Divya MathurSenior Content marketer at Smartlinks.ai and Smarttask.io. Passionate about B2B SaaS and Artificial Intelligence. I’ve been in the content space for over 6 years and have first-hand experience in how On-Page and Off-Page SEO affect a site's traffic. These articles enable me to share my learnings and help you achieve better search results.
Do not index
Do not index
Link-building communities are great for creating quality backlinks, gaining new insights, learning from other SEO experts, and staying on top of trends.
But with so many options, finding the right one can be overwhelming – especially if you’re just getting started.
To make things easier, we reviewed several communities (on Slack and Discord) and picked our favorites. Here are our top picks (in no particular order):
1. Smartlinks (Slack)
Community-type: Private
Membership: Free
Ideal for: Content marketers, SEO executives, and SaaS founders
This community complements Smartlinks – a platform that matches websites with relevant opportunities and creates backlinks without outreach. But it can also be used on its own.
Why join Smartlinks?
Smartlinks is a well-moderated community focused on cultivating relationships and quality link-building. Its real strength lies in Smartlinks’ (the platform’s) Karma points that foster trust and reciprocity among members.
Here are some other benefits of this community:
- Prompt response from the creator: Smartlinks’ founder Shyamal Parikh is personally involved in managing the community. In case of any issues or queries, you can expect a direct response from him.
- Ability to determine Smartlinks’ (or the platform’s) future: The community allows members to provide product feedback and vote on its potential features.
- Backlinks from reputed SaaS websites: Thanks to a robust vetting process, Smartlinks enables members to obtain high-quality links from well-known SaaS websites.
- Resources for guest posting: Smartlinks has a separate channel for guest posts where authors can acquire resources for their upcoming articles.
How to join this community?
To get an invite to Smartlinks, visit its website and click the “Try It Live” option.
2. Link Building HQ (Slack)
Community-type: Private
Membership: Free
Ideal for: Content marketers, SEO executives, link builders, guest authors, journalists, and SaaS founders
Created by digital PR and link-building agency uSERP, Link Building HQ is a valuable resource for anyone interested in exchanging backlinks and learning more about off-page SEO.
Why join Link Building HQ?
What we particularly like about this community is that it offers link exchange opportunities with sites like HubSpot, Entrepreneur, Crazy Egg, and other well-known SaaS brands. It also has a dedicated channel for link exchanges – reciprocal as well as 3-way.
Here are some other perks of joining this community:
- Guest posting with high-authority websites: Link Building HQ enables members to exchange guest posts with Envato, G2, ClickUp, Hive, and other high DA (domain authority) SaaS websites.
- Access to top SaaS professionals: Due to the community’s stringent vetting procedure, its members have access to some of the best link builders, marketers, and SEO experts in the industry.
- Promotion avenues: The community has a dedicated channel for promoting and upvoting forum posts (Reddit, Quora, etc). It also lets brands promote their SEO and link-building tools.
How to join this community?
To join Link Building HQ, fill out this form on its website (although, as a final step, you’ll have to provide a backlink to uSERP).
3. Link Building World (Slack)
Community-type: Private
Membership: Free
Ideal for: Freelance link builders, content marketers, bloggers, website owners
Founded by the digital marketing agency Sortlist, Link Building World is one of the few communities with robust support for multilingual websites.
Why Join Link Building World?
According to Make SaaS Better founder Pratik Shinde, Link Building World is a “small community but contains quality members and is highly moderated.” Additionally, it offers the following benefits:
- Language-based channels: Unlike other link-building communities with only one channel for guest posting and link exchanges, this community has separate language-based link-building channels for English, Spanish, French, Dutch, and German.
- Accepts freelancers and agencies: Some communities are only open to people who have a business email address. However, that’s not the case with this community. It’s open to everyone, including website owners, brands, freelance link builders and agencies.
How to join this community?
You can join Link Building World by filling out this Google form.
P.S.: Online communities are beneficial for link building, but they don’t always produce immediate results. As a result, we recommend using a zero-outreach solution, such as Smartlinks, to build backlinks alongside.
4. Growmance (Slack)
Community-type: Private
Membership: Free
Ideal for: Content marketers, authors, link builders, and SEO executives
Technically speaking, Growmance isn’t a link-building community – though it has channels for link exchange and guest posting. Nevertheless, it’s an excellent place for acquiring backlinks and dwelling on various aspects of digital marketing – from PPC to social media to copywriting.
Why join Growmance?
Based on our experience, Growmance is one of the most accessible communities for freelance link builders. However, it has some other advantages as well:
- Large community: With over 16k members, Growmance is undoubtedly one of the largest communities in the link-building niche.
- 30+ channels for various needs: Growmance is a multifaceted community that caters to several marketing requirements – from affiliate and growth to content marketing.
- Regular posts for link building: The community’s #guest-posting and #link-exchanges channels receive daily requests for backlinks. The latter receives at least 5-8 requests daily (from both B2B and B2C websites).
How to join this community?
To get an invitation to Growmance, fill out this form on its website.
5. Traffic Think Tank (Slack)
Community-type: Private
Membership: Paid
Ideal for: Members of Trafic Think Tank (TTT) academy, SEO specialists, agency owners
TTT is more of a networking and insight-gathering platform than a link-building community. However, its resources (tools, templates, and Process Docs), live Q&A sessions, and monthly webinars make it a worthy addition to this list.
