Reddit backlinks for SEO

Starting way back in 2005, Reddit is one of the most widely used websites, with more than 25 million people visiting it daily. This makes Reddit one of the ideal places on the Internet to build backlinks. What makes Reddit link-building a powerful marketing strategy is its utility to create connections with the right target audience, increase your content exposure, and build good backlinks to your site/blog.

An important thing to know about Reddit backlinks is that they can affect a site’s ranking and boost its SEO and search availability for your business. So, using Reddit to build high-quality backlinks will help you increase your website’s domain authority (DA) and page authority metrics for SEO.
In simple words, Reddit backlinks are links to your site from the Reddit platform, including direct links from a Link Post, links in a subreddit with a URL in a Text Post, or even as a backlink in the Comments. As you can see, Reddit can be an effective way to get more backlinks and drive targeted traffic to your website. Anyway, there are some strict rules about the type of links allowed and how often you should post backlinks for digital marketing purposes. If you try to manipulate the platform for building links or don’t follow other Reddit community rules, your account can get banned.

Below you will find a practical Reddit link building guide and some tips that can help you protect your Reddit profile and content:

1. Create a Reddit Account

An excellent method to start getting Reddit backlinks is by creating an account on the platform. To do that, visit https://www.reddit.com, go to the top of the page, and click the “Sign Up” button. Then, you will be asked to provide an email address and password to set up your new account on this platform.

2. Be an active Reddit user for a month.

Another effective step for getting Reddit backlinks for SEO is using the website for straight 30-days before posting a backlink. These 30 days are essential for building a trusted profile on Reddit and not getting banned by Reddit moderators if posting too frequently. That’s why it’s important to prove to the Reddit community you are not just an ordinary marketer using the platform only for marketing your website. Instead, you have to let them know you are serious about using Reddit for SEO backlinks, and you are there to add value to the platform.  

3. Build up Karma before posting any Reddit backlink

The third step is also fundamental in this link-building process because Karma is considered an important backbone of Reddit. Therefore, you need to build up as much Karma as possible to keep a strong profile on Reddit.

Karma is a user scoring metric that uses a proprietary algorithm to measure your participation and engagement on this social media platform. Karma is a scoring metric that increases as your post & comments get upvotes and decreases as they get downvotes. Don’t forget Karma relates directly to your user reputation, so the higher your Reddit Karma score, the more trust your users place in your posts, links, and comments.

4. Create your subreddit for backlinks

Subreddit refers to a Reddit forum dedicated to a certain topic where you are the moderator, and other users can contribute to your subreddit. Other Reddit users are allowed to comment, upvote or downvote, and in this way, you can create a community around your content to more brand exposure.
Another thing you need to know about subreddit because they are a good way to get organic traffic and high-quality backlinks to your site. You can also use them to promote your products and services without fear of another Redditor deleting your posts.
Once you accumulate enough Karma (after 30 days), you will see an option to “Create Community” in your dashboard, indicating that it is time to create a special name for your subreddit. You also have to fill out required data fields and start using your new subreddit to promote your site.

Note: Make sure you post original articles and repurpose current blog posts into your subreddit with backlinks embedded in the content.

5. Choose the best subreddits for link building.

The following step to create Reddit backlinks for SEO is picking the best subreddits in your niche relevant to your link-building campaign. With over 2.8 million subreddits and more than 130,000 active communities available, you can easily find good places to target your content.
When choosing the best subreddits for your Reddit link-building strategy, it’s crucial to consider quality and relevancy. Instead of posting links on multiple subreddits that can get ignored by active users, you better participate in fewer subreddits that attract the right visitors to your website.
Use the search purpose on Reddit to find relevant subreddits to your website or target subreddits related to your niche.

6. Post comments regularly – Keep a clean Reddit profile.

If you are a beginner at building links on Reddit, you will likely want to do anything to keep your account safe for digital marketing purposes. The best way to do that is to post comments on other Reddit threads without posting links. With this strategy, you can keep your Reddit profile clean and safe and build up your Karma score.
You can also avoid getting banned from Reddit if your account is under the supervision of moderators. They can randomly choose to audit your account as they routinely inspect Reddit profiles for spam behaviors related to digital marketing, e.g., posting too many links to the same website.
So, to keep your Reddit account looking good during such inspections, you have to keep posting comments regularly on other threads. In this way, your Reddit profile will have a lot of text-only replies and posts (at least 15-20 posts and replies for every one backlink) that will make your profile look clean and more organized.

