by Venchito Tampon Jr | Last Updated on June 28, 2023
What is image link building?
Image link building refers to acquiring high-quality backlinks by creating and sharing relevant visual content. By strategically creating and distributing appealing images, you can generate organic links that drive traffic to your website. This approach helps increase online visibility and establish your site as an authority in your industry.
If there’s one under-utilized content asset of any website today for link building, I’m sure it’s images.
Most of you think it has lesser link acquisition value than other content types – probably for two reasons: One. It doesn’t catch longevity. Unlike a typical 3500-word ultimate guide, normal images don’t inform a lot of messages.
Two, it’s plain, simple, and most of the time, it’s commercial context. If a visual asset originates from your company, for example (i.e. branded team photos), you would think it’s not usual for a blogger to link to such a particular piece. And your next problem is, how can I remove the commercial intent in these images?”.
These examples of link builders’ dilemmas cause you not to believe much in the power of image link building.
I hope that at the end of this post, you will have plenty of ideas on using images to build links for your site.
Below is a list of 9 image link building strategies that we had the most success with. They can be used in conjunction with others to increase the value of the proposition for outreach.
9 Image Link Building Strategies
1. Skyscrape Old Infographics
If the word “infographics” is for sale in the SEO market, I think it’s sold out already (and perhaps a best seller).
Just kidding.
Infographics are abused in almost all industries. Try searching for your “industry” + “INFOGRAPHIC” as your keyword phrase in Google, and you’ll start seeing tons of infographics published.
Not all of them give much value to users, of course.
One way to break the noise is to observe your industry’s visual market and see which visuals previously gained success and which didn’t work out well.
By doing that, you can start digging into old and most-linked images. When you see one, you start to strategize how to update it and give a revamp.
Skyscape is an old visual asset.
How can you do that at scale?
Use Buzzsumo and its “infographic filter” and search for a topic relevant to your industry.
You enter industry keywords and look for previous infographics that got shares and links, some just earned shares, and it’s okay. A neat probability share could result in a few links in visual marketing.
To promote infographics to get links, you can check out this blog post about guestographics.
2. Utilize Event Experiences Using Freelance Photography
Events become memorable because of great experiences. No one will deny that he wants to return to certain events where he had a great time on the same date and in the same place, if possible.
It’s classic. And what would make someone remember those events?
Photos.
A huge link opportunity awaits you if you can utilize event experiences with freelance photos. Get someone to cover an event with freelance photography.
Instead of sponsoring bucks or free pizzas for after-event parties, hire a freelance photographer to cover that event.
Get those high-quality captures, upload them on a specific page on your website, and dedicate that page just for that event.
Reach out to event organizers and let them know that you have captured great experiences on your website, and these are publicly available for republishing/resourcing. Politely ask those who have used your photos to credit you as the original source.
Depending on vertical markets, if there are niche bloggers/marketers/PR professionals who may have attended the event, there are more link opportunities that you’d see coming from participants’ own websites.
3. Create Content for “Quotes” Keyword
People love inspiration. And getting quotes from anywhere is one way to hype up one’s day.
Knowing that, if you take industry quotes (e.g. parenting quotes) to a keyword research tool, you’ll see an immense opportunity to cover content specific to that.
Though most industry quotes you’ll see are just a compilation of all sayings/wordings from different sources or people, there are surefire ways to help your content get more visibility and help it rank on search.
Ross Hudgens shared that in a post on ranking for “quotes” keyword:
- Aim for the Most Quotes on the SERP – if you see 80 quotes, try to aim for 120 or 150, for example.
- Make Shareable Images for Some Quotes – shareability is important to get more visibility to the content.
- Use Longtail KWs as H2s or Filters – to rank for related keywords, like “parenting a child with disabilities” quotes”. You can categorize quotes based on different audience intent.
- Add Share CTAs on Individual Quotes – add customized tweet-to-share buttons to individual quotes to increase social shares.
In addition, here are some more actionable tips to maximize quotes content for link building.
