Which Top Publications Offer the Most Outbound Backlinks?

Over 90 percent of all webpages never generate organic traffic from Google, mostly because they haven’t acquired any backlinks. That’s not an exaggeration—in fact, over 55 percent of all content on the web doesn’t have a single backlink directing to it. Therefore, by earning backlinks you can give your content a major competitive advantage in SEO performance. 

Writing guest posts and blog articles for media outlets or popular blogs within your niche is one of the best ways to generate backlinks to your website’s content. The trick is to find third-party websites that are willing to, first, run your content and, second, to include do-follow backlinks in the article. 

Many publications have editorial policies against running backlinks because they believe—unfoundedly, I might add—that doing so runs counter to their SEO performance. Although there’s no evidence to support this belief, it remains commonly held among some media outlets. To help you save time when pitching your content to third-party sites, we’ve put together a list of some of the top publications that let you include backlinks in your content.

The Pre-Game: Refining Your Content

Backlinks are earned, not given. As long as the adage “content is king” still rings true, then quality is the defining factor that separates the king from the pawns. Unless your content adds value to the publication’s readership, then your chances of getting published and scoring a backlink are next to nil. 

Before sending a pitch, first ask yourself whether your content offers an original insight to your reader. Is there something about your content that makes it worthy of being shared? If you’ve answered no to both questions, your article or guest post might not be ready for publication yet. Continue revising your article until your content is substantively unique and value-driven—only then will most publishers be willing to host it. 

Our Favorite Websites and Publications for Earning Backlinks

Now that we know the basics of pitching to media outlets or relevant third-parties, let’s take a look at some of the most widely-read publications that allow do-follow backlinks in their content.

Forbes

The Forbes brand is known for its US-based business magazine that focuses on finance, investing, entrepreneurship, and marketing. However, Forbes’s digital brand produces tons of high-value content and has a dedicated readership with nearly 16 million Twitter followers. 

Best of all, Forbes allows for a generous number of backlinks from third-party contributors. In fact, Forbes has the highest median number of outbound links out of any popular publication. Therefore, pitching to Forbes is an excellent idea for business or finance-related niche website owners or authors who want to score backlinks from a URL with high domain authority.

NPR

National Public Radio (NPR) is a non-profit US media organization with over 1,000 public radio stations across the country. Fortunately, NPR often runs articles from third-party contributors on issues related to the public interest. 

In other words, NPR runs content and articles across a diverse range of topics and niches which makes it a great place to pitch guest posts if you have content that can appeal to a highly educated, well-read audience. NPR also ranks among the best websites for outbound links per article, which makes it an excellent resource for websites looking to generate backlinks.

PR Newswire

PR Newswire is owned by Cision Inc. and operates a content distribution platform for media outlets and businesses. PR Newswire’s extensive platform is an excellent resource for websites looking to generate backlinks. Perhaps Newswire’s greatest asset is their free-to-use Qwoted service, which allows for industry experts to pitch quotes for journalists to use in their stories.

Journalists from the New York Times, New York Post, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, and Washington Post all use Qwoted to find experts for articles with tight deadlines. In exchange for offering your expertise on a subject, journalists are often usually willing to provide do-follow backlinks to your web property as a courtesy.

USA Today

The middle-market newspaper USA Today maintains a lenient outbound linking policy. If you’re lucky enough to successfully pitch an article or guest post to USA Today, chances are high that their editorial board will allow you to keep your outbound links in the article. 

Business Insider

Business Insider is a financial news website with over 5 million unique monthly visitors. With such impressive traffic figures, Business Insider is a heavyweight when it comes to domain authority. Fortunately, Business Insider also offers among the most outbound links per article than any other major online news site. Business Insider’s embrace of backlinks makes it a great resource for any inbound strategy for a business or finance-related website.

The Conversation

The Conversation is an Australian not-for-profit media outlet that runs articles on a variety of well-researched topics. If you can land an article in The Conversation, the website’s editorial board will likely keep your backlinks in the article—therefore, it’s an invaluable resource for building your website’s PageRank. 

Backlinks: The Secret To Your SEO Success

Backlinks are just as important to your website’s SEO success as the content itself. If you want to take your website’s SEO to the next level, you’ve got to secure backlinks from high authority domains. A few of those listed in this article, such as Business Insider, NPR, PR Newswire, and Forbes, are all fantastic resources for pitching content that include backlinks. 

Remember, however, that backlinks aren’t given out on a whim. To earn a backlink, your content must be well-researched, value-oriented, and pitched to an outlet relevant to your niche. For an SEO content strategy to be successful, you’ve got to make sure your content is good enough to warrant a third-party posting it—to do this, we recommend hiring professional content strategists to develop your content and build out a winning inbound linking campaign.