Tier 2 Link Building: The Complete Guide for 2025

Are you sure your backlinks are providing maximum SEO benefits for your website? 

However powerful your backlinks are, giving them an extra push can help you direct their true potential to your website.

That’s why Tier 2 link building is essential.

Tier 2 link building involves creating an additional layer of backlinks to ensure that your primary backlinks better bolster your website’s authority and rankings.

Here’s the cherry on top. Unlike your primary backlinks, Tier 2 link building doesn’t require a lot of time and effort. But their benefits are manifold.

In this write-up, I’ll tell you all that you need to know about Tier 2 link building. 

Without any ado, let’s get started.

What is Tier 2 Link Building?

Tier 2 link building is when you build backlinks to a page that links back to your website. This is primarily done to improve the authority of the page containing your backlink. 

As a result, you end up turning your backlinks more authoritative. The more powerful your backlinks, the stronger your backlink profile.

So, what sets Tier 2 link building apart from typical link building, AKA Tier 1 link building?

Tier 1 link building is when you build backlinks that directly point to your website. On the other hand, Tier 2 backlinks are links that you build on top of your Tier 1 backlinks to pass extra link juice to your website indirectly.

For example, if you have a guest post linking back to your website from an external source, building Tier 2 backlinks to the blog post can help it rank higher and pass more link equity to your site.

While Tier 1 backlinks often come from high-authority websites and blogs, Tier 2 links are likely to be built from directories, social media platforms and industry forums.

Why are Tier 2 Backlinks Important?

Tier 2 backlinks have a lot of benefits in store to bolster your mainstream link building efforts.

Enhancing Link Juice

One of the major benefits of building backlinks to your page is getting link juice from other authoritative sites to your own.

However, if an external page containing your backlink also has many other outbound links. According to the original PageRank document, this can dilute the link equity or link juice passed on to your website. This can improve the SEO benefit you get from the backlink.

Now, by building Tier 2 backlinks on top of your Tier 1 backlink, you ensure that a significant amount of link juice flows to your website.

Supporting Content Visibility

Tier 2 backlinks help send relevancy signals to Google and enhance the online visibility of the host page with your backlink.

When the page hosting your backlink ranks higher in search and attracts more clicks, it can send more traffic to your page.

This increased user engagement tells Google that your content is relevant and helpful to users. As a result, Google will rank your page higher for relevant keyword searches.

Improving Domain and Page Authority

As you now know, Tiered link building enhances link juice and content visibility for your site by strengthening the pages carrying them.

The ripple effect created by Tier 2 backlinks can help boost your domain and page authority while positioning your site as a reliable source of information in your industry.

When Should You Use Tier 2 Link Building?

Investing in Tier 2 link building for your website depends on the following factors.

Website Age and Maturity

If your website is brand new, I suggest focusing on building robust Tier 1 backlinks in the first place. 

Once your site gets some traction and has built some authority, you can go ahead to build Tier 2 backlinks using tailored strategies.

Quality of Existing Tier 1 Backlinks

Are your backlinks from high-quality sites underperforming and don’t bring the expected SEO benefits just yet?

Tier 2 backlinks are the way to go to give those links the push they need to showcase a good performance and drive significant organic results for you.

Competitive Niches

The intensity of competition in your industry can influence your website’s online presence and the effectiveness of your link building campaigns.

If your niche is fiercely competitive, even a small SEO boost can make a big difference and help you outrank your business rivals.

Tired link building can help strengthen your backlink profile and give you the edge you need to beat your competitors and rank higher in search results.

Cost-Effective SEO Campaigns 

Tier 2 backlink building is an economical option to boost the authority of your website. This is especially useful if you have a limited SEO budget.

This link building strategy comes in handy to maximize the value of your existing backlinks and eliminates the need to spend heavily on high-quality link acquisition.

Benefits of Tier 2 Link Building

Here’s a look at the specific benefits of Tier 2 link building for your website.

Increased Authority for Tier 1 Links

Tier 2 backlinks are a support system that boosts the authority of your Tier 1 links. This way, Tiered link building amplifies the link juice passed on to your website.

Also, when Google finds that your Tier 1 links are referenced by other relevant sites, it counts on those pages for content quality and relevance.