Why join Traffic Think Tank?
When it comes to community initiatives, there’s no one out there like TTT. It has, by far, the best events and activities for members to engage in.
Here are some other things we like about this community:
- Network of trusted individuals: Since it’s a paid community, TTT attracts members who are serious about marketing and SEO. It also has pretty strict guidelines and removes members who violate them.
- Lots of educational content: Since it’s bundled with an e-learning portal, TTT offers a wide range of training material for SEOs, link builders, marketers, and agency owners.
- Limited group size: TTT is a close-knit community limited to a thousand members at a time.
How to join this community?
The TTT Slack community is part of the academy’s Full Accelerator Plan, which costs $119/month (or $1,190/year).
P.S.: Building backlinks on a budget? Check out Smartlinks, a zero-outreach solution that’s absolutely free to get started.
6. Rank Accelerate (Discord)
Community-type: Public
Membership: Free
Ideal for: Content marketers, authors, link builders, and SEO executives
Rank Accelerate (formerly Rank Makers) is a public community for exchanging knowledge, tips, and insights about SEO. In addition to a wealth of training material, it has some helpful resources for off-page SEO.
Why join Rank Accelerate?
Despite being a public community, Rank Accelerate is relatively spam-free. In fact, during our time there, we received no direct messages for link exchanges – which is rare for such communities. It also has the following benefits:
- Access to free training material: The community has a "Learn SEO" forum with in-depth tutorials and roadmaps for mastering on-page, off-page, and programmatic SEO.
- Dedicated link-exchange forum: While it’s not very active, Rank Accelerate has a dedicated space for sharing guest posting and link-exchange opportunities.
How to join this community?
Rank Accelerate is hosted on a Discord server and can be accessed using this link.
7. Backlinks (Slack)
Community-type: Private
Membership: Free
Ideal for: Business owners, SEO experts, content marketers, and industry leaders
Founded by Utah-based digital marketing agency Brainspin, Backlinks helps business owners and SEO specialists find relevant link-building opportunities. It also facilitates discussions on marketing insights, link-building strategies, and member queries.
Why join Backlinks?
Despite being a private community, Backlinks is open to almost everyone – from link builders to business owners to content marketers. However, there are other benefits of joining this community as well:
- Active link-building channels: Backlinks is one of the most active communities for link-building. It gets multiple requests for guest posting and link exchanges across several channels.
- Channel-specific notifications: Backlinks’ members can customize their notification preferences to only receive alerts from channels they’re interested in.
How to join this community?
To get an invite from Backlinks, visit its website and apply to join for free.
8. Marketing Lad (Slack)
Community-type: Private
Membership: Paid
Ideal for: SEO marketers, link builders, bloggers, and SaaS startups
Marketing Lad helps websites scale their link-building efforts in partnership with leading brands. It also lets them collaborate with bloggers, verified link builders, and upcoming SaaS brands.
Why join Marketing Lad?
In terms of features and utilities, Marketing Lad checks all the boxes. It has a robust vetting process, dedicated space for link exchanges, and high activity across all its channels. Nevertheless, we felt it’s the following things that make it worth a try:
- Access to prominent brands: According to its website, Marketing Lad is trusted by over 700 brands, including uSERP, Visme, ContentStudio, and Planable.
- Plenty of resources for beginners: Marketing Lad offers a wealth of information for SEO novices and new website owners.
- Channels for content promotion: The community has specific channels for promoting members’ blogs and social media posts.
How to join this community?
Marketing Lad is a paid community that charges $20/month for membership. However, there’s a 24-hour refund policy for dissatisfied members.
Other Communities for Link Building
In addition to the above-mentioned communities, you can also explore the following options for building quality backlinks:
- CRO Growth Hacks (Slack): This group discusses CRO (conversion rate optimization), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Search Engine Optimization (SEO), email marketing, and business strategies. That said, it’s also a great place for link-building. You can sign up for it here.
- Link Building and SEO (LinkedIn): This is one of the biggest communities (30k+ members) on LinkedIn and focuses on the latest strategies and industry news. To become a member, apply here.
- Growth Hackers: This is an online platform with discussions, resources, and expert insights for marketers. You can join it for free by clicking this link.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is a link-building community?
A link-building community is an online group (hosted on Slack, Discord, LinkedIn, or Facebook) that enables website owners, marketers, and SEO experts to exchange insights and build backlinks.
- What criteria should one use to select a link-building community?
- Community intent: Before joining a community, you must verify its intent. Is it just a knowledge-sharing space or a group aimed at link builders?
- Level of engagement: A community with regular posts and contributions would be more beneficial to your link-building efforts.
- Quality: Consider how selective a community is in admitting new members. Is it invite-only or public? Is it open to everyone or only to websites in a particular niche? This will enable you to determine its quality.
There are three things to consider when choosing a link-building community:
Written by
Divya Mathur
Senior Content marketer at Smartlinks.ai and Smarttask.io. Passionate about B2B SaaS and Artificial Intelligence. I’ve been in the content space for over 6 years and have first-hand experience in how On-Page and Off-Page SEO affect a site's traffic. These articles enable me to share my learnings and help you achieve better search results.