The Complete Guide To Link Building In Vietnam

Links are the currency of the web. More and higher quality links translate to a higher ranking with Google. Building links is at the heart of every SEO strategy, so it’s essential to learn the front and back of this approach to enhance your website’s trustworthiness. This guide will go over everything from link building definitions, types, strategies, tools, and more!

Table of Contents

What is Link Building?

Link building is the process of getting other websites to link to pages on your website to boost authority in the eyes of Google. The purpose of link building is to increase search engine visibility, raise your pages’ rankings, and generate more traffic. However, it should be done strategically, as many factors must be considered. More backlinks indicate that the webpage is of good quality and is used as a reference by others. However, quality is far more important than quantity.

Generally, with white hat link building, there are two core steps:

Create something noteworthy like a study, survey, top content, infographic, etc.
Promote it to webmasters so they link to it as a reference.

Why Link Building is Important for SEO

Backlinks are one of the major factors that influence search engine rankings. When crawling, Google considers the number and quality of inbound links to a webpage. Imagine visiting a new place and asking for the “best coffee shops in town.” If most locals name one specific coffee shop, you’ll likely trust their recommendation. Similarly, Google “asks” the web for recommendations in the form of backlinks.

As a rule of thumb, more referring domains lead to higher search traffic. However, without focusing on quality, backlinks may result in a high spam score, which can get your site penalized.

Knok Studios has built over 2,000 guest posts in Vietnam in the last decade, across crypto, manufacturing, retail, services, and SaaS industries, proving the long-term power of authoritative link building.

Types of Link Building

Backlinks (or inbound links) are incoming hyperlinks from other websites to yours. They are considered one of the most critical factors for ranking on Google. The goal of link building is to boost search traffic, establish domain authority, and improve the user journey.

Outbound links – Links from your website to other sites show that your content is based on trustworthy sources. While they don’t hold as much weight as backlinks, they support credibility.
Internal links – Links between pages on your own website. They help users discover more content and improve engagement metrics.

Categories of Backlink Strategies

Natural Link Building

This happens when someone links to your page organically—without any outreach. These links are the most credible but also the hardest to get. Common ways to earn them include:

Creating infographics or data-driven resources.
Publishing studies or unique insights.
Earning citations for expert commentary.

Outreach Link Building

This involves contacting site owners and asking them to link to your pages. Effective outreach requires:

Relevance: Identify how your content aligns with theirs.
Value: Explain why linking to your resource benefits their audience.

Examples:

Guest posting
Press releases
Sponsorships or collaborations

Black Hat Link Building (Avoid These!)

This type of link building attempts to manipulate Google rankings using unethical tactics. Avoid:

Spammy blog comments
Forum thread stuffing
Excessive buying/selling of low-quality backlinks

How to Build Links (Step-by-Step)

Link building strategies typically fall into four buckets: add, ask, buy, and earn.

1. Add Links

When you access a website that isn’t yours and manually place your link there, it’s called adding a link. The most common tactics include business directory submissions, social profile creation, posting to forums and communities, and creating job listings. Common tactics include:

Business directories – Focus on high-quality, well-trafficked directories.
Social media profiles – Helps protect your brand and increase awareness.
Forum participation – Add value to discussions, don’t spam.
Blog comments – When relevant, can still drive referral traffic.

2. Ask for Links (Outreach)

Reach out to website owners directly to ask for a link. There are many tactics you can employ to get your desired backlinks. Tactics include:

Guest blogging – Contribute articles with embedded links.
Skyscraper technique – Offer a better version of content they already link to.
Link inserts – Suggest additional references for their existing content.
Ego bait – Feature them positively so they feel inclined to link back.

Knok Studios has direct connections with over 5,000 publishers in Vietnam, allowing your outreach campaigns to hit faster and land more frequently.

3. Buy links

It is not easy to create top-quality content and then ask people to link to it. More than that, even if you have a masterpiece of content, most of the time, it is not attractive enough so people give you free backlinks. Therefore, many agencies increase the incentive by paying webmasters so they link to your content instead of others’ content. This technique is very common in the SEO industry because nowadays, everyone is aware of the value of backlinks so they always ask for something back when they give you a backlink.

