Reddit has a reputation for being difficult for brands. That is why over 90% of marketers don’t use it. But with nearly 500 million monthly active users, you can’t afford to ignore it any longer.
If you’re going to take your SEO game up a notch, you’ll need to learn how to gain backlinks from Reddit. Even though this may appear straightforward, it is rather nuanced, just like everything else on the site.
In this article, you’ll learn how to use Reddit to get backlinks, generate traffic, and grow a loyal following.
Is Reddit Good for SEO and Backlinks?
For years, marketers flooded Reddit to build backlinks. After all, you can easily share a link to your website with every post on the forum.
Then it fell apart. Redditors started downvoting brands that were only after self-promotion. Then Google’s John Mueller revealed that links in forums don’t help SEO.
That was the end of marketers loving Reddit until now.
Even though those problems are still present, companies are finding creative ways to benefit from Reddit’s meteoric rise in SERPs.
Between July 2023 and April 2024, Reddit’s visibility on Google shut up an astounding 1,328%!
This presents a staggering opportunity for brands that know their way around the platform.
While Reddit is still hostile to marketers, you can create content that ends on the first SERP and build backlinks if you follow its rules.
One potential issue is that Reddit automatically makes all links nofollow links. After all, it still needs to protect the integrity of its site.
Even though this is not valuable to SEO, it still has enormous benefits that will be discussed later.
The best part about using Reddit for SEO and link building is that it is free. It is also a fairly simple process, so you don’t need to hire professionals.
There is also a rumor that if you play your cards right, Reddit can turn some of those nofollows into dofollow links.
Can I Get Dofollow Links from Reddit?
Reddit has been around for two decades, but there are still a lot of things we’re yet to figure out. Reportedly, it is possible to get dofollow links from Reddit, but nobody is entirely sure how.
The theory is you need to meet certain criteria, like getting a certain number of upvotes per post. Another hypothesis is that only links in the sidebar of a subreddit can become dofollow links.
Even if this is true, having links in a sidebar is still incredibly rare. Besides, if it were that simple, everyone would start their own subreddit.
While this remains a hotly contested issue, it is best to focus your strategy on what you can control, which is the nofollow links.
What are the Benefits of Getting Backlinks from Reddit?
Even though nofollow links have no authority and no impact on SEO, there are still several advantages, especially when you get them from Reddit.
1. Drive traffic to your website
Besides boosting your domain authority, the major advantage of backlinks is driving traffic to your website; the forum social network is perfect for this.
Unlike most social media platforms, the site’s algorithm does not punish you for including links as long as you don’t use a URL shortener. The platform is also broken down into niche communities,
making it much easier to target the right audience.
2. Increased brand recognition
Reddit gets over 5.7 billion organic monthly visitors, making it the sixth most visited website in the world. That means the more people see links to your website, the better acquainted they get with your brand.
This can also have an indirect impact on SEO. As people know and trust your brand, they can begin to link to you from their websites with dofollow links.
3. Doesn’t cost you anything
Getting backlinks from Reddit may cost you some time, but it won’t cost you any money. This makes it a low-risk link-building approach that is perfect for small brands.
4. Can turn into dofollow links
As mentioned in the previous section, nofollow links from Reddit can turn into dofollows. If it does happen, it could significantly impact your SEO efforts.
It is still being determined if it will help your domain authority, but it will certainly get you more site traffic.
How to Gain Backlinks from Reddit
If all you had to do to get backlinks from Reddit was to share a post in each of the over 100,000 subreddits, the site would be unbearable! Thankfully, it is slightly more complex than that.
The key to leveraging Reddit for SEO, building a brand, and generating leads is blending in, and here’s how to do that.
1. Play by the rules
Unlike other social media platforms where almost anything goes Reddit has a lot of rules. These guidelines are known as Reddiquette. Subreddits also have their own rules, both written and unwritten.
When you play by the rules, you will be rewarded with a supportive community committed to mutual success. When you don’t, you will be punished via downvotes, shadow bans, or eviction.
People who love Reddit are those who treat the community right. Marketers rarely fall into this category, but you will if you follow this guide.
2. Get active in subreddits
Once you’ve studied the rules (it only takes a few minutes), it is time to get involved in subreddits.
Look for groups where they discuss problems you have the solution to. You can also join groups of like-minded people where you can talk about things you’re passionate about.
Being active in a community will help you get upvotes, which in turn gets you karma.
3. Build your karma
Karma is Reddit’s reward system for being a valuable community member. Every time you post or comment, you get karma points.
You get even more karma points when the content you share gets more upvotes than downvotes.
The main benefit of karma is that it lets you join subreddits with minimum karma requirements. It also shows Redditors that you can be trusted, which is critical when sharing promotional links.
While you shouldn’t make getting karma your main goal, it is a good way to let you know you’re doing the right things.
To build your karma, ensure that every post you write is loaded with unique insights that add value to the community without asking for anything in return.
It is easier to build karma when you participate in smaller subreddits, where members are more likely to see and respond to nearly everyone’s posts.
Once you have earned the community’s trust, you can start sharing internal links.
4. Share your links with the right keywords
Keyword selection is just as important in Reddit as on your website. Remember that your keywords are serving you on two fronts.
The first front is for people within the subreddits. Catchy headlines make people want to read or watch your content.
The second set of visitors you want to target with your keywords are those who will stumble upon your Reddit post from search engines.
You should test headlines and keywords in different subreddits to see which works best.
5. Monitor and analyze everything
The only way to know if your link-building strategy is working is by closely monitoring your website analytics and Reddit performance.
The only problem is that keeping track of your activity on Reddit can be tricky, especially if you are active on many subreddits.
To help solve this problem, the company recently released Reddit Pro. It provides AI-powered analysis for business users, saving you time and potentially making you money.
You will instantly see how all of your posts are performing and it provides insights on where and how to improve. You can also use external tools, but Reddit Pro outperforms them all.
6. Bonus – Create your own Subreddit
You can create a subreddit if you can’t find a community for what you’re offering. However, you need to understand that moderating a group can be time-consuming.
Anyone can create a subreddit, but you need to have been active on Reddit for at least 30 days and have some positive karma.
When you launch the group, publicize it on and off the platform. Share your subreddit with your mailing list and your other social networks.
Even though creating a subreddit can be challenging, it can also be very rewarding because you set the rules. This will give you the best avenue to gain a lot of backlinks, but only if you make the group very exciting.
No Time to Waste: How to Gain Backlinks from Reddit
Google’s love for Reddit has provided a special opportunity. There is no better time than now to get backlinks from Reddit because we don’t know how long their love will last.
In the meantime, take advantage of this cheap and relatively easy way to boost your SEO rankings with LLM while building or being part of a community.
If you don’t you will fall behind the millions of brands ready to call Reddit home again.