The first is to include sayings or statements of your industry influencers.
Having them in your blog spotlight gives them a reason to share your “quotes” page as you give them exposure upfront.
One way to find their best statements is to check their top-performing/best articles. Get one or two statements they said powerfully (and probably would be found valuable to other people in your industry).
Create an individual graphic just for that. Then, reach out to those influencers and share your content.
The second is to make it part of a big post.
If you’re creating content you think one quote from your “quotes” page fits best, make it part of that content. By doing so and including a link to your “quotes” page, you increase its visibility – that more people will visit and check the page.
4. Repoint Slideshare Links To Your Website
Whether it’s a personal brand or corporate profile, if your organization’s brand ambassador, marketer, and industry practitioner gets invited to speak to different events, chances are you’ll have a library of slide decks.
You may haven’t uploaded them yet on your own website or public platforms like SlideShare.
But if you do, congrats! Otherwise, there’s a missed opportunity there to get links. In fact, in industries where there is a huge demand for expert information, slides are strong assets for links.
If you have uploaded your slides in Slideshare, track how many links it organically receives. You can semi-automate this process by creating alerts to give you email notifications when a link to a specific page has been found.
Ahrefs can help you with this.
You can go deeper by tracking mentions of a popular slide you have uploaded (which you probably have the confidence that it’ll get shared massively and earn links based on its initial visibility).
Say, if it has been viewed a thousand times without much promotion, you may expect it to be seen more organically, and if you boost it with manual promotion, there’s a high chance it can receive some links.
Your next action is to email publishers who have embedded your slide/s in their content and ask if they could link to your website.
Nudge bloggers with specific anchor text that they may use, i.e., you can state lines like this in your email, “You may link to [domain.com] with texts like, via “Brand/Persona”.
By doing so, you increase your conversion rate, as you remove the commerciality intent of your pitch.
This link building tactic is simple yet underutilized by link builders for clients with strong speaking portfolios.
Further Reading: The Definitive Guide to Link Reclamation
My fifth image link building tip is connected to the method above.
5. Curate Conference Slides
One clever way I’ve seen in company blogs to get more site visibility is publishing a curated list of slide presentations of all the speakers when they have organized an event.
Some SEOs may just look at it as a simple marketing strategy, but it’s a crafty newsjacking idea to list visuals that often have high demands for consumption.
How many people have asked speakers this question, “will you upload your slide presentation online?”.
There are many of them – attendees who are always looking for speakers’ decks.
And if they’ve found the organizer’s blog that puts up a page for those resources, would they not be willing to share or link to it?
The essential here is that you have to be the organizer yourself and be able to publish slides first among every other else (because speakers tend to publish theirs on their own blogs as well).
Besides creating a page dedicated to those slides, uploading those pieces to your Slideshare account to get more organic visibility (as they have chances to rank for long-tail industry keywords) is also important.
Imagine if there are 3 to 5 slides (just you curating it) that have earned links from blogs in your industry. It’s 5 or 10 links acquired with just a simple method!
Just reaching out to them and reclaiming those links, asking if they can credit you as the source of those visual assets.
6. Track Mentions of Flickr Account
Flickr may be an old platform for people uploading photos online. But it can still be a gateway for links in respective industries where images are heavy-indexed, like travel, lifestyle, and home improvement.
Flickr profiles with customized photos get links from time to time – and if you’ve got one, find out who used your images.
You email the contact person and ask if it is possible not to link to your Flickr profile but to your direct website.
There are strong signs of linking, such as links that have via [Name] or Photo captured by [Name] below the embedded slide deck.
You can insert lines in your email that say, You may provide a source of link in your caption text (via domain.com).
If you got it right, that’s a few homepage links you’ll never easily get from other link building strategies.
7. Ranking Opportunities with Visual Content Using Pinterest
When ranking your website in Google, it’s imperative to find low-hanging keywords you can easily rank without much due diligence in promotion, especially if you’re a relatively new website.
Those keywords are goldmine opportunities that may only require you to put content that is only 2x better than other pages in search results.
And be mindful that you don’t have to create 10x content just to rank. With an average DA of your domain, it’s possible to steal that easy organic traffic.
One brilliant tip to find those visual ranking opportunities (h/t to @dan_shure) is using Pinterest.
Pinterest pages rank for keywords you may haven’t thought are relevant to your industry. Some keyphrases even have high link intent, which gives you enough confidence for manual outreach.
How to start this content creation approach?
Put Pinterest into semrush.com. (I prefer SEMRush over Ahrefs when filtering millions of organic keywords straight on the platform without exporting CSV files).
Your next step is to filter keywords by your topic + “ideas” or “images”.
Then filter again with keyword difficulty.
Do this method every month to find newly suggested or searched keywords, and you’ll have endless visual keyword opportunities you can rank content with.
For example, the “backyard fence ideas” keyword has Pinterest pages with good link intent (20+ average linking root domains).
That keyword opportunity alike, given in your respective industry, is something you can grab and create 2x content with it, which passively helps you earn links when you rank.
8. Reverse Engineer Image Site Backlinks
For some of you who don’t know, image links point to your site not with an anchor text but with an image.
Image links are acquired from different approaches. Here are some common examples:
Image directories
Loyalty cards
Partnerships or Sponsors
Professional Organization Links
As you can see, these are legitimate links mostly executed from a traditional partnership perspective, i.e. the case with a professional organization. You join a partner group, and they give you a link from their partners/association page.
Usually, these links are hard to get by just doing outreach and requesting a link.
You don’t do that. for sure. These are gold mines. You think and plan how to acquire the link properly.
But with a good approach, and if your brand permits you to sponsor/partner/join or even create a loyalty card for customers, it’s not only a branding opportunity. But along the way, you can create image links.
How did it start?
Put up a competitor’s domain to a link prospecting tool.
Go to its Backlinks profile and export a backlink report (CSV).
Filter the list with words containing “Image” only to find image links, either do-follow or un-follow.
Search through potential link opportunities. Understand how your competitor acquired links. Some may take manual outreach. Others may take weeks to partner for a program. But there are a few that only require creating a profile and uploading images, just like this one.
9. Image Share With Other Websites
Honestly, not all image link building tactics can best fit your website.
But if there’s one tip that is very simple to do to build links through images, you approach publishers and give them permission to use any of your visuals.
By giving them permission, you provide value upfront that sets you apart from other link pitches that say, “give me a link”.
Jason Acidre established a solid image link building strategy of creating a private gallery/library of images and cinema graphs and offering it to bloggers in exchange for links.
With more bloggers caring more about the design of their content, they’ll likely perceive your pitch as highly valuable, especially if it’s given to them intentionally and for free.
If you don’t have the time or inclination to do them, you should probably find someone who can. Learn more about our link building services.
Image Link Building Frequently Asked Questions
How do I make an image a link somewhere?
To make an image clickable and turn it into a link, you can add the <img> tag within an <a> tag. This HTML code works on WordPress too, just use the text view option in the page editor. Give your image a link by nesting the <img> tag inside the <a> tag.
What are image backlinks?
Image backlinks are links to websites, pages, or profiles embedded in images. These backlinks help improve a website’s visibility and authority, as search engines consider them signals of relevance and trust. Including image backlinks in your SEO strategy can enhance your website’s ranking and attract more organic traffic. Ensure your images are properly optimized and relevant to the linked content to maximize their SEO value.
Does link building still work?
Yes, link building is still effective for improving SEO rankings today. However, it is important to focus on quality links rather than quantity. Building high-quality, relevant backlinks from authoritative websites can greatly enhance your website’s visibility and organic traffic.
The Author
How our LINK BUILDING AGENCY builds 250 links/mo consistently using Predictable Link Building Methodology™…
- Using a SIMPLE and PROVEN system
- Using a SCALABLE strategy
- No private blog networks
- No creepy outreach emails