Real Estate Link Building guide (2026)

If you have landed on this page, I believe you already know how SEO works in the real estate industry and how backlinks from relevant and premium sites can help you in dominating top positions on money keywords in the niche.

You probably want to know how to do link building for your real estate website, so that it can attract relevant traffic and leads. Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered!

This guide will explore the best link-building techniques for real estate companies, how you can do it yourself, and the best real estate link building firms that can help you in reaching your marketing goals.

Why is Link Building necessary for Real Estate Firms?

For those new to digital marketing or specifically SEO, link building is a practice followed widely in the SEO industry. The idea behind this is to get a backlink for your business site from another website.

Why?

Because Google counts backlinks as votes, and the higher the votes, the stronger and dominant your real estate website will become on search engines. This also helps in ranking or getting cited by generative AI engines like ChatGPT, Gemnie, etc.

Generative AI engines scrape the top results for a given query and add top-ranking websites in their answers. This increases the likelihood of potential clients and investors landing on your website via ChatGPT or another AI assistant.

This is why big players in the real estate business spend thousands of dollars on real estate PR, link building, digital marketing, and SEO.

Apart from the whales in the real estate industry, your competitors, who might be small to mid-sized real estate agencies, spend some part of their monthly or yearly profits on real estate link building, because if they don’t, they won’t sustain rankings on Google or Bing, losing traffic and brand impressions.

Soloprenures and independant realtors are also in the game. They know how important link building for real estate agents’ blogs is and how they can leverage informational content to attract leads and new clients.

I’ve explained why link building for real estate sites isn’t just important; it’s essential for staying competitive and sustaining long-term growth. Now let’s see how you can build credible and editorial links for your real estate website.

Real Estate Link Building — DIY

The basics of link building for any business niche remain the same. You find great websites in your industry, and try getting backlinks or mentions from them. Some websites often ask for an editorial fee to keep operations running, which, in my opinion, is a fair ask.

However, those links will be called paid links in simple English and can hurt your SEO. But you will find almost all of your competitors and big fish in the real estate industry getting paid links to support their overall SEO strategy.

I don’t recommend getting paid links to my clients, but if anyone wants to get them, I don’t hold them back. It’s my duty to warn my clients about the negative impact these links can have on their site.

With that said, let’s begin with how you can build high-dr editorial real estate backlinks for your business.

 1- Digital PR for Real Estate Website

Digital PR is one of the best link-building techniques you can use to score editorial backlinks for your real estate website. On top of that, it allows you to gain exposure for your business by getting published on high authority websites and magazines, which improves brand mentions, website authority, overall SEO, etc.

We at HAROLinked bring years of experience in real estate digital PR and link building, so your business can grow with clients and revenue. You can also try doing it yourself, but let me tell you, digital PR is one of the toughest ways to get links and mentions.

Our team of experts spends countless hours to get a single brand mention and backlink on the right website, so it will take you more than that to learn it and do it. But I won’t stop you from trying it out because the result is worth the effort.

2- HARO & Qwoted Links

The second method of link acquisition for real estate websites is getting mentioned on high authority real estate websites, blogs, and magazines via HARO, Featured, and Qwoted. There are other journalist outreach platforms like SourceBottle, SOS, etc, but I recommend using HARO for free journalist outreach and Qwoted if you have a marketing budget.

The only issue I see and face with HARO is that it has become overly crowded. Because it’s free, everyone is trying to get a piece of the pie, and reporters are flooded with AI-generated answers, which they don’t bother filtering. So, if you prepared a well-researched answer about a real estate query, chances of it reaching the right place at the right time are low.

However, my team and I have had success in the past and won’t eliminate the use of HARO only because it’s crowded now. See, HARO offers a great platform to get connected with journalists who are looking for genuine answers and insights from realtors.

Just do yourself a favor: don’t use AI to generate or polish your answers, because most of these journalists and reporters now use AI detectors, which can eliminate your answer if it’s AI-generated. Follow the same answering practice for Qwoted. Your answer should be original, to the point, and fast.

Qwoted also offers a basic free plan in which you get 2 pitches per month with a 2-hour delay. However, if you have a marketing budget, I would recommend getting the Qwoted Pro plan for $145/m which allows 35 pitches per month and profile view intelligence.

It also gives the feature to check your answers for AI before you send them. My team and I prefer Qwoted for premium links for real estate sites and businesses. We have scored backlinks and mentions from Realtor, GOBankingRates, Redfin, etc.

