[Feedback Wanted] Backlink strategy for SEO & LLMs

Hey everyone, I recently launched a new strategy to get high-quality backlinks for our tool without classic link exchanges or writing guest posts and I’d love your feedback on it.

The goal: To get featured in “Top Tools for…” style articles and get cited more often by AI tools/LLMs (ChatGPT, Perplexity...)

Result

Why I used this strategy?
1. These articles are often the first step for prospects comparing tools
2. LLMs rely on them when people ask for tool recommendations
3. There's a snowball effect: writers of new articles copy from old ones
4. We improve our SEO with fresh backlinks

The 5-step process.
1. Find high-intent keywords
We target queries like “best cold email tool,” “top LinkedIn outreach software"...
All keywords that rank list-based comparison articles.

2. Scrape Google results
We use APIFY to extract the top-ranking articles, including title, link, and domain authority.

3. Clean the list
We remove anything that isn’t a real “Top tools” article, articles written by competitors or ones that aren’t relevant.

4. Find the right contact
Author, SEO lead, or content manager = our targets (with Clay for example)

5. Launch outreach campaigns
We don’t just ask to be added:
– We explain how we’d add value to the article
– We provide a full paragraph (aligned with their tone and structure)
– We mention that Google rewards updated content and LLMs tend to cite updated sources

What do you think about this stategy?
Have you tried a similar approach? Would love to hear your thoughts or improvements

whats the kpi?

javadth said:

whats the kpi?

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The main KPI here is the number of backlinks we had when we launched the campaign

Erwann LGM said:

The main KPI here is the number of backlinks we had when we launched the campaign

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Well, if you managed to get links, then I think it's a good win!

Erwann LGM said:

– We mention that Google rewards updated content and LLMs tend to cite updated sources

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Do you have sources for this? In my (albeit limited) experience, LLMs tend to rely on search results, but also on text, which isn't correlated with backlinks necessarily.