4. Earn Links

You earn links when others voluntarily add your link to their website without having to ask them. This won’t happen unless your content is extraordinarily useful. Try some of the tactics here to raise your chances of getting earned links.

Linkbait: Create linkable assets that they can “borrow” (and credit), such as infographics, data studies, maps, surveys, awards, and more.
Podcasts/Interviews: Similarly to link baiting, many prefer to reference something personal and unique, like podcasts and interviews on related topics.
Content promotion: That’s right, people can only link to you if they know about it. So start promoting to spread your business name and improve your backlinks results.

What Makes a High-Quality Link?

There is no official guideline or criteria for how Google ranks backlinks; however, there are a few general concepts that the SEO community believes are used to evaluate backlinks.

1. Authority

Two types of authority – page and website authority – are good indications of the link’s quality. Page authority refers to Google’s PageRank algorithm, where pages with more links weigh more in the vote. Google has denied the weight of website authority in the past, but it’s intuitive that well-known websites are more credible than random ones. That’s why many strive to get backlinks from old pages with solid profiles. That doesn’t mean a newly-published page should be ignored as they may acquire high-quality links over time, increasing your link’s value in the long run. Low-ranked but high-potential websites should be treated similarly to newly-published pages as they can become a big deal in a few years.

2. Relevance

Let’s look at this indicator with an example. Your business website publishes an article reviewing the best coffee shops in town. Later, two of your friends decide to link it in their articles, one about “10 places to visit in this town” and the other one is “10 ways to start a conversation”. Assuming that both have the same level of authority, the more topical relevance one’s vote will (obviously) weigh more in the eyes of Google.

3. Anchor text

Anchor text is the visible, clickable text that links to another document or location on the web. In most cases, anchor texts describe what the linked page is about, and Google uses these texts to better understand which keywords to rank you for. In other words, anchor texts signal Google about which keywords your content is related to. Keep in mind that Google may penalize your website if they see a pattern of excessively targeted, exact-match anchor texts that can only be achieved via unnatural link building.

4. No-follow vs. follow

A no-follow link does not have much value for the linked page and is often ignored because it means it does not give the linked page a vote of trust. However, Google switched to a hint model in 2019 that says some no-follow links have an influence on page ranking. Of course in link building, you want to build high-quality follow links. But if there is a chance of getting a no-follow link from a relevant high-authority page, absolutely follow through.

5. Placement

The placement of the links indicates the likeliness of it being clicked. Generally, an article has three blocks: sidebar, content, and footer. Viewers put the most attention in the content section, so your link can get more attention here, especially if it’s at the beginning of the article. Similarly to anchor text, you have little to no control over it. But if you’re writing a guest post for someone else’s blog, boost the SEO value and send some traffic by placing your link strategically.

6. Destination

In link building, there are three destinations to point to: the homepage, linkable assets, and pages that you want to rank high on Google. There is no right way to go about this, and it depends entirely on your strategy. It is a common strategy to build an authoritative homepage and then funnel the “authority” using internal links into pages that you actually want to rank.

Link Building in Vietnam: Local Strategies That Work

A good link-building strategy always centers around useful content. This could be harder to achieve if you are an international brand looking to enter the Vietnamese market without a local expert. Here are some tips for your link-building strategies in Vietnam.

1. Do Vietnamese Keyword Research

One of the things you want to do before pumping out content for your website is to perform Vietnamese keyword research. This will ensure that your content is targeted to the Vietnamese market specifically. Google gives different search results based on location, meaning the search results for a keyword in the US will be different from the search results in Vietnam for the exact same keyword. You can use tools like Google Trends, Semrush, or Ahrefs to start your localized keyword research.

2. Localize Content

After you have those keywords and ideas for the content, start building links with localized content. Most Vietnamese people prefer to read in their native language, especially when it is promoting your business or website. Be wary of translating your content word-by-word, as it comes off unnatural and hard to read. To better appeal to the Vietnamese audience, we recommend that you hire professional copywriters whose first language is Vietnamese.