3- Competitor Link Spying

Another technique to outrank your competition is link spying. However, you will need a subscription to Ahrefs or Semrush to check competitor backlinks. You can do it for free with their free version, but they won’t show you the complete list of backlinks your competitors have. Ahrefs has a free backlink checker, while Semrush gives a 7-day free trial with limited visibility.

So, I recommend getting an Ahrefs or Semrush monthly plan to create a list of websites linking back to your competition. The starter plan for Ahrefs is availabe at $29/m which gives you enough credits to create a list of websites backlinking your competitors. Semrush, on the other hand, will cost you more and is availabe for $165/m, and sadly, they don’t offer a starter plan.

The obvious choice is Ahrefs, so check out their YouTube channels on how to use the tools to extract competitors’ backlinks, and you’re good to go.

I recommend creating an Excel or using spreadsheets for the websites and beginning outreach. Most of these websites won’t reply, and those who do will ask for an editorial fee. Try your best to get a backlink from these sites offering a well-researched blog on real estate trends or forecasts. Some editors and webmasters may like your pitch and accept your offer.

The criteria for shortlisting websites based on domain rating, domain authority, authority score, spam score, organic traffic, and other key metrics is discussed below.

4- Real Estate Guest Post service for Link Building

Guest posting for real estate sites is one of the quickest ways to build some basic links for your business. You have to find a few websites that are directly or indirectly related to your business, pitch them your idea, show them your expertise, and ask them if they accept guest posts on their sites.

The best way to find guest posting sites for real estate agencies is to type your money keywords and search which websites are rank on Google. Open them, and reach out to the ones who are not your competitors and industry blogs.

Secondly, you can use these search operators to find relevant sites for real estate guest posting:

• “<keyword>” “write for us”
• “<keyword>” “guest post”
• “<keyword>” “submit a guest post”
• “<keyword>” “submit an article”
• “<keyword>” “contribute”

You can find a number of real estate websites that accept guest posts using these search operators. All you need to do is add relevant keywords between the angle brackets. For real estate link building, you can add keywords like “real estate, realtor, multifamily real estate, luxury real estate, etc.”

The search operator will look something like this after adding real estate keywords:

1. “<real estate>” “write for us”
2. “<realtor>” “guest post”
3. “<real estate agent>” “submit a guest post”

With both techniques, you can create a list of 100 websites that accept guest posts in the real estate niche. You can always contact us if you need assistance in real estate link building and finding prospects for guest posting.

5- Niche Edits and Link Insertions

This link-building methodology for real estate requires minimal effort in comparison with guest posting, and the results are somewhat similar. In guest posting, you have to create a well-researched article with proper content structure following the webmaster guidelines, still there is still a chance of rejection.

In link insertion or niche edits for real estate sites, you find a relevant blog, outreach the webmaster or editor, and ask them to backlink your website on a particular keyword.

In some cases, the webmaster allows you to add a small paragraph, enabling you to add an anchor-rich link to your page. However, editors and webmasters may ask for a small fee to add your link to an existing article.

Overall, link insertions for real estate sites is one of the most viable and effective techniques of link acquisitions for real estate sites, practiced by several business owners and seo agencies.

6- Local Links for Real Estate

Acquiring local links for your business website is one of the best ways to rank locally in a city or state. This helps you attract the best and local leads, and in real estate, this can make or break your revenue and business.

In simple terms, local links are backlinks acquired from websites that speak and write about a city, state, or region. For example, if your agency is based in New York, getting a backlink from NY-based websites will be beneficial in comparison with a generic blog and website.

This is because a backlink for a real estate site from a local website not only helps you with local SEO, but it also increases your EEAT, relevant brand impressions, and overall branding.

Think about it, local traffic from your city has the potential to convert into qualified leads, in comparison with traffic coming from a generic or informative blog. For real estate agencies based in New York, I would recommend getting local NY links from websites like NY Times, Gotham, TotalNY, etc. Similarly, an LA-based real estate agency should go for LA Magazine, Los Angeles Times, etc.

Local citations and business directories are also part of local link building for real estate agencies. These also support your GBP ranking in the local map pack and have a positive impact on your overall SEO and rankings.

7- Creating Linkable Assets

Linkable assets can be well-researched blogs, an infographic, or a research-report PDF document on the real estate industry, predicting the future or evaluating the market.

Creating informative linkable assets requires expertise, skills, and hardcore research, which is not an easy job for a regular guy with experience in buying and selling homes. Although you can try creating linkable assets, earning real estate backlinks is a tough job and, in my experience, has a 0.7% success rate.