This ensures that your Tier 1 backlinks stay effective and bring sustainable SEO perks to your website in the long run

Cost-Effective Strategy

As Tier 2 link building focuses on leveraging existing link building opportunities and doesn’t require you to look for expensive backlinks, this strategy offers you a high Return On Investment.

This way, you can see tangible SEO results for your website at supremely affordable costs.

Faster Impact on SEO Results

Google discovers new pages by crawling links within the pages it has already crawled and indexed. So, if your Tier 1 backlinks are relatively new, Tier 2 backlink building can help Google discover and index your primary backlinks faster.

Remember, backlinks are one of the Google ranking factors. That said, strengthening your backlinks using Tier 2 backlinks is a good way to boost user engagement and rankings at a comparatively faster pace.

Effective for Competitive Niches

As I mentioned earlier, Tier 2 link building can significantly benefit websites navigating aggressive competition. 

While your competitors are busy building more Tier 1 backlinks, Tier 2 link building can help you get more traction and boost profits using your existing backlinks.

Diversification of Backlink Profiles

A healthy backlink profile includes a mix of both high-quality and moderate backlinks. Google is fond of such natural link profiles rather than suspiciously perfect link profiles with only high-quality links.

Investing in Tier 2 link building makes your host website’s profile look natural and balanced and reduces the risk of Google penalties. This, in turn, dilutes the chances of your site getting affected by negative SEO.

Where to Build Tier 2 Backlinks

Check out the platforms you can leverage to build Tier 2 backlinks below.

Guest Post Links

Just like Tier 1 link building, guest post backlinks also hold good for Tier 2 link building.

You can make a guest post contribution that links back to your Tier 1 guest post page. When you do so, make sure you prioritize sites that align with your Tier 1 content. 

Social Media

Social networking platforms like LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook make way for seamless Tier 2 link building.

By sharing or reposting content that contains your Tier 1 links, you create a natural network of backlinks that drive traffic to the Tier 1 pages.

Note: Google marks social media links as no-follow links. However, these links come in handy to boost content exposure and drive traffic to Tier 1 links.

Directory Links

You can build Tier 2 directory links by submitting your Tier 1 content page to corresponding directories. Of course these are old school methods but for local businesses and websites this strategy still works.

But when building such directory links, make sure that they are niche-specific and relevant to the content on the Tier 1 page. Also, check if the selected directories are Google-indexed.

Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking sites like Reddit and Pinterest are another good place for seamless Tier 2 link building.

Just like social media links, social bookmarking links are often no-follow. While they don’t provide a ranking boost, they can increase user engagement for your Tier 1 content.

Press Releases

Press releases are also a great way to increase the traffic and ranking potential of your Tier 1 backlinks. 

Submit press releases to news platforms and media outlets to maximize the reach of your Tier 1 content. 

For example, if one of the top industry sites listed Stan Ventures as one of top three agencies in the USA and links to our website, we can then create a press release on the same and link to the listing page.

When creating press releases, ensure that the content is newsworthy and links to high-quality Tier 1 pages. 

Forums

You can use relevant forums like Reddit, Quora and others to create backlinks to your Tier 1 content by answering relevant questions.

Forums have strict guidelines in place. So, make sure that your content delivers value to the target audience of corresponding forum sites.

Link Exchanges

When done responsibly, link exchanges can work well for Tier 2 link building.

You can exchange links with websites that share a similar niche and a common audience base. Place a link to your Tier 1 page naturally within the exchanged content.

Note: Avoid overuse of link exchange to stay away from search engine penalties.

How to Find Tier 2 Link Building Opportunities

Now, let’s talk about how you can discover potential Tier 2 link building opportunities.

Using Your Other Websites

If you manage multiple websites, you can leverage them to build Tier 2 links pointing to your Tier 1 content. 

ALERT: Don’t overdo this Tier 2 link building technique. Otherwise, Google will think that you are participating in a link scheme, which is a black hat link building practice.

Exploring Content Syndication Networks

Repurpose your Tier 1 content and distribute it across content syndication platforms like Medium, LinkedIn and Quora to improve its reach.