Knok Studios’ native Vietnamese SEO team handles local keyword research and copywriting to ensure natural, culturally relevant content.

3. Build Content Topic Clusters

Google has begun using artificial intelligence to rank content, so you will need a few tricks to get on its good side. If you want to rank for a certain keyword, build content around one central topic and expand around it. Surround this pillar page with several related, more focused blog articles that link back to the page. This is called a topic cluster model, first pioneered by HubSpot, and is now the norm for content marketers globally.

4. Analyze Competitor Backlinks

The top-ranking page for your desired search query always has the right links, hence why it’s important to perform competitor link research. By studying its links, you will be able to figure out which tactics you can employ to get similar links and outrank that page. With the help of SEO tools like Ahrefs and Semrush, you can figure out how many backlinks each of the top-ranking pages has and can take further actions to achieve the same outcome. You can either try to get backlinks from pages that link to your competitors or study their strategy and implement it to get more backlinks than your competitors.

5. Promote Your Content

Now that you have your localized content and have learned a few strategies after analyzing your competitors’ backlinks profile, the next step is to execute the plan. No matter how “linkable” your content is, people can’t link them without knowing about them first. Even the best linkable assets have to be promoted to attract links, which can generally be accomplished in three ways: advertising, outreach, and community.

Advertising: This is a pretty straightforward tactic where you pay money to get visitors to your page. You can reach out to the audience on any platform and raise the chances of someone linking to it. The problem is that it is a costly tactic that you have to pay to acquire visitors, so this isn’t sustainable in the long run. However, it’s perfect to increase your brand awareness as well as attract, nurture, and retain customers. Advertise because it helps your business grow, and backlinks will result as a byproduct.
Outreach: This is the most popular way to promote your content because there is a higher chance of success and faster results. It involves sending an email to other website owners in your niche to pitch why your content is worth linking to. A good way to go about this is to impress them with your content and make them want to check it out. Another way to perform outreach is by guest blogging, offering the webmaster a high-quality piece of content (a guest post) in exchange for a link to your website. Guest posting has become the dominant technique in the SEO world in the last 10 years and even now, most link builders still consider this to be one of the most effective ways to build links.
Community: Reaching out to people who are interested in you or related to your topic has never been easier. They can be found on Facebook groups, subreddits, and other social platforms. You might also be able to find some standalone communities in certain niches. Before you can effectively promote your content, become an active member, and gain some respect. After you get a following, it would be a good idea to create your own community with an audience who looks forward to your content. You can connect with them through your business’ Facebook group, email newsletter, and Twitter.

Link Building Tools You Should Be Using

While manpower and an email address are enough to start your link-building journey, many link-building tools can aid you in executing your strategy and help you achieve your desired numbers.

Ahrefs – Excellent for backlink and keyword research.
Semrush – Robust all-in-one SEO tool.
Hunter.io – Email finder for outreach.
Mailshake / Pitchbox – Streamline your outreach.
Google Alerts – Monitor brand mentions.

Common Link Building Mistakes to Avoid

With 1.5 billion websites on the Internet today, you want to do the best you can to stand out. If you’re planning your link-building strategy today or are wondering why your current one isn’t working, check out six common mistakes in link-building before you go.

Using Low-Quality Content Even if you earn a link, poor content won’t retain users or convert traffic.
Over-Linking to the Same Page Distribute links across service pages, blog posts, and lead magnets.
Irrelevant Backlinks Always link within your niche to maintain topical relevance.
Ignoring No-Follow Links They add diversity to your backlink profile and still drive traffic.
Poor Outreach Don’t send generic templates. Personalize, explain value, and follow up respectfully.

Final Words

This guide has covered the definition, strategy, tips, and common mistakes so that you can build the best backlinks for your website. Building relevant links to the localized version of your site from local websites is the only way to rank in a local market. If you want to emerge into the market or attract visitors from Vietnam, investing in a strong link-building strategy is extremely worthwhile.

Knok Studios provides Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) services and has years of experience building authoritative, high-quality backlinks in Vietnam. We’ve helped clients across industries: crypto, SaaS, retail, services, and more, scale their rankings and results.

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