I am not discouraging you from creating linkable assets for real estate link building; I am giving you a heads-up on how the industry works and the probability of getting real estate backlinks with linkable assets.

8- Sponsoring Local Events and Scholarships

Sponsoring local events is a simple way to earn trusted mentions and backlinks, especially for city-based real estate brands. Most events list sponsors on their website with a logo and a link back to your site.

You can also partner with local businesses like mortgage brokers, movers, home inspectors, or interior designers. When they promote the event or publish recaps, you can earn extra mentions and links from their websites too.

Local influencers can help amplify this. A neighborhood creator covering an event, a community guide, or a local collaboration can bring brand visibility, referral traffic, and sometimes backlinks if they have a blog or media page.

For scholarships, create a dedicated scholarship page on your site with clear eligibility, deadline, and application steps. Offer it to students in business, sales, marketing, or real estate-related programs.

Then reach out to universities and colleges that maintain scholarship listing pages. If approved, you can earn high-trust .edu backlinks from legitimate institutions.

I recommend employing more than two real estate link building techniques to get the best results. There are a few more techniques to get real estate backlinks. I have listed the most effective ones. But before moving forward with any of these link building techniques, I want you to read the heading below on how to evaluate a website for real estate backlinks.

How to shortlist websites for Real Estate Backlinks?

Shortlisting websites for outreach is one of the most important parts of real estate link building. The websites you are reaching out to should be great in every aspect, because they can have a negative or positive impact on your online visibility and overall SEO strategy.

Backlinks from spammy sites, link farms, and PBNs can hurt your rankings, and in the worst case, may even lead to a Google penalty. There is no way back if your website is hit with a Google penalty, which can be an announced penalty or a silent penalty, in which your pages are removed from SERPs without any message from Google in the search console.

Therefore, it is really important to know the difference between the good, the bad, and the ugly websites for real estate backlinks. You can always contact us for assistance and expert opinion, and our team will help you in finding the best websites for backlinks.

1- SEO Factors

Here are a few SEO factors you should check before outreaching the editors and webmasters of a website for real estate backlinks.

• Domain Rating: Can be checked with the Ahrefs free DR checker.
• MOZ DA: You can check the Domain Authority (DA) of a website for free with the Moz DA checker.
• Semrush AS: The authority score by Semrush evaluates a website on its backlinks, traffic, and content. It’s not free, and you will need a Semrush subscription to check it.

The basic rule of thumb is to get backlinks from websites with higher DR, DA, and AS than yours. If your real estate sites have a DR of 10 and a DA of 9, get backlinks from websites with higher DR and DA. Backlinks from websites with a higher DA and DR are considered most effective, and I prefer getting links from DR 60+ websites.

DA, DR, and Semrush’s AS are not the only SEO factors you should look at; they are one of the few. Moving forward, the second most important indicator is the organic traffic the websites are getting, which country the traffic is generated from, and which keywords the websites are ranking for.

All of this can be checked for free with Ahrefs’ free tools. To find the best website for real estate backlinks, it should have a higher DR or DA, with traffic coming from the United States, the UK, Canada, Australia, or Europe; a few Asian countries are also accepted in some cases, but not all. Also, check which pages are attracting traffic and which keywords the website is ranking on.

If a website is ranking on real estate relevant keywords in the United States or the UK, attracting more than 1000 or 5000 monthly visits, and has a higher DR and DA than your site, it is a good website for backlinks. The second site is ranking on keywords like mortgage or personal finance, which are indirectly relevant to the real estate industry. These sites are also good for outreach for backlinks.

However, if a website with a good DA and DR is ranking on keywords like Dua Lipa net worth or Avengers Doomsday release date, then it’s not a good site to get a backlink for a real estate company.

2- Relevance

A few backlinks from relevant websites are more effective than many links from generic websites. Always try to aim for websites that are directly or indirectly related to your business and industry. For example, for real estate backlinks, we can go for websites, blogs, and magazines that write about homes, construction, home decor, fancy fittings, furniture, mortgage, etc.

We can go for generic websites, news sites, and magazines only if they are real businesses, have a high DR and DA, and have more than 50K monthly organic traffic. For example, for a real estate website backlink, I can go for a generic website or a news site with a DR of 70 or 80, more than 100K organic monthly traffic, and an established online brand presence.

So you should always go with websites and blogs that are directly or indirectly related to your industry and business niche. However, if a website has great SEO metrics like a solid DR and high organic traffic, it should be considered in real estate link building.

3- Websites to Avoid

This section covers the website following bad and blackhat SEO practices to inflate their DR and DA. This is what the bad and ugly websites look like and can negatively impact your rankings if you get a backlink from many of these.

