How do you diversify your links?

Ok so we all know GSA SER is bad for your website, and you just can't throw pbn links at your new domain.

I used to start with some GSA and then build the DA up slowly.

Later I would use web 2 and finish with PBNs.

How do you guys start with your link building using what method?

You can start with citations/directories, some guest posts, some web20, social signals.
As long as you do not start with huge velocity, you will be fine.
So first slow velocity, then faster.

PBNs are risky. Start with web 2.0, guest posting, press release, social bookmarking.

How do u guys build them, automated or manual?

I use manual outreach.

Work less. Get better results.

For Tier1 i always recommend manual link building only. New sites recommend to use brand terms, generic terms & raw urls as anchors initially and plan links to long tails and finally very links to main keywords from trusted sources.

You can also get 2-3 PBN links to new sites that won't create any problem as long as you won't use exact match anchors.

Foundation links until it's getting out of the sandbox, like citation/PR/HQ forum links etc.
Then continue with PBN/Guest post.

The reality is, for most sites / niches, you can get away with GSA quality for diversity.

Why dont I use GSA for diversity?

1. Horrible link retention rates
2. Poor Indexing Rates
3. Poor creation of Web 2.0s (hint, dont even bother)

The penalty risk is low. But the fact is your GSA links have little SEO value aside from lowering anchor ratios. And most will not index.

For diversity you want:

1. Most likely to index
2. Most likely to stick long term

You can attempt to force index. A year ago I could force index profile links with about 1,000 blog comments. Now? I need more. Google doesnt index crap as easily. Those blog comments, if indexed, are not likely to index.

With all this in mind, a few link types will index. But only one can guarantee indexing and longevity if not horrible quality.

Parasites.

Any link type people use as a parasite will index and is optimal. Youtube, weebly, wordpress, imugr are just some examples of what will always index.

Look up parasites and build those links as diversity.

The common link types which index and stick are:

1. Image links
2. Google Properties
3. Web 2.0s (as long as decent quality)
4. Profiles
5. Doc sharing (dont share junk)

I can keep going, but you get the gist.
GSA isnt bad. It is just that you can guarantee results with other links. Most people, if they get manually reviewed, will fail either way.

You goal is to build links to prevent a manual review and still rank. To do both you need links that stick. Stick rate has a lot to do with quality.

The cheats are images, videos, and very well spun content (which is manually edited to read well).