If you own multiple websites specializing in similar niche, you can also use them to syndicate your Tier 1 content.

Add canonical tags to avoid duplicate content issues and ensure the post links back to the original Tier 1 content.

Identifying High-Engagement Platforms

Narrow down high-engagement platforms for your Tier 1 content, including niche blogs, community forums and social networking groups. These are ideal places for Tier 2 link building.

That’s because these platforms are most likely to attract people who are actively looking for content pieces like yours.

How to Implement Tier 2 Link Building

Here’s everything you need to know about the Tier 2 link building implementation process: best practices, tools and link performance monitoring.

Best Practices for Tier 2 Link Building

Tools for Finding Tier 2 Link Building Opportunities

You can use tools like Ahrefs or SemRush to find Tier 2 link building opportunities. 

Analyzing your competitors’ link profiles is a great way to get started with Tier 2 link building. That’s because sites linking back to them may not be your direct competitors. Plus, they often share a similar customer base.

Let me show you how you can find link building opportunities using Ahrefs.

Alternatively, you can navigate to Ahrefs Content Explorer and enter a keyword relevant to your Tier 1 content. This will show you top-performing pages and domains for that particular keyword. 

Exploring these pages and metrics closely will help you identify potential Tier 2 link building opportunities.

Common Tier 2 Link Building Mistakes to Avoid

Ensure you avoid the below pitfalls when building Tier 2 links.

Relying on Low-Quality Links

Tier 2 link building doesn’t mean you should care less about link quality, especially because it can indirectly affect the quality of your Tier 1 backlinks.

Make sure the domains you choose for Tier 2 link building are authoritative and relevant.

Overuse of Exact-Match Anchor Text

If you use too many exact-match keywords to place your backlinks, Google will perceive it as an attempt to manipulate its algorithms for higher rankings. Clearly, Google doesn’t like it.

In the case of Tier 2 link building, overuse of exact-match anchor text can have a bad SEO impact on the page containing your backlink. This can backfire on your site’s authority.

Ignoring Content Relevance

Every backlink should align properly with the content in which it is placed. 

Stuffing irrelevant links into the content will affect user experience and bring down engagement metrics drastically.

Should You Outsource Tier 2 Link Building?

When done right, Tired link building can bring long-term SEO benefits to your website. While it can bring faster, sustainable results and is cost effective, there is no denying that the link building process is time consuming and requires consistent performance monitoring. 

Handling a multitude of link building activities, such as identifying link opportunities, managing outreach, creating content and monitoring SEO performance, on your own can be a Herculean task. Most importantly, these activities can drain your time and stop you from focusing on your brand’s core operations.

That’s why you should outsource Tiered link building service to a professional link building agency. This can, indeed, unlock the following perks for your brand.

High-Quality Backlinks with Relevance

No more struggling to find backlinks where quality meets relevance. With a massive inventory of 30,000 websites curated based on 20+ link metrics, Stan Ventures can build high-quality relevant backlinks to bolster your domain authority and rankings.

100% Manual Blogger Outreach 

Stop relying on underperforming, robotic outreach email templates. Our genuine blogger outreach process with carefully handcrafted email pitches ensures high-quality backlinks for our clients on niche-specific websites and blogs.

Content that Adds Value

High-quality content is the backbone of effective link building. Stan Ventures hosts a robust team of 100+ native content writers to craft engaging, value-added content with contextual link placements.

Affordable and Transparent Pricing

Say no to hidden costs when outsourcing link building. With Stan Ventures, outsourcing link building isn’t about breaking the bank. Our supremely competitive pricing allows you to save 20–30% of link building costs compared to other SEO agencies. Plus, our money-back guarantee ensures 100% client satisfaction.

Scalable Link Building Solutions

Outsource link building as per your needs. Whether you need 10 links or 1,000, Stan Ventures is equipped to scale your link building campaigns seamlessly. With 200+ outreach specialists and 100+ writers, we can deliver quality backlinks without extending turnaround times.

Partner with a trusted link building service provider. With a 15-year long industry presence, Stan Ventures is a trusted SEO partner of 5000+ businesses and agencies across the world.

Ready to amplify your website’s authority and rankings with a customized link building strategy? Book your free strategy call with our experts today.