So check the DR, DA, and Semrush AS. Most of the bad websites will fail in at least one; if a dubious site has a good DR and DA, the Semrush AS will be lower.

If all three SEO metrics are fine, check the organic traffic and recent dips. Websites practicing black hat SEO techniques to inflate their DA and DR often get hit by a silent Google penalty, which results in traffic loss. Sometimes half of their traffic is gone, or traffic is tanked to zero. Stay away from websites with a huge dip in traffic.

Thirdly, check the backlinks of the website. Check which sites have mentioned it and the quality of the backlinks it has acquired. This may be difficult for you, because the evaluation requires expertise and experience in SEO, but don’t worry, you can always contact us to find the right websites for real estate link building.

Just to let you know, some good websites got hit with the 2023 Google spam update, and only a fraction of them were able to recover. So it requires a lot of experience in evaluating a website for backlinks in the real estate or any industry.

Rounding it up, I have listed three aspects of evaluating a website or real estate link building. You need to check the SEO metrics, relevance, and if the websites belong to a PBN or are involved in blackhat practices. Whether you are looking for link building for a luxury real estate service or doing it yourself, these factors of evaluating a website for backlinking will help you in finding the best prospects.

The best Real Estate Link Building Agencies

There are hundreds of SEO and link building agencies claiming to be the best link building agency for real estate sites. But only a few deliver quality results.

I recommend evaluating a real estate link building agency on these factors before hiring them:

• Check reviews on Trustpilot, Google Business Profile, Clutch, etc.
• Check their client testimonials.
• Ask for a real estate website that they have built links for in the past.
• Ask for a real estate website link building strategy, approach, and targets.
• Ask for a timeline.
• Always ask for a one-month or 2-3 link trial to evaluate the quality.

You can easily evaluate their work with the factor I have mentioned above in this blog. This guide will help you select the right link building partner agency for your real estate website. Moving forward, here is the list of top link building agencies in 2026.

1- HAROLinked

We specialize in providing premium backlinks to real estate business sites. We use journalist outreach platforms like HARO, Featured, and Qwoted to pitch journalists and reporters looking for answers and expert opinions.

In return, they backlink to our clients if they are satisfied with our answers and add our expert opinion to their blog. Links from these websites can not be bought and can only be earned. This means your competitors won’t be able to get these links, no matter what price they pay; they can only get similar backlinks for real estate sites if they opt for the same link building approach: HARO and Qwoted.

Usually, business owners don’t have time to check, evaluate, and respond to journalists’ queries, which is why this link building channel is left untapped. But now you can hire us, and we will pitch reporters on your behalf, getting you mentioned and backlinked from premium and high authority sites like USA Today, Yahoo, Reuters, etc.

We also offer a premium real estate guest posting service for link building as a second tier of link acquisition. For niche edits and link insertions, our team will create a list of 100-200 websites linking to your competitors. These sites will be relevant to the real estate industry, have good SEO metrics, and share the list with you for selection.

You will have the complete authority to select and reject websites, no questions asked. After this, we will reach out to editors and see which websites can strategically place your website in an existing blog or write a new one.

Feel free to discuss our link building process and how we can help elevate your online presence on Google and ChatGPT.

2) The HOTH

The HOTH is a well-known SEO provider that offers packaged link building services, including guest posts and link insertions (niche edits), with transparent reporting and tiered options based on authority metrics like Domain Rating.

If you want a scalable, process-driven link acquisition vendor (especially for steady volume), The HOTH is a common pick for agencies and in-house teams.

3) Promodo

Promodo is a full-service digital marketing agency (SEO + performance marketing) that includes link building as part of its SEO offering, aiming to earn more relevant, trustworthy backlinks to improve rankings and brand exposure.

They also position themselves as an award-winning, Google-certified performance marketing agency and highlight long-standing operations (since 2004), which can appeal to commercial-scale brands that want integrated growth beyond links alone.

Wrapping Up

At the end, I believe I have equipped you with real estate link building knowledge, which will help you in building links for your real estate websites yourself and in evaluating agencies or freelancers before hiring them.

I have discussed why real estate backlinks matter in 2026, what are the most effective channels for link acquisition, and which real estate link building agencies are best for you, and how you can evaluate their performance.

Lastly, it does not matter which stage of growth you are at the moment, because link acquisition is essential for anyone operating in industries like real estate, law, fashion, etc. Solo agents and independent realtors looking for a reliable link building partner for a real estate agent blog should contact us for a free evaluation and consultation.