Interviews with SEO pros: Part 6, Ume Laila

What link-building strategies will make you stand out in 2025? Are paid links inevitable? What shall you invest in to attract natural backlinks?

We had an honest conversation about this all with Ume Laila, an SEO consultant with 5+ years of experience in the field, and a Top SEO voice on LinkedIn with over 40K followers.

See what Laila has to say about link-building!

What biggest changes in link-building (or/and SEO) can you predict for 2025?

The biggest shift I'm seeing is moving away from traditional backlinks toward "entity signals." With AI getting better at understanding context, Google is putting more weight on brand mentions, citations, and topical relevance than raw link counts.

Digital PR and real brand storytelling will become the primary link-building strategies. Those mass guest posting campaigns and PBNs? They're dying a quick death as Google's AI gets better at spotting manufactured links.

We'll also see a huge emphasis on community-driven links - like Reddit, Stack Overflow, and niche forums. These natural, contextual mentions are gold because they come with real user engagement and intent signals.

Mass guest posting and Private Branch Network will soon be a thing of the past

In your recent post, you listed 13 ways to get high-quality backlinks. Can you name the best tactics in your experience?

The best tactics from my experience are:

1. HARO - it consistently lands top-tier links if you're quick and quotable. I've scored Fortune 500 coverage this way for my clients.
2. Content partnerships - creating joint research or tools with other brands. Brings natural link exchanges plus actual business value.

What's the biggest misconception companies have about link-building?

“More links equals better rankings.”

I still see businesses dropping thousands on bulk guest posts or PBNs, and I still see those ‘10 links for $5’ gigs on Fiverr having dozens of orders in queue proving that people are obsessed with the quantity of links completely missing that 1-2 quality mentions from authoritative sites can outperform 100 mediocre links.

Quality over quantity. Every single time.

In another post, you mentioned some no-no's in link-building such as joining a PBN or doing link exchange. Still, many SEOs do direct link exchange, because the other site normally expects something in return. How can we avoid direct link exchange or at least do it safely?

Haha, this post took a lot of attention.

Honestly, I am never talking against link exchange, it was about ‘excessive’ or unnatural link exchanges. Like, back-to-back link exchanges with the same website, or a same pattern of exchanging links every time with no valid reason to justify the exchange as natural.

And Google is getting better & better at spotting these patterns.

If not today, maybe after a year or two you’ll face a ranking drop, and you’ll be wondering ‘Why this even happened to me?’, and that’s when Google’s intelligence will have noticed your black hat or grey hat practices.

Instead, why not focus on value-based partnerships? Rather than "I'll link you if you link me," we create genuine collaboration opportunities like Joint research projects, Co-hosted webinars, Industry roundups, Expert interviews, Tools or resource collaborations, etc.

This way, links flow naturally from actual partnerships, not artificially.

Plus, you're building relationships and authority, not just trading links.

Paid backlinks are seen by many as a necessary evil - what's your stance on them?

Look, I'll be brutally honest here.

Nothing in this world is free. You at least have to pay ‘something’ in return. Links are no different. This is a proper business model today, this is like a proper income stream for authoritative websites to sell links and make money, and none of us can deny that.

So there are two options: either you invest in your product, branding, and positioning and become so good or different in the market that everyone naturally wants to talk about you, or otherwise, you pay them to.

One other good option is to invest in building relationships and getting natural coverage and authentic mentions instead of paying and getting links.

To my surprise, I have seen many ‘link-building platforms’ that offer paid backlinks/guest post sites, etc. for others, they invest heavily in building relationships with influencers, creators, and news websites.

So I’d say, Instead of dropping cash on risky paid links, invest that budget in:

• Original research that naturally attracts links
• Digital PR campaigns
• Industry partnerships
• Creating genuinely valuable tools/resources

The ROI might be slower, but you're building sustainable authority instead of riding the penalty knife-edge, lol.

What tips would you give to SEOs who're struggling with link-building?

Here's what I'd recommend SEOs who need help with their link-building:

Ume Laila's tips to SEOs who have difficulties with link-building

Remember, remember, remember: focus on building relationships, not just links.

Thanks for an amazing talk, Laila! Here’s to long-lasting relationships that go beyond one-time link exchange.