
10 Realistic Places to Earn Your First Backlinks
Start with the free local listings that double as citations and backlinks: a fully completed Google Business Profile, Bing Places for Business, and Apple Business Connect. Each lets you add your website URL, and together they’re the fastest, most legitimate links a new business can get in a single afternoon.
Next, claim profiles on Yelp and the Better Business Bureau, then look for two or three directories specific to your industry (restaurants use sites like TripAdvisor or OpenTable, home services use Angi or Thumbtack, medical practices use Healthgrades). Join your local Chamber of Commerce and any relevant trade association — most membership tiers include a directory listing with a link back to members’ sites.
Ask for links from people you already have a real relationship with: suppliers, wholesalers, software vendors, your web host, or a coworking space, many of which keep a public ‘our clients’ or ‘who we work with’ page. Offer to write a short testimonial in exchange for a link — it’s a fair trade, not a favor.
Pitch one relevant blog in your industry for a guest post or a co-authored article; a single well-placed guest post with a contextual link is worth more than a dozen low-quality directory submissions. Separately, sign up for a journalist source platform such as Featured, Qwoted, or Help a B2B Writer (the space that HARO used to dominate has fragmented since HARO’s shutdown and relaunch) and answer a few relevant queries a week — a published quote often comes with a link.
Finally, look for low-effort wins close to home: sponsor or donate to a local event, nonprofit, or school fundraiser (many list sponsors with a link on their site), and check whether any school, certification body, or industry association you’re affiliated with maintains an alumni or member directory you can join.
How to Do Outreach Without Looking Like Spam
When you do need to ask someone directly for a link — a supplier, a blog editor, an event organizer — keep the email short, specific, and clearly written by a person. Mention exactly what page you’re asking about and why it’s relevant to their audience, not just to you.
Give them something in return where you can: a testimonial, a product sample, a reciprocal mention, or genuinely useful content they didn’t have to write themselves. One polite follow-up a week or so later is fine; more than that reads as pressure.
Track what you send and what lands in a simple spreadsheet, and check your progress periodically in Google Search Console’s Links report so you know which tactics are actually producing results, not just activity.
Tips and Common Mistakes
Skip anything that promises a large number of backlinks fast — paid link networks, link exchanges at scale, and automated submission tools tend to produce low-quality links that put your site at risk rather than helping it. A handful of relevant, earned links beats dozens of irrelevant ones.
Keep your business name, address, and phone number identical across every directory you join; inconsistent listings undercut the local SEO benefit you’re trying to get. And treat this as a slow, compounding habit rather than a one-time sprint — a few links a month, kept up consistently, adds up faster than a single frantic push.
Explore more: More digital strategy guides.
First backlinks for small business websites FAQs
How long does it take to get 10 backlinks as a new business?
Most sites can knock out several links in the first day or two just from local directories and Google Business Profile. The remaining links — guest posts, journalist quotes, partner mentions — depend on other people’s response times, so budgeting four to eight weeks for all ten is realistic.
Do directory and citation links actually help SEO?
They help more with local search visibility and trust signals than with raw ranking power, and they’re a legitimate, low-risk way to start building a link profile. They shouldn’t be your only tactic, but they’re a sensible foundation.
Should I just buy backlinks to speed this up?
No. Paid and low-quality links violate search engine guidelines and can get a new site penalized before it has a chance to build real authority. Earned links from directories, partners, and outreach are slower but far safer for a site with no track record yet.
Build It With GTStudios
Need help with your website, app, or small-business tech? GTStudios builds web, apps, and software for small businesses. See how GTStudios can help.
Photo: Godot13 / CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.