7. Only post backlinks relevant to the content

One thing to consider when posting backlinks on Reddit is creating valuable backlinks relevant to the discussion. You can’t post a link to an article that’s unrelated to the thread topic. Dropping links on your Reddit account without any concern for the topic will annoy the members, get unvoted, and even get banned from the platform. Know that it doesn’t take much to get removed from the platform.

Note: Take some time to read through threads before posting and only add backlinks if they are relevant to the discussion.

8. Repurpose blog posts on Reddit with a backlink

If valuable to users, you can easily repurpose your blog content in a popular subreddit and a backlink. Anyway, make sure it won’t look too self-promotional and do not add many links throughout the content; otherwise, your post may get flagged as spam or deleted by Reddit moderators.
You can use this blog repurposing strategy to get more traffic to your site by posting a copy of your blog post into a niche, relevant subreddit. Don’t forget to include a link pointing back to the source URL at the end. With this link-building strategy, you can add more value to the subreddit without forcing users to leave the platform, and that’s why this practice is widely accepted on Reddit.

9. Find proper subreddits that can encourage link sharing.

As you probably know, not all subreddits are created equal when link sharing. Some of them have strict rules against posting links, and some encourage it, while others only accept link-type posts (text and images are not allowed).
Your task is to research various subreddits and threads relevant to your niche and discover the right ones that encourage link sharing. For example, feedback subreddits, self-promotional threads, links-only subreddits, can genuinely encourage link sharing.

Note: Find 3-5 opportunities to post links in multiple subreddits.

10. Post more content that gets the most upvotes

Once you become a more active Reddit user, you will detect the types of content that get the most upvotes and comments. After you notice them, start creating similar types of content to post on Reddit to get more exposure for your website (or brand).
Another way is to use the search feature and find popular topics in each subreddit around your niche. This feature allows you to filter subreddit topics by “Top,” as well as narrow the period down to “Today,” “This Week,” “This Month,” “This Year,” “All Time,” to get valuable ideas of the types of matter that are working best on Reddit in your niche.

Here are some other Reddit backlinks tips to keep in mind when link building on this platform:

1. Avoid spamming – don’t post links too frequently in a single subreddit.
2. Interact with other users and build up a reputation before link building.
3. When posting links, add value with a well-written and informative comment.
4. Make sure your content is high-quality and relevant.
5. Always make sure to read the subreddit rules before posting. (Every subreddit has different rules about what is and isn’t allowed).
6. Be patient – it takes time to see results from link-building on Reddit.

And here are some things to keep away when you build links through Reddit posts:

1. Don’t just post links to your website. It can be seen as spam and get you excluded from some subreddits. Instead, post links to other valuable content on the Internet in addition to your URLs.
2. Don’t use automated tools or submit the same content repeatedly.
3. Don’t harass other users or post offensive text posts.
4. Don’t try to manipulate the system by artificially inflating your vote totals or using multiple accounts to upvote your content.

Why Reddit is good for backlinks?

Reddit is good for backlinks because you can post your site links in targeted subreddits. However, you also need to know that Reddit backlinks can help your content get found by people directly interested in your business. In this way, you can increase the number of organic backlinks that your website gets for SEO.
What makes Reddit even better for backlinks is its strict content policy, making it one of the most trusted websites on the Internet. This trust factor enables Reddit to have one of the highest DA (domain authority) for SEO (based on Moz’s top-rankings factors).

How do links on Reddit help SEO?

Links on Reddit can help SEO by increasing the total number of links in your website’s backlink profile. However, you need to know also that when content works well on Reddit, it also positively affects SEO. The reason is that high-quality content can attract more organic links from other site owners.
To add more, Reddit can also be a great resource for off-page SEO (search engine optimization). Being one of the most popular sites (with more than 48 million users worldwide), Reddit has a large community of users who love to share and link well-written and quality content. In this way, your links can get a lot of exposure to the right target audience.

Are Reddit backlinks Dofollow or Nofollow links?

You need to know that Reddit backlinks start as nofollow links, and the reason for that is to protect the system from strange (unnatural) link-building practices by using user-generated content. But, after receiving a considerable number of upvotes, these Reddit backlinks become dofollow links.
The exact number of upvotes a Reddit post should get to turn the embedded URL into a dofollow link is unknown. Some users say that a post can get only 5-7 upvotes to make a backlink dofollow, while others report that it takes 10-20 upvotes. From SEO experts’ point of view, no matter how many upvotes are received, Reddit is not changing nofollow links to dofollow links.
Whether a Reddit backlink is dofollow or not, you have to keep using this website for social media link-building because it drives organic traffic to your website and increases brand awareness.