Before building links, it pays to make sure your site has the right foundations in place — solid technical SEO, quality content, and well-optimised pages. Links amplify what is already there; they are not a substitute for it.
Here is what to check before you start.
1. Technical SEO basics
Search engines need to be able to find, crawl, and index your pages before links to them can have any effect. A few key things to verify:
Your site loads quickly, especially on mobile. Page speed is a ranking factor and a poor experience for users. Run your site through Google PageSpeed Insights to identify any significant issues.
There are no crawl errors blocking important pages. Google Search Console will flag any pages that cannot be accessed by Google's crawler. Fix these before building links to affected pages.
Your robots.txt file is not accidentally blocking key pages. It is a simple check but a surprisingly common issue — especially on sites that have been through a redesign or migration.
2. On-page optimisation
Links help a well-optimised page rank. They do very little for a poorly optimised one. Before building links to a page, make sure it is properly set up to rank for its target keyword.
The keyword should appear naturally in the page title, the main heading, the opening paragraph, and in subheadings where relevant. The page should have a clear focus — one primary keyword or topic — rather than trying to target several things at once. Meta descriptions will not directly affect rankings but they do affect click-through rate, so make sure they are clear and relevant.
If you are unsure how well a page is optimised, tools like Surfer SEO can give you a detailed breakdown of what the top-ranking pages are doing that yours is not.
3. Content quality
Google's ability to assess content quality has improved significantly in recent years. A link from a strong site pointing to thin, low-quality content will underperform compared to the same link pointing to a genuinely useful, well-written page.
Before building links, ask yourself honestly: is this page the best answer to the question a user is searching for? Does it cover the topic thoroughly? Is it well-written, easy to read, and free of obvious errors?
If the answer is no, consider improving the content first. A modest investment in the page itself can significantly increase the return you get from every link you build to it.
4. Keyword cannibalisation
Keyword cannibalisation happens when two or more pages on your site target the same keyword and end up competing with each other in search results. Google struggles to decide which page to rank, so it may alternate between them or rank neither as highly as it should.
Before building links to a page, check that it is the only page on your site targeting that keyword. If you find cannibalisation, decide which page should own the keyword, de-optimise or consolidate the others, and then build links to the chosen page. Building links to a cannibalised page without resolving the underlying issue is likely to produce disappointing results.
Google Search Console can help you identify cannibalisation — look for keywords where multiple URLs are appearing in the performance data for the same query.
5. Existing backlink profile
If your site has been live for a while, it is worth reviewing your existing backlink profile before adding more links. A profile that contains a significant number of spammy, low-quality, or irrelevant links can hold your site back — and in serious cases may have resulted in a manual or algorithmic penalty.
Use Ahrefs or a similar tool to review your referring domains. Look for anything that stands out as clearly low quality — links from irrelevant foreign-language sites, link farms, or sites that exist purely to sell links.
You can use our free backlink blacklist tool to cross-reference your existing links against known problem sites.
If you identify a significant number of harmful links, consider a disavow file before scaling up your link building. Search Logistics specialises in backlink audits and penalty recovery if you need expert help: searchlogistics.com
And finally... before investing in link building, we strongly recommend all of our clients work through the free 28 Day SEO Challenge from Search Logistics. It is a step-by-step course that covers everything your site needs to meet modern SEO standards — from technical setup and on-page optimisation through to content and link building fundamentals. It is completely free and available at your own pace.
Working through the challenge before you start building links means every link we build will have a solid foundation to land on — and a much better chance of moving the needle for your site.
Start the